It's time for a bit of a lecture on the hierarchy of law in this country. I did run this past a renowned attorney yesterday (which was a Sunday). This is the way it works - I did have a drawing that explained it but it didn't come out in the post.
At the very top we have the constitution, not that the thieving zuma seems to think that it's on top. It is. Below that we have legislation – Acts and then we have sub-legislation which are like codes of good practice. The case law is on a par with the common law. It's law.
Everything else below that is merely an opinion and has no legal standing at all. Why do thing that the awesome awdoz and her band of merry social constructists get so pissed off when her opinions are ignored? It's because they are opinions, and carry no weight, hence my predictably rude piece on the awdoz a few years ago.
A certain issue has arisen with YES4Youth expressing an opinion. The story starts with a VA declining to give my client YES recognition after the process had been completed and absorption could be proven. My problem was that the client had already received the YES recognition in the prior certificate, this was in the early stages of the process. I argued that the YES code (and YES it is a code) focuses on absorption only, getting recognition at the beginning of the process is one thing, but that's a bonus. If you can prove absorption then you are entitled to the recognition.
Not so said the VA and referred me to the Y4Y FAQs somewhere in these FAQs it suggest that you can't count the YES people twice. I rejected this because it's an opinion. The VA then sent an email to Y4Y asking for clarity.
QUESTION Company A registered for YES program in 2020 financial year which was their first year. The YES program ran until midway through the second measurement period (2021). The measured entity got recognition for the uptake in the previous verification, now they are being verified for 2021. They wish to claim for absorption under YES even though they did not register the "new" YES for 2021 financial year. Are they allowed to get points for absorption from the 2020 uptake?
They received this response
No,
They have already received their level up.
You cannot get an enhancement again based on absorption only. To qualify the ME would need to do another YES Programme ie a YEAR 2 and have 8 months by verification.
Trust this provides clarity
I have two problems with this. The first is that Y4Y is not the dtic, the second is that this is very clearly not backed by any code. I think this is superfluous, the dtic cannot pronounce on this issue unless it's from a gazetted code. Naturally I followed up with a pone call. I don't want to incriminate anyone here and this is not an incrimination - it's my opinion about an opinion. I have a decent relationship with the people at Y4Y. They take my calls and are helpful. But I could not back this opinion up with a piece of legislation, sub-legislation or otherwise. The person suggested that I should read the codes (which I fucking do because I have no life and I write about them a lot) and then told me about a clarification note issued by the dti (as it was then known) from February 2020. I was aware of it but hadn't read it. I was obviously caught out. I looked for it on the DTIC's website. I couldn't find it, I looked in the publications, the speeches and it wasn't there. It does exist because it's on the y4Y's website. It is a lofty document that says you recognise the YES programme in the first year but you must demonstrate a commitment for absorption when you request this recognition. Once you've finished the process you need to go back to the verification agency showing that the people have been absorbed. The implication being that you can only have it recognised once. There's no signature on this document all we have is a dti letterhead and a issued by THE DEPARTMENT OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY - 24 FEBRUARY 2020.
I mulled over this for a week. And then It occurred to me that this is an opinion, it's not a code. Hence it carries no weight. We can't rely on this. I actually sent the dti (as they were then known) an email this morning for comment – I was quite surprised the email didn't bounce.
I then spoke to the same person at Y4Y this morning and told them what is in fact the reality. The email that this person sent to the verification agency is wrong and has to be preceded by IT IS OUR OPINION THAT……… Because they based it on an opinion. In fact I would suggest that their FAQs now need to be either redrafted or preceded by a disclaimer that this is their opinion.
You may remember when some moron at the DTI published a gazette claiming that you were not allowed to recognise broad based scheme for all the ownership points. This was a gazette – it's official government policy. No one expected this and from what I head the bolsh was taken by surprise as well. He was forced to withdraw it within a few weeks. You can understand how a document of this stature can cause immense damage to the economy. The dti document in question is noise, but offers some clarity should you want use it.
I'll let you know what the dtic says should they bother to respond to my email – it hasn't bounced yet.
Whilst the play is in play the ushers hand out thesetwo documents which will have to substitute for a programme. The ushers inform the audience that they have 60 days to comment on the two documents. hlaudi looks at the documents and sees there is writing on them, being neither literate nor compus he discards them.
