Paul Janisch

Apparently the new FSC has been gazetted

And there I was thinking that this awesome government would have kept it under wraps so as not to tip the economy over.  As abagig says - "transformaysheein uber alles".

This is going to be a nasty document - specifically under skills.  I have a blog post that I want to write about possible anti-competitive behaviour from the larger listed entities (banks, insurance companies etc).  My story won't be empirical but I find it interesting that you can put these targets under skills development. This is not about skills spend on external people, this is about internal skills development at different levels of management.  The only reason why those large companies would have agreed to this is because they can achieve the targets.  If anyone can send me an EEA4 from one of those organisations I can write a story to that effect.  I can assure you the institution in question won't be mentioned. 

Description			Points	Target
2.1	Senior management		2
	2.1.1	Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for black senior and executive managers as a percentage of the leviable amount applicable to this level	1	2.00%
	2.1.2	Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for black women senior and executive managers as a percentage of the leviable amount applicable to this level	0.5	1.00%
	2.1.3	Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for African senior and executive managers as a percentage of the leviable amount applicable to this level	0.5	EAP%
2.2	Middle management		2
	2.2.1	Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for black middle managers as a percentage of the leviable amount applicable to this level	1	3.00%
	2.2.2	Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for black women middle managers as a percentage of the leviable amount applicable to this level	0.5	1.50%
	2.2.3	Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for African middle managers as a percentage of the leviable amount applicable to this level	0.5	EAP%
2.3	Junior management		3
	2.3.1	Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for black junior managers as a percentage of leviable amount applicable to this level	1	5.00%
	2.3.2	Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for black women junior managers as a percentage of the leviable amount applicable to this level	1	2.50%
	2.3.3	Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for African junior managers as a percentage of the leviable amount applicable to this level	1	EAP%
2.4	Non-management staff		4
	2.4.1	Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for black non-management staff as a percentage of the leviable amount applicable to this level	2	8.00%
	2.4.2	Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for black women non-management staff as a percentage of the leviable amount applicable to this level	1	4.00%
	2.4.3	Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for African non-management staff as a percentage of the leviable amount applicable to this level	1	EAP%
2.5		Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for black unemployed people as a percentage of the leviable amount	4	1.5%
2.6		Skills development expenditure on learning programmes specified in the learning programme matrix for black people with disabilities as a percentage of the leviable amount	1	0.30%
2.7		Number of black people, (employed or unemployed) participating in learnerships, apprenticeships, internships or Category B, C or D programmes as a percentage of total employees	4	5.00%
		Total	20
2.8		Bonus Points: Number of previously unemployed black people Absorbed by the measured entity/industry at the end of the learnerships, apprenticeships, internships, or Category B, C or D programmes.	3	100%

 

 

 

 

 

Assuming it's permissable for people to examine a listed entity's EEA2 and EEA4

If anyone is able to send me the EEA4 (most recent if possible) for any large listed company operating in the financial sector.  A large bank or insurance company would be acceptable.  I need this for a blog post on the FSC that apparently is about to be gazetted.  What better time to put out a transformation charter after your economy (run into the ground by abagig and cronies) has been downgraded by S&P.  You can just imagine that smug grin thinking that he's now really doing the country a favour.  Do us a bigger favour by fucking off.

Now that we don't have an economy - let's transform it.  If someone has it please send it to me - if it is in fact company confidential then perhaps not.  I can assure the sender that the blog post will not mention the company whose EEA4 I used nor will it mention who sent it me - whether it's legal or not.

 

A letter sent to a client (and there are many in their position)

This analysis is not spot on but it’s not far off.  The score comes out at 24 points – but it’s assumed that the enterprise/supplier development/socio-economic development points have been bought to get to this score.   This is non-compliant.  You need 40 points to get onto the scorecard and if you meet the subminima of the three priority elements you drop a maximum of one level.  Without ownership you will always drop a level.  This means that we need to get 55 points to get you up to a level 8.

A few things.

