There is a genuine concern that the commissioner's issue with trusts will end up at SANAS. Not that that in itself should be a problem. SANAS is required to be cognisant of opinions but not waver from the prescripts of the BEE codes. I cannot see SANAS sending out a notice saying that broad-based trusts will no longer be awarded ownership points. What I can see though is that Catastrophes and his ilk will provide non-conformances to verification agencies that have awarded ownership points for broad-based trusts. As I wrote in a previous post
Catastrophes is reportedly a major problem. He will also use BEE Commissioner opinions as binding – even though they are not supported by any piece of legislation. On top of this he uses a type of retrospective legislating where he will say to a verification agency that they awarded points to a client that may have done something 12 months prior to the opinions that he regards as binding. The Commissioner may write something in June and the client’s verification period ends three months before that, which means that they have done everything by the book that existed at the time. There is no way that they would have known at that time that this opinion was coming. Catastrophes will say that points should not be awarded. It comes down to policy uncertainty. No one knows whether their BEE processes will work or not – even though the codes may permit something.
This puts verification agencies in a very difficult position. If they don't award the points there will be a major kickback from their larger clients, the smaller companies will probably just have to suck it up. If they do award the points they may find that they are temporarily suspended by SANAS. If we are lucky under these circumstances then certificates will have to be withdrawn. I expect that if this happens there will either be some political lobbying and SANAS and Catastrophes will be brought into line.
I have received one comment about SANAS' arbitrariness. Please send me more stories. I assure you that your comment will remain anonymous, I'll go so far as to send the post back to you before I post it to make sure that you are comfortable that SANAS will never know it has anything to do with you or any of your clients.
Don't forget to vote. And let's keep malema at the bar at the Inanda Club where he can do the least amount of damage to the country.
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