The scene - a room in a prime office in Meintjies Street Pretoria. A nondescript bearded man in a drab SACP fleece reaches for the telephone. He dials his secretary.
Secretary - Minister Davies?
bolshie bob - who's Minister Davies? My name is bolshie ................ wait a second, my real name is Davies and I am the most destructive minister in Ramaphosa's cabinet. Yes, I am Minister Davies. (Pause). Please get me the BEE Commissioner.
Secretary - I'll see if the awesome awdoz is in her office.
A few seconds later the mighty commissioner comes on the line.
awesome awdoz - good morning bolsh..... I mean minister.
bolshie bob - commissioner I see that we really have set the cat amongst the pigeons with our last amendments. We cannot stop now - these idiots (and that fucking blogger) are reading this drivel we put out.
awesome awdoz - the trick minister, is to put in subtle little things that they will never pick up on. I have a few ideas.
bolshie bob - I'm all ears and within the next thirty years I'll have a great beard like Karl Marx
awesome awdoz - we are in the process of removing the modified flow through from black ownership and that illusive level 2 that those evil Afrikaner accountants from Edenvale have found as a loophole. Well we need to ensure that enterprise and supplier development beneficiaries must be 51% black owned using the modified flow through principle.
bolshie bob - on that point awdoz, sorry commissioner, these white companies that have to implement broad-based black economic empowerment are using the same entities as both enterprise and supplier development beneficiaries. We need to separate the two - one is on the suppliers' database and the other is not.
awesome awdoz - I'll make a note of that minister......... that is your title isn't it? Another thing that's been troubling the black owned companies who turnover more than R50m is this business about splitting procurement into EMEs and QSEs. I think we might have received a few complaints from white companies about this - but they are just being racist. Let's just combine the two into one section - reduce the points from seven down to five and give the extra two points to 51% black owned suppliers.
bolshie bob - up the black owned targets as well. And can we have some clarity on whether black women owned is more than 30% or equal to 30%. Let's just make it a straight 30% - it'll be our concession to these moaning liberals.
awesome awdoz - there needs to be a simplification of procurement. I'm not sure whether the president will be happy with us excluding black owned businesses turning over more than R50m from BEE. These poor struggling megaconglomerates are going to have to implement the scorecard, we have to do a few things to help them................
bolshie bob - (interrupting) get rid of the new supplier requirement and make the 51% black owned multiplier 2 from 1.2, and throw in an incentive for 51% black women owned companies as well. And for Trotsky's sake make sure that we emphasise the flow through principle.
awesome awdoz - what do we do with those 51% black owned megaconglomerates that might not be instantly promoted? They are pissed off that they get nothing out of our system? Could we not make them ED and SD beneficiaries? I know a bloke called Nemo who would like some free money to buy the new Rolls Royce SUV, he is absolutely convinced that this will make his business more sustainable.
bolshie bob - just make sure that these extremely profitable companies actually spend money on ED and SD. Put in that industry average thing that Stats SA is supposed to release every quarter...........
A heckler from the audience shouts "they never fucking do you useless commie wannabe, maybe you should actually do a little research before you shoot your mouth off."
bolshie b0b - do it. And this absorption thing under skills. They're taking the piss. Absorption means a long term contract which is the same thing as permanent employment. Just make the definition of long term contract, working until they retire. These companies are just putting people on learnerships forever - and you know why awdoz? (He doesn't wait to correct himself) It's because they can carry on claiming their salaries for skills development spend. They could be using this money for bursaries. This economy is buoyant and just making the masses poorer - there's plenty of money for this external spend. Stalin knows that we could do with another 100 thousand graduates with a BA in History and Law, easiest people in the world to employ.
awesome awdoz (giggling) - minister bob, you know I said we should put in something subtle that they wouldn't pick up on. Well I think we should leave the net value formula definition in the definitions as it is.
bolshie bob - yes. The one that refers to the net value formula being found in annexe 100 C?
awesome awdoz - Indeed, 100 C - the annexe that discusses rules for employee share ownership scheme.
bolshie bob - it'll be our little joke then.
The curtain closes with the players unaware that they in fact are the joke.
Here are my comments. It took about a day to draft them. The word document is here - please download these comments and make all the changes you want, but most importantly send the comments to Jacques Manus. The dti claims that they received 550 comments on the the revised codes and they probably ignored all of those that suggested their amendments were ridiculous. I would like to get a factor of 10 out to the dti. If they publish a document that we know ignores these comments then I will embark on a campaign to get this administrative active reviewed under PAJA.