1. I used the procurement info we used last year.  It's obvious that your client is happy with the imported goods that you supply. However because you use an importing agent and this makes up 80% of your total expenditure your procurement score is going to suffer. 
2. The skills development calculations are there to show you how ridiculous the targets are.  Your target (based on Nov to Oct 2017’s figures) for skills development spend is over R500k.  This doesn’t need to be spent on your staff – you can spend the money to train other black people but it must be based on the economically active population (EAP) targets.  There is a way to get around this using the employee tax incentive (ETI).  In fact if you make use of the ETI and donate a smallish amount (way less than R500k) to a disabled school – then you’ll get the full number of points
3. A similar plan can be made for enterprise and supplier development.

However – having noted all that. I’m not sure that you will get to 55 points if your procurement isn’t in order so you’ll probably end up being non-compliant anyway.  The question is “Is it worth it to go through this exercise and the expense when the result is negative anyway?”

I’ve added a letter that should buy you some time.  I’ll write a new one every four months.

I’m sorry that this system is not designed to help you at all.  I am hoping that should Cyril come in he will start relaxing rules to make compliance a little more achievable. He’d go a long way in removing the priority elements.

Paul

There was a hack

Cosmetics is not a subject that I know much about. The last post, I mean hack, has been deleted.

As long as it's white bread or sugar - James at six

"I can't have this because it's sugarish." Is not a statement, it's a question. Strangely, such questions tend to be only asked when it comes to sugar.  Never does he ask such a question when it comes to vegetables, mince, breakfast or beer.  And yet he defies the odds of such a sugar addiction with a body that is devoid of any fat.  I think he's uncomfortably skinny.

This is our little boy who is coming to the end of his nursery school career.  And what a career it's been.  We decided to keep James at the nursery school for another year because he was thriving there. He's one of the big boys in the school, next year he has to start from scratch at big school.  

What about this year then.  There've been a number of significant events in his life. His mouth is almost devoid of teeth (something that made him very cool amongst his peers at school), he can ride a bicycles confidently.   One specific bike incident leaps to the fore.  The two of us were riding around the Zoo Lake, with James weaving between trees.  Unfortunately he hit my back tyre and earned himself a fairly decent roastie.  It was the end of the earth.  The only solution was bandages and plasters.  He still had to ride back to the car - but it was a very tearful event. He has got back on his bike and we've been on a ride or two on the spruit as a family.  He does not fully understand cycling protocol, like you don't stop suddenly on a single path with a number of irate cyclists behind you, he is however swiftly reminded by the myriad people behind him.

Like his older brother, James is a very enthusiastic little boy.  Once he gets his mind set on something, there's no way out.  And there's also no way he's going to allow you to not share in his knowledge. Questions like "Dad, who is your favourite Lego Ninjago character?" are common.  For those in the know, and James is very much IN THE KNOW, there are multiple answers that you are expected to know and much disdain is poured upon you if you don't answer correctly.  My standard response is "Master Wu".  This response has now brought in a new level of interrogation and knowledge sharing.  As it turns out, Master Wu appears in a number of Lego Ninjago sets and we are subject to grilling on these sets.  It's amazing how children learn at such an early age how to sell things.  Rule 4 of crass sales is get your prospect to agree with you.  James doesn't give in until you agree with him.  Fortunately the "Master Wu" response encompasses all questions that might be asked.

So large is Lego in his life that when his mother went on a business trip to the States the only question he was able to ask her when she spoke to him was about the Lego she was going to bring him back (oh yes, let's not forget the guitar I got - I think this brings the tally up to about 32).  He was unrelenting. "Can you show me the Lego, Mom.", "How many pieces has it got, Mom".  A few suggestions were made by me to inquire as to how his mother's trip was going, but he was unable to exercise restraint for very long.  He did however have to wait a few months to get the rattle copter, which should have been opened by the time you read this post.

James is an independent kid, a little shy, but he gets stuck in with life and his friends. He adores his friends.  We all went to his new school induction day and the headmaster called for all the new kids to go to the classrooms, we weren't sure that he'd do it.  But he did and with no prompting or prodding.  Then it was a thing to extract him from the school.  I think he's ready for next year.  I think he's a very liked kid and he'll revel in the challenge of big school.  He's surprised us with his interest in cricket - and he's not a bad batsman for someone who has just picked it up and his bowling arm is not too bad either. 

