Paul Janisch

Let's say you offer high quality BEE consulting but have little idea of what you are talking about

There is a ridiculously famous and competent consultant out there. We mere mortals aspire to be as good as he and his high quality company are.  Here is a man (not a tall man - but gargantuan in competence) who understands fronting very well.  He is the one who told the world that FRONTING IS FRAUD.  And then most knowledgeably told a certain verification agency that fraud can be committed unknowingly (pity that he knew not, or possibly knows not, that fraud is an intention crime).  His bugbear is using the wrong BEE code. This, dear reader, is the worst type of fronting.  He's even gone to court after alleging that someone fronted somewhere - pity it didn't make it beyond the court steps.  

Let us return to the high quality consultation.  A company that is in recruitment has been informed by the high quality consultants that because they only recruit into the IT industry they are subject to the ICT code.  My response to this was (my specific comments are underlined)

The code says the following right at the beginning (paragraph 3 STATEMENT AICT000)

3. Application of the Amended B-BBEE ICT Sector Code
3.1 The following entities are measurable under the Amended B-BBEE ICT Sector Code:
3.1.1 All persons, organisations and entities operating in the ICT Sector in South Africa;

That statement would APPEAR to include a recruitment agency operating in the ICT sector. However this must be read in conjunction with Schedule 1 (last page in the code) . This is what it says

The “Information & Communication Technology Sector” shall without in any way limiting the ordinary meaning of the terms, mean the sector in which employers and employees are associated with carrying on any one or more of the following activities:

Marketing, manufacturing, assembling, servicing, installing, maintaining and/or repairing systems, software, equipment, machines, devices and apparatus, whether utilising manual, photographic, optical, mechanical, electrical, electrostatic or electronic principles or any combination of such principles, that are primarily intended for the recording and/or processing and/or monitoring and/or transmission of voice and/or data and/or image and/or text or any combination thereof for use in any one or more of the following activities:

Accounting, calculating, data processing, data transmission, duplicating, test processing, document reproduction, document transmission, record keeping and record retrieval, broadcast or transmission for entertainment or information purposes of voice and/or image text or any combination thereof and/or: the provision of services relating to the above.

There is nothing in your business that performs any function listed in the middle paragraph. A law firm that only specialises in banking law is a law firm, not a bank. An accounting firm that only deals with civil engineers is an accounting firm, not a civil engineering firm. It’s very clear to me that you are not subject to the ICT code.

The high quality consulting firm responds with the following, somewhat edited with the occasional italic jibe

After a long deliberation with some of my colleagues regarding whether you should follow the amended ICT Sector Codes or the amended Codes of Good Practice. A unanimous (my emphasis) decision was reached based on the line of business your company solely focuses on - specializing in IT recruitment - that it should comply with the amended ICT sector codes and not the amended codes of good practice.

On your website the following is promulgated:

Starting off as a small  recruiting agency last century the company has grown to a formidable force in the IT Recruitment Industry. The company continues to grow their unique model of IT recruitment.

Now reading the above statement in conjunction with statement AICT000, general principle and the scorecard, paragraph 3, application of the amended B-BBEE ICT sector codes:

3.1 The following entities are measurable under the Amended B-BBEE ICT Sector Code:
3.1.1 All persons, organizations and entities operating in the ICT Sector in South Africa.

And further breaking down statement 3.1.1, basically the statement refers to persons, organizations and entities generating the majority of their revenues from ICT related activities. Analyzing your core business which is servicing clients and potential clients with highly ICT skilled individuals, the majority of it's (sic) revenue is definitely generated from ICT related activities. (Are they in fact ICT related, does a cleaning company cleaning a building that their ICT client works from perform ICT related activities? Similarly is Wesbank a finance house or in the motor industry?) Therefore under this statement this qualifies your company to be complaint (dig - complaint) with the amended ICT sector charter and not the amended codes of good practice.

Now the question becomes, "your company does not produce any ICT related equipment/software nor does it offer technical services to its clients, why must it still comply with the amended ICT sector charter?". Reading further deeper into Schedule AICT1 under the amended ICT sector charter:

Analysing the wording highlighted in yellow (not included in this post) under Schedule AICT1, the first statement emphasizes that the ICT sector does not limit the persons, organizations and entities falling within the ICT sector codes to persons, organizations and entities producing ICT equipment and/or offering technical services to its customers. But it broadens the scope to persons, organizations and entities also offering IT recruitment services to customer or potential customers, employee like property, plant and equipment from part of any organization's asset base. Offering IT recruitment services to an organization qualifies as servicing that particular organizations IT function, as those recruited individuals will be at the end of the day responsible of making sure an organization's IT function operates effectively, efficiently and sustainable. (And finance houses providing finance for IT related goods and services are also IT companies. Makes perfect sense)

They approached my logic with the following

"A law firm that only specialises in banking law is a law firm, not a bank. An accounting firm that only deals with civil engineers is an accounting firm, not a civil engineering firm" .
The law firm specialising in banking law might not be a bank, but will have to comply with the banking charter. The reason being that the bank was established on the sole purpose of servicing the banking industry, the majority of it's (sic) income is generated through banking related activities and without the existence of the baking industry the law firm wouldn't be generating income or wouldn't have been established to begin with.

The underlined paragraph is all over the place.  There is a genuine mistake there, the bank that was established really refers to the law firm, now that I've cleared that up it still doesn't follow any logic.  Without the banking industry the law firm would be providing other legal advice and deriving an income from that. 

Let's put this to bed.  This logic is flawed for a few reasons.  

1. We need to understand the purpose of each sector code.  They are (supposed to be) designed to address the transformative requirements of a particular sector.  It is assumed that the code deals with the peculiarities of that industry because it understands that industry.  A company providing recruitment services to another company is not equipped to deal with the skills development, enterprise and supplier development requirements of a sector code.  How could a law firm that provides services exclusively to a bank be able to deal with access to financial services? Similarly, how could recruitment firm provide ICT-type ED services.  They can't - what they do is get professionals into companies.  They aren't professionals themselves.
2. Why would a services belong to the Services SETA when it is subject to the ICT code?  Companies operating in the ICT sector belong to the MICT SETA.  Services companies belong to the Services SETA because they are services companies.  

In spite of the above this does however pose an interesting conundrum, one that a cement company raised years ago.  A cement