Thank you for affording us the opportunity to comment on the proposed amendments to the current generic B-BBEE codes of good practice. The 2013 codes have been given four years to make their mark within the business community. In some cases they have been successful and in many cases not – in fact they have resulted in large numbers of companies falling off the BEE radar altogether due to their complexity and the priority elements. I welcome the Department of Trade and Industry’s willingness to amend the codes to reflect current economic and political challenges but will take the opportunity to provide the department with an overview of the challenges facing many companies in the implementation of the revised codes and their allied industry charters. It is hoped that the DTI will consider these comments as being constructive as they are intended as such.
This response has been divided into three sections.
Specific comments on statement 000
Specific comments on statement 300
General comments. These are based on the experience that many companies have gone through in attempting to comply with the revised codes
Statement 000
Use of the flow through principle for enhanced recognition
This is a fair amendment – no comments are submitted under this
Paragraph 6.3 under statement 000, specifically promotion of 51% black owned companies (using the flow through principle) to a level 2 and 100% black owned companies to a level 1
I speculate that black-owned companies alerted the department of trade and industry to the complexity and expense of compliance under the revised codes. This is perhaps the reason why the minister has decided to exempt those companies from adhering to each element. I would like to draw the following to the minister’s attention
As the number of 51% black owned companies increases – as they will, so will the requirement to comply under the codes disappear. This means that procurement (which is the cornerstone of empowerment in South Africa) becomes obsolete. If these large black companies are no longer concerned about empowerment performance then they will make use of service providers who themselves do not need to comply with any scorecard. These same majority or totally black owned companies will not make any contributions to supplier and enterprise development as well as socio-economic development. In short there will be a greater drive to get 51% black owned using schemes that the Commissioner will not be able to keep up with. The empowerment process eventually disappears, and the social and economic ills of the current South Africa remain
I refer you to paragraph 3.4 of ”South Africa’s Economic Transformation: A Strategy for Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment”. Specifically paragraphs 3.4.1 and 3.4.2
3.4 Key principles
3.4.1 Black Economic Empowerment is broad-based.
Societies that are characterised by racial or ethnically defined wealth disparities are not likely to be socially and politically stable. The process of BEE seeks to accelerate the deracialisation of the South African economy and fast track the re-entry of historically marginalised communities into the mainstream of the economy.
3.4.2 Black Economic Empowerment is an inclusive process.
A more equitable economy will benefit all South Africans, individuals and enterprises. The process of BEE is an inclusive one, and all enterprises operating within South Africa can, and indeed should, participate in this process. This strategy will be implemented throughout all sectors of the economy and is not limited only to those enterprises that derive income from government procurement or those where the sector is regulated by government.
The revised BEE codes (in paragraph 2.2 of statement 000) states ”In interpreting the provisions of the codes any reasonable interpretation consistent with the B-BBEE Act as amended and the B-BBEE Strategy must take precedence”
Promotion of large enterprises to levels that render them immune from any form of BEE performance under the remaining elements appears to deviate from these two principles contained in the strategy. Promotion on the basis of ownership is narrow-based and excluding those companies from scorecard criteria is not inclusive. I submit that this is an unreasonable deviation from paragraph 2.2 of the revised codes and paragraphs 3.2.1 and 2 of the strategy document.
I refer the minister to the conclusion of the president’s state of the nation (delivered on 16 February 2018). Please consult this website for a complete transcription of the speech.
Together we are going to make history. We have done it before and we will do it again – bonded by our common love for our country, resolute in our determination to overcome the challenges that lie ahead and convinced that by working together we will build the fair and just and decent society to which Nelson Mandela dedicated his life.
As I conclude, allow me to recall the words of the late great Bra Hugh Masekela. In his song, ‘Thuma Mina’, he anticipated a day of renewal, of new beginnings. He sang:
“I wanna be there when the people start to turn it around
When they triumph over poverty
I wanna be there when the people win the battle against AIDS
I wanna lend a hand
I wanna be there for the alcoholic
I wanna be there for the drug addict
I wanna be there for the victims of violence and abuse
I wanna lend a hand
Send me.”