Here we are JimJam (as all his school mates and teachers address him), or JambleFlop or JimmieJam or any address that comes to mind at the moment.  You're over half way in your first decade and you have been an absolute joy.  It's hard having a much older brother because you get dragged around to watch his cultural and sporting activities but your time will come and your parents will be there cheering you on the side of the field or stage.  You are perfect younger son, a wonderful younger brother and companion to your older brother and growing up at a rate that your clothes and shoes aren't able to match.  You are a passionate child, a trait that will stand you in good stead in the next chapter of your life.  We love you JimJam and we wait impatiently for you to start your new life at big school.

If you look at the picture you'll see Thuli, NemoShacko and James doing homework.  James is wearing glasses (Spiderman glasses I stress) because he went to visuable therapy and they have taught him to wear glasses.  It's a stunning pic of a stunning child and the people who have been absolutely critical in his upbringing (and NemoShacko).

I would hate to forget some of the words he uses.  He still meeds to do things. He was explaining to me why petrol has such a name, it’s the petch that makes the wheels roll.  He also spends a lot of his allotted screen time on NewTube - watching Lego Ninjago clips.

And there's always music. James Phillips is James’ dedicated musician.  If you haven’t seen the Radio Rats documentary “Jiving and Dying” then you are absolutely missing out. I seem to be alone in my passion for them here at home, although my kids know “ZX Dan” very well.  Phillips covered “Welcome to my car” on his Bernoldus Niemand album. The Rats’ version is somewhat bluesy,  Phillips turned it into a lounge song. He jazzed it up and made it a lot more sordid, the bawdiness  that Jonathan Handley and Dave Davies evoked is not present in James’ version. I prefer this version to the Rats original.

02 - Bernoldus Niemand - Welcome To My Car

I have, until recently, been a bassist in the Badly Packed Parachute. My good friend Jeff has decided to lend his more considerable bass talents to this band and I am now an understudy guitarist. We were playing a band song called Johnny Cool (named after a James Phillips song) and Jeff started playing a Paul McCartney-approved bass line,  the song went into another dimension.  This is one of my favourite (James Paul I stress) McCartney  basslines. You’d better download it quickly before it gets pulled.

02 - The Beatles - Something

Happy birthday my brilliant JimJam. Next year is going to be fantastic and we can’t wait to see you excel.

 

 

 

Some statistical information about said blog - being this one

Here are today's stats showing the countries that have been hitting this blog over the last 24 hours.  

Country	Sessions
South Africa	234
United States	21
United Kingdom	5
Australia	4
Austria	2
United Arab Emirates	1
Barbados	1
Bahrain	1
Botswana	1
Belarus	1
	281

These stats come from Google Analytics which is still quite new to me, I only loaded it up a few months ago.  The data are not that surprising in terms of who looks at this blog.  The blog is dedicated to South Africa and to a certain extent other southern African countries - Namibia, Botswana and Zambia also have a look at it.  There is the occasional hit from Zimbabwe but that's probably because I had posted some stuff on the soon-to-fall bobby dicktator,  in the past. The United States is the second biggest consumer of this witty blog and is consistently so.  I would expect that the hits from Australia are either from my friend Gerhardus Burger who recently emigrated there and friends and family of David Kalmin (who I seriously miss - very sad loss).

But there has been a recent interest from Dubai, Doha, Manama and Riyadh - all from Saudi Arabia.  Isn't that where the guptas live now?  We know they are in Dubai.  Also there was one hit from New Delhi which is a mere 170km away from Saharanpur - the area where those roaches come from.  And this could be because of those two gupta posts.

I am now expecting to be trolled on twitter, discredited and labelled the spokesman for white monopoly capital.  Something I will relish.

I have no idea why Belarus would be interested in me.

More on gupta grabbing and their contribution to white monopoly capital

The last post on this was written in a relative hurry, Alec Hogg had asked for other opinions on the guptas and so I wrote the opinion and sent it to him, which he published.  I did spend a bit of time this weekend reading through some of the publicly available gupta emails.  A lot of it is run of the mill stuff, I think they were put up there to show that these emails are real.  They are all in .pdf format, you therefore can't check the headers etc.  

Before I get into one of the emails I happened across this paragraph on the sahara website

Sahara's on going sponsorship & continuous social development has reinforced Sahara's commitment to developing sport and youth in the country both at provincial and national level. With continuous support and endorsing development programs in education, contributing to the government's skills development programs, and active involvement in foundations that support technology participation in the education sector, the company aims to give a new innovative world back to the community that supports it.
Sahara Computers (Pty) Ltd is a "Black Empowered" organisation as per the South African Agriculture Charter

This paragraph is most likely an absolute lie, they refer to three elements that they are generously contributing to but yet their BEE scorecard shows a minimal effort in those elements.  I can't find earlier BEE certificates but I get from the emails from one Sekete Malebana-Metsing to the verification agency that in February 2016 they had nothing to offer on ED and SED.  The subsequent certificate shows zero for both SED and skills and 0.52 for ED/Supplier Development.  And yet they tell us on their corporate website that they are so generous.  If they were so generous then their scorecard would reflect it, why would you do all this stuff and not use it?

It is obvious that this paragraph is not current, they refer to a level six under the Agriculture Charter,  They still posted their revised BEE certificate up there without updating the website.

And yet the white monopoly capital allegations are still being peddled and gupta pillaging is justified.  One email  shows an opinion piece that could have been written by Haranath Ghosh, an ann7 patsy being sent to a number of gupta editors (moegsien williams being one of the recipients).  santosh choubey then forwards this to the [email protected] email address.  I assume this email address is group address and one of the recipients is bell pottinger.

Ghosh writes

Hi Sir
Please see attached opinion piece. kindly let me know if this can go in the paper after subbing.
This can go under Nompumelelo's name if you agree.
regards,
H Ghosh

I can't figure out who Nompu is, I suspect she was either a new age journalist or opinion contributor.  But it does show that the new age and other gupta media companies were very happy to write inflammatory opinion pieces and credit to a black woman.  This is almost perfect fake news.  

The top five richest men in South Africa are breeds of “White privilege.” Johann Peter Rupert,Nicky Oppenheimer,Christoffel F. Hendrik Wiese,Koos Bekker and Stephen Saad.This in fact proves that the white elite still own South Africa even if it is just 9% of them. Economic apartheid and its associated policies still remain.  Not only that but they create a strict racial hierarchy.

White people in South Africa have continued to reap the benefits of unearned privileges from the system that was. The mistake made was assuming that black entrepreneurship will soar amid white privilege again, wrong.This resonates with the fact that blacks never had the privilege to get educated, pursue self employment and were racially restricted, creating space for underdevelopment. Which brings me to my next point...

Black entrepreneurship will not develop because of the lack of skills that could not be embraced when  the white privileged ruled. Even so, when a black person tries to build their own economic success, and if it is in the same sphere as that of white dominated; it is bound to be sabotaged. According to them you should remain swimming with the small fish, while the whites remain in full reign. Apartheid is to blame, white privilege is to blame for black entrepreneurship not developing in South Africa.

It's not clear if this was published - although the Maverick would have certainly published it as an opinion piece.  Whether it was published or not, it pushes the white monopoly capital story hard.  I find it brilliantly ironic that the owners of this media are bolstering the most corrupt politicians in the country by stealing from the same black people that this article refers to.  They themselves appeared to make no attempt do the opposite of what this story posits.

gupta's giving exposed - such generosity

You might have heard that the gupta-leak database is being made available to any investigative journalist who may have an interest in our dear country trashers.  Alec Hogg sent out a notice last night telling us that 

But even worse came later for the plundering friends of president Jacob Zuma. At the request of the SA Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises, a chunk of documents from the incriminating #GuptaLeaks have been made publicly available online.

Published by the Platform for the Protection of Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF), a selection from hundreds of thousands of emails, documents and invoices is there for everyone to see, neatly divided into easily searchable sections. So if you ever fancied yourself as an investigative journo here’s your chance to “join the dots.”

PPLAAF says the site will be accessible for the next 10 days, so no time to tarry. The link to this veritable treasure chest is here.  Happy hunting.