We are at a moment in the history of our nation when the people, through their determination, have started to turn the country around. We can envisage the triumph over poverty, we can see the end of the battle against AIDS. Now is the time to lend a hand. Now is the time for each of us to say ‘send me’.
Now is the time for all of us to work together, in honour of Nelson Mandela, to build a new, better South Africa for all.
The minister, by excluding every company with the requisite levels of ownership from attempting to contribute to the welfare of all South Africans is not keeping with the message of hope that the president offered a beaten and battered South Africa.
Suggestion
Perhaps it might be an idea to promote a 51% black owned large entity to a level 8 and 100% owned to a level 7.
Start-up and join venture certificates
The clarity is welcomed.
Youth Employment Service
The inclusion of the YES is welcomed. It is more welcomed if all companies irrespective of ownership are incentivised to make use of the service. There is no doubt that the inclusion of YES in a BEE scorecard environment will result in a number of positive developments for the programme and for black economic empowerment. It is somewhat perplexing that the minister would see fit to set onerous targets for companies to meet in order to comply.
As the minister has learned if you set unreasonable targets then such noble schemes like the YES will fail at the outset. The minister’s withdrawal of full compliance with paragraph 11.2.1.2 is very welcomed. However I beg the minister to consider the feasibility of setting any type of restriction other than the YES targets themselves. Paragraph 11.2.1.2 refers. The minister has already decided that significantly black owned companies need not concern themselves with the YES promotion because they have already achieved an unfair advantage by way of their ownership. It stands that the companies that would benefit the most would be those that have between 0 and 50.9% black ownership. Setting priority element targets in order to gain the advantage is a dampener on the programme at the outset. I return to the likelihood that large black owned entities have already alerted the minister that compliance with the codes is both expensive and onerous. The targets set in 11.2.1.1 are counterproductive and will result in the YES suffering. That the minister has seen fit to set an even larger financial target for black further education bursaries makes the compliance a tall task and not likely under the current Zuma-torn economy. Also consider that the likelihood of meeting the priority level under procurement will become reduced as BEE scores start dropping significantly – demotion under this sub-element is an inevitability.
Suggestion
Drop all priority element targets for a company to gain the benefit of achieving and over achieving the targets under YES.
Amended Code 300
It is not known where the minister got the figure of 6% of payroll for the spend on skills development of black people, it probably comes from the original target of 3% of payroll – which is a more affordable target. The revised target is simply not achievable in terms of Rand spend. When considered in the context of what constitutes skills development of the code it appears that compliance can only be achieved by sending black staff on a number of courses which will take them out of the workplace. Academic qualifications are a small part of a person’s ability to fulfil a function in the workplace. In effect the code does not encourage work excellence which will weigh against any employee’s potential to advance in an organisation.
A positive consequence that has resulted from the revised code is that more black staff members are embarking on learnerships etc because their salaries can contribute a large amount to meeting this 6% target.
By setting a target of 2.5% of payroll on bursaries for 4 points the minister is surely expecting failure. He would do well to assess the cost to the average small, medium and large company and then consider whether companies are able to begin to afford a fraction of that amount. Under the amendment this target only applies to companies with 50.9% black ownership or less. The minister may know that these expenses are direct expenses and have the potential to threaten the profitability of almost every company wishing to comply with this target. The table below are figures derived from a number of annual reports and should be seen as an illustration of the cost.
The cost per point is unlikely to induce companies to support this programme. This could result in not meeting the 50% average across all three priority elements. This has a potential impact on meeting the targets under 11.1.2.1 of statement 000. Thereby threatening the success of the YES.
Company
Salary bill
Target spend (6%)
Target bursary spend (2.5%)
Standard Bank
14 796 000 000
887 760 000
369,900,000
MTN
6 709 000 000
402 540 000
167,725,000
NASPERS
8 738 000 000
524 280 000
218,450,000
AECI
2 976 000 000
178 560 000
74,400,000
FirstRand
10 620 000 000
637 200 000
265,500,000
Telkom
9 861 000 000
591 660 000
246,525,000
Nampak
3 535 000 000
212 100 000
88,375,000
JSE
405 000 000
24 300 000
10,125,000
Nedbank
9 349 000 000
560 940 000
233,725,000
Suggestion:
Drop the target to no more than 0.5% of the leviable amount. You would have a far greater uptake and it would generate much better goodwill with the government’s potential voters.
Paragraph 2.1.1.3.
Changing the word disabled employees to people could have a very positive impact on skills development of black disabled people. Other BEE codes have used the work people in place of employees. Skilled disabled people have a better chance of gaining meaningful employment.
Paragraph 3.4
The clarification is welcomed.
Paragraph 5.8
Please remove this paragraph. It negates all training that a black person may receive in a foreign branch or country. If the object is to skill up black people I cannot assume that only South Africa is able to skill up its own people in a bubble. People could go on training overseas and gain vital skills that might meet the minister’s industrialist programme as an example. If the intention of black economic empowerment is to provide skills to black people then surely best practices developed in a foreign country must contribute to the achievement of this goal.
General comments
Removal of priority elements
The BEE Commissioner has in all probability got her finger on the pulse on the uptake of these BEE codes. Many companies who have not opted to extend ownership to black people are unlikely to get to a better level than a 7 or 8. It does not serve the future of black empowerment to continuously punish these companies to the extent that they will either never improve their score or it will decrease. If empowerment as a programme is designed to improve the lives of black people across the board then any genuine programme must be considered and rewarded. The priority elements are a deterrent to the programme’s success. A cynic would observe that they have been put in place as a punishment for not meeting high levels of black ownership. It would be in the minister’s favour to conduct a poll on employees to establish whether they are happy to be employees and not specifically shareholders. The poll should also consider the value of the shares in the average company and whether these shares are actually worth the black person’s investment to own them.
Suggestion:
If empowerment is to succeed then the priority elements must be scrapped.
SANAS
There are, at last count, 70-odd verification agencies (please see SANAS’ webpage for the total number of active BEE verification agencies. It’s estimated that these 70 agencies are servicing in the region of twenty thousand companies (Editor note - there are 69 active agencies, here's the latest list). There is a ridiculous bottleneck. SANAS is solely to blame here as they have the set the requirements to become a verification agency at such a high level that there is no incentive to increase this number. In fact it appears that the number of verification agencies is steadily decreasing. The loss of IRBA has had a detrimental effect on the issuing of BEE certificates. Some other method or issuing authority needs to be created to meet this demand.
The Minister should become more available to those companies that are compelled to comply with the BEE codes – not only those who are exempt.
There is a perception that the minister has a closed-door policy when it comes to discussing challenges faced by businesses in the country. This policy become very entrenched under the last president resulting in an atmosphere of resigned hopelessness. The Ramaphosa administration has ushered in a certain positivity where it is felt that all people in the country can contribute to its future, not a select few. I would encourage the minister to open dialogue with the business community and start taking business into his confidence and hearing their concerns as this programme’s success relies on them. We have seen in Namibia that their NEEEF scorecard is being modified to meet business’s concerns. It is possible to achieve empowerment’s goals by considering all perspectives.
I thank you for the opportunity to submit these comments and hope they are received in a positive light, as this is the intention.
It's a strange business this BEE business, we all keep our little schlenters to ourselves and leave the rest of the world in the dark. I can assure you dear reader that there are a number of schlenters that I have devised and still use - in spite of SANAS' best intentions to close them off. However, like Makhosi Khoza (note the uppercase and you really should watch her interview on SABC this morning, it's at the end of this post) I cannot keep silent when it comes to qualifying small enterprises under the FSC - more accurately Qualifying Small Financial Institutions (QSFIs). A debate has been raging since bolshie bob published his revised codes as to what scorecard you use.
Perhaps we should see the Financial Sector Code in historical context before I launch forth. The current FSC (gazette number 35914) was gazetted in November 2012. This was during the period that bolshie (the terrible) put his revised codes out for comment. I believe that bolshie's intention was to distract the financial institutions from commenting on the revised codes (not that he would have read them anyway) by giving them their own code. That has to be the reason because why would you gazette a code that is so similar to the codes that you are going to replace? It's a distraction. They were obviously in a hurry because they forgot to gazette a QSE code. bob sent out a notice a year later that QSFI's should
in the interim utilize the Qualifying Small Enterprise scorecard of the Generic Codes of Good Practice for the purpose of measurement of their B-BBEE status.
This notice was a month after the gazetting of the revised codes, but we were still in the interim phase of their application. In addition bob had still not bothered to publish the revised QSE codes (those were published about 18 months later). This notice therefore has to apply to 29617.
The FSC is now almost five years old and for some reason there is still doubt as to what code you should use for QSFIs. This was in spite of the fact that
The FSC code refers to the old codes for clarity in certain places
The criteria for being a QSFI are based on turnover between R5m and R35m and designated investments less than R50m
When the QSFI code was ultimately gazetted then QSFI's could select 5 out of the 8 elements for compliance - a strong feature of the old QSE codes.
The EME threshold is below R5m
The score was measured on the old levels - with an 8 being between 30 and 40 points
There is just a complete disconnect between the FSC and the revised QSE codes. Firstly the turnover threshold is between R10m and R50m. Does a QSFI have a choice when they go over R35m to go QSE or FSC generic (I know what I would choose). What about EMEs (exempt micro enterprises) do they make use of the R10m threshold even though their code says that R5m is the threshold. There's a schlenter for you, a lot of FSC EMEs use that threshold, in fact even black-owned QSEs make use of the R50m break. If I am evaluating a client I tend to let those certificates go through - as I'm sure most people do.
Still the debate raged on. This morning my good friends up the road got hold of SANAS who told them to speak to the FSC Council who apparently told them that the revised codes were the ones to use. I got on the phone and spoke to my old friend Busi (who runs that joint). She said that a policy decision was made a while ago - you must use the old (29617) codes for the QSE scorecard. It's up on their website, more specifically here. The relevant paragraph is number 4
The FSC Council has noted that the gazetted Code did not include the details of the QSFI scorecard. As the DTI Codes are being revised, which will mean that the FSC will need to be re-aligned to the revised DTI Codes, it has been agreed that the QSFI scorecard will not be issued at this stage. All QSFI’s will be measured against the DTI QSE Codes (Code 800 – Code 807) until such time as the FSC has been revised.
For those who have forgotten - code 800 was the QSE code under the old codes.
That's put that to bed then, let's see how long it take awdoz to issue an explanatory note requiring all QSFIs to use the revised QSE code because her opinion is neither legal nor binding.
A little bit on this interview below. This is Makhosi telling the SABC viewing public how corrupt zuma and the anc are. This is a mere six months after hlaudi was booted out. That's progress I tell you
It seems as though it'll be more of the same as last year, only worse when you throw trump into the equation. What a perfect pair zuma and trump (henceforth lower case- altwee) are, if you combine them you have a perfect despot. zuma's agenda for this year is divert the public's attention away from the complete idiot he is (I really wanted to write fuckhead - but that's a bit too real) to the new White Monopoly Capital moniker. A very predictable move from a man who, like mugabe back in the day finds himself in the far corner of the Saxonwold shebeen holding up the walls.
There are threats that zoomer is going to re-shuffle his cabinet and get rid of Pravin. I can't see this happening for a variety of reasons.
Firstly, when zoomer fired Nene a delegation of very powerful people arrived at his kaya and told him to remove des (all three foot of him, by all accounts a few inches taller than hlaudi) and restore Pravin to the job. A move that put zuma firmly on the backfoot. It strengthened civil society's resolve to protest against the doos. The result was brave people like Sipho Pityana starting the Save SA movement. zuma's buffoonery and the ANC's blind loyalty to him resulted in the very poor ANC performance in the August 2016 elections. Since then the voices calling for his removal are louder than ever. We have seen members of his cabinet call for his removal (they call it stepping down which is what honourable people would do - zoomer is a doos with a standard three, he is not honourable). 100 CEO's have recently pledged support for Pravin, a distinctly anti-zoomer move. If zuma fires Pravin, the delegation that marches to his kaya door will be much more powerful - they will force him to retract the dismissal and make him even weaker. It would also split the ANC into a number of pieces. Right now the ANC needs to keep its shit together, a split ANC could result in the 52% splitting up and the DA becoming the dominant party.
Secondly, Brian Moleefy-suburb-of-Saxonwold-shebeen-frequenter has no credibility in the eyes of business and the world. He is not a viable option for finance minister. His love of the guptas and the stories now coming out about his questionable procurement practices in a variety of state entities have destroyed his reputation. A Pravin master stroke.
Thirdly. It's only the zoomer faithful who believe him now. He has no credibility anywhere - hell he couldn't risk being sent to Davos. He will manipulate underneath - videre (I should) Koko's love of nuclear. Not forgetting the yooofleeg and the wimminsleeg.
I ambitiously hope that zuma will be removed by the end of the year. With people like Pityana leading the charge the possibility remains, but with short fingered morons like trump in the US I can't be sure.
And this year
The revised codes will start infiltrating the economy. I was right all along, they are shocking, unrealistic and unviable. But we South Africans are a resilient bunch. I'll figure them out. I've already got the measure of skills development, procurement is next on my list. What I do hope to see is that corporate South Africa comes to realise that the ridiculous pressure they are putting on smaller businesses to retain levels is unreasonable. Here's an analogy.
We accept that Wade van Niekerk's world record for the 400m is 43.03. SASOL, amongst many others, is insisting that all their suppliers (athletes in this context) run below 50 seconds. The only problem is that the distance is now 500m.
Scores have to be allowed to settle. I am unrealistically hoping that Rob drops his priority element ballsup because it works so negatively against those trying to make an effort.
Expect much fear and many courses. Everyone will tell you how you have to spend muchos cashos to get the points. Wait for my course - you'll find the points within your company and still transform it.
The time for companies doing all the ED/SD work for their beneficiaries has to come to an end. Successful black speaking companies will target their benefactors and will add proper value to their benefactors. They will succeed in the long term. Part of of their programme will be to provide those companies with the necessary documentation that is required by the overzealous SANAS verification agencies.
On the subject of verification. The shit has hit the fan. Not that we've felt it yet. IRBA certificates can no longer be issued. The number of SANAS agencies is not growing fast enough. Bottlenecks are imminent. And the dti, hands numb under the bum
Expect more and more arbitrariness from the parastatals. I don't know if there is a single one with competent management. We know that Eskom and SAA are scraping the barrel. In the latter's case, the barrel was stolen years ago. Anticipate that your carefully constructed 51% black owned company will be rejected because they now only want 56.34590125% black owned businesses. It's coming I tell you
The future of empowerment legislation is..............?
Secure. The ANC needs BEE and it must fail. It cannot succeed under an ANC government because then they would have no one to blame for their ineptitude. Why do we have revised codes, simple, companies were making great headway. Oh no, they were successful at this transformation lark, we must now show that they are racist by making compliance harder. How can you blame white monopoly capital for your failures when it's actually transforming. Here we have a government that loves your tax money but feels the need to remind you how racist you are whilst they plunder the coffers that you filled.
And if the DA takes over. They cannot allow this policy to lapse. If they do they will lose the black middle class. It will continue in some guise but will be designed for success.
And if the EFF takes over. We're all EFF-ed.
Happy new year. Good luck. Send me mails, hire me to solve your problems, book me for talks, just don't invite me to your Christmas parties.
And I leave you with a delightful song about the summer to keep your spirits up
Minister Rob Davies tells Engineering News that the DTI is elevating the concept of a balanced scorecard from the Codes of Good Conduct to the current Act.
The DTI states that enterprise development (ED) is one of the significant elements that can contribute towards the broader aims of government to support the growth of small enterprises and job creation. In the light of a new drive towards creating effective black-owned and black-female-owned and -controlled enterprises, the department has elevated ED to also focus on key sectors of the economy.
“With regard to the points system, we have ensured that entities cannot score a certain level without doing some work on ED. Preferential procurement has also been elevated in terms of the points system, with [greater] emphasis being placed on black-owned and female-owned enterprises,” he says.
The Employee Share Option Plan (Esop) will also become part of the scorecard. “When correctly applied, Esops have the potential to drive wealth and capacitate employees, as seen with iron-ore giant Kumba’s model,” he explains
Rob hints at what is to come and it's scary, but the real fright will come when the codes that were presented to a bunch of DTI patsies last year (and some not-so patsy people) are published. This presentation was a strange thing because it was very closed - I'm aware of two verification agencies that asked to attend and were informed that they weren't welcome. It does appear that the people who were welcome were those who were going to shower both Vuyo Jack and Polo Radebe with praise for their most amazing work.
Judging from the above quote from Rob we know that business people now have to get actively involved in the ED project otherwise no points. That's ED (and the horse's mouth) but wait 'til you hear the second hand information. Contributions now must be recoverable and non-recoverable.
It would appear that the number of points for skills development is increasing but so is the target. Some say that it is going up to 6% of payroll. Then you have to report on the training in terms of the economically active population and points are awarded in that fashion. I would imagine that employment equity is going to be similar.
They are going to do something with QSEs and insist that they adhere to all 7 elements.
However this is second hand information - but it wouldn't surprise me if this is the case. I think Rob is waiting for the BEE Bill to go a little further down the line and then he's going to throw this at us.
We shiver in antici....................................................................................pation
Andile Tlhoaele had better hope that he is quoted inaccurately in this New Age report.
White women would be the biggest losers once the broad-based black economic empowerment amendment bill was enacted as expected early next year, BEE specialist Andile Tlhoaele said on Monday. The proposed changes meant they would no longer be entitled to benefit from empowerment programmes as has been the case till now. This represents a victory for the black business lobby, which has been fighting for their exclusion.
This is where my real confusion sets in. Since when were white women EVER beneficiaries of BEE legislation? The short answer is NEVER. I repeat for your benefit Andile NEVER!!!!!!!!!! The current draft of the Act just incorporates the codes' definition. The original act defines "black people" is a generic term which means Africans, Coloureds and Indians; I don't see any white women here.
White women would no longer be regarded as legitimate beneficiaries of black economic empowerment once imminent new laws come into effect, a member of a subcommittee of the presidential BEE advisory committee, Andile Tlhoaele, said in an interview.
And this is where Andile really does show his hand.
He must have been mistaken with the 2000 regulations of the PPPFA that did include white women and white disabled people. The new PPPFA regulations (which HAVE come into effect) have eliminated everything white from this definition.
He shows that you don't need to know anything about BEE to sit on a "subcommittee of the presidential BEE advisory committee"; and even if you do sit on it you will learn nothing about a subject that you profess to be a specialist in. I can't say that the rest of the committee are much better.
And then this is the corker.
The Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Amendment Bill eliminates all white people including the disabled. “The definition of black people is now clear and aligned with the Constitution,” Tlhoaele said.
Where in the constitution are black people defined Andile? Do you and the rest of your committee and that fantastic racist, jungle jim, think that the South African constitution actually promotes one race or class of people over another? If so then perhaps you should take the constitution with you on holiday and read it. I'll make it easy for you - you can download it here. You can post your findings in the comments' section on this blog (or any other blog for that matter).
This notice was issued by Treasury this afternoon regarding the applicability of the PPPFA - it was issued in June but made the front page of www.gov.za today. Reinforces my earlier post about Eskom and PPPFA.
NOTICE IN TERMS OF SECTION 1 (iii)(f) OF THE PREFERENTIAL PROCUMENT POLICY FRAMEWORK ACT, 2000 (ACT NO. 5 OF 2000)
I, Pravin J. Gordhan, Minister of Finance, acting in terms of section 1 (iii)(f) of the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, 2000 (Act No. 5 of 2000), hereby give notice that the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, 2000 (Act No. 5 of 2000) and its Regulations shall apply to all public entities listed in Schedules 2 and 3 of the Public Finance Management Act, 1999 (Act No. 1 of 1999) with effect from 07 December 2011 . Signed at Pretoria on this 6th day of June 2011 .
This notice bolsters the Joint statement by the Ministers of Economic Development, Finance and Trade and Industry on designated sectors for local procurement (which I think is great - very much in favour of this.
By the way a little birdy is keeping a running commentary on the developments at this workshop. It's not looking good - this is what I know so far (tweets have been edited)
We are going to be measuring degrees of blackness
In summary take everything jungle jim has said and turn it into your worst nightmare
Oy vey - can't say I didn't expect as much. There'll be many submissions from me to the DTI.
The attached document is a CLOSED invitation that a reader has been invited to on the 7th of December (same day the PPPFA goes live). I'd love to attend but alas I am busy (although this is irrelevant as I wasn't invited). Why not try your luck and see if you can blag your way in, tell them I sent you. And if you do get in please don't be shy in sending the amended codes and act my way.
The Department of Trade & Industry- BEE Unit
The dti cordially invites you to a closed Information Session on the proposed amendments to the BEE Act and Codes of Good Practice for the B-BBEE
Details of the Workshop
Date: 07 December 2011 Time: 08h00 for 08h30
Venue: Gallagher Convention Centre RSVP: Salamina Madisha / Lumka Kemele