Amongst the numerous emails are a number of BEE mails. I haven't really looked through them in much detail but the ones I did look at were about their 2016 BEE scorecard and information that had been requested by the verification agency.  This prompted me to have a look at the BEE scorecards I could find that belong to our atpug adversaries.  I found two - TNA (the new age) and Sahara Computers - both done by a reputable verification agency who have told me they've since cut ties with them.  I'm not going to question these scorecards because I know the guys who did them and I have huge amount of respect for them.  But take a look at them.

Sahara Computers (new codes)
Element	Weighting	Score
Ownership	25	19.29
Management Control	23	5.4
Skills Development	25	0
Enterprise and Supplier Development	55	0.52
Socio-Economic Development	12	0
Overall Score  (non-compliant)	140	25.21
The New Age (old codes)
Element	Weighting	Score
Ownership	23	15.24
Management Control	11	10
Employment Equity	13	7.12
Skills Development	17	13.6
Preferential Procurement	26	9.45
Enterprise Development	11	0.18
Socio-Economic Development	12	0
Overall Score  (level 5 expired)	113	55.59

I hope that the good reader sees what I see.  No score for socio-economic development (SED) and nothing for enterprise (etc) development (ED).  For the uninitiated SED is charitable donations and ED is the development of black businesses.  They obviously don't feel as though they need to contribute to these two elements because it detracts from their core business of taking stuff.   We shouldn't be surprised at all.  But next time their supporters like andile half-pint (who is obviously terrified of the Israelis and he should be) tells you how great they are just consider that in both cases their businesses turned over the QSE threshold (over R50m under the revised codes) and they are remarkably ungenerous.

But there is a bigger story here, one about how the government will turn a blind eye to "empowerment" to further their own corrupt needs.  The guptas are obviously so confident in their government connections that they do not need to even make a vague attempt to comply with government's empowerment requirements.  Take a look at their potential competitors.

Sahara probably competes with companies like IBM (level 2 revised codes), Dell (level 3 revised codes), HP (level 2 revised codes) and others.

the new age, apparently derives its advertising revenue from government sponsorship.  Besides the fact they we have no idea what their readership is they would compete on a BEE level with Times Media (level 3 revised codes),  Media24 ( (level 3 revised codes), CTP (level 4 revised codes) - and iqbal but he's up there with the discredited atpugs, I'm not going to bother with his company.

This is pretty much in the same league as the Waterkloof landing - it's extreme arrogance and another atpug finger.

 

 

 

Related articles

FBI opens investigation into South Africa's Guptas: FT

HSBC accused of 'possible criminal complicity' in South Africa

Has Treasury been captured by the black business lobby?

Solidarity and the Constitution - BEE's big test starts today

There is a court case being heard by the Constitutional Court today.  

The Constitutional Court is on Thursday expected to hear a case brought by trade union Solidarity and the South African Restructuring and Insolvency Practitioners' Association (Saripa) challenging the constitutionality of BEE and affirmative action. The court case relates to the abolition of the Department of Justice's appointment policy insofar as liquidators are concerned, according to a statement issued by both Solidarity and Saripa

I have mixed views on this.  If the ConCourt finds that BEE is not constitutional then I am without a job.  But I recognise that this kind of challenge is very overdue.  I have written about BEE and the constitution before and I am quite sure that there are strong arguments that the policy itself is not constitutional. It seems very obvious to me that the drafters knew that as well - that's why they state in the codes that these codes are mandatory for all organs of state and public entities (paragraph 3 of  statement 000).  It then spreads its reach saying that if you want to produce a scorecard because you do business with those entities or entities that do business with those state entities then this is the way to go.

In effect this clause makes the process voluntary.  However I think the problem isn't so much that the policy exists - the problem lies in the unreasonability of the codes and the way they are being foisted upon us.  SOE's are extraordinarily arbitrary when it comes to what they want.  We know that there has been major looting in the name of BEE.  dud miyeni (perhaps deadduck miyeni would be a better name) was more than happy to steal from SAA in the name of transformation, Eskom did the same with trillian and the atpugs.

I don't think that the country would survive without the policy but the policy will not survive with these codes and the idiots at the dti who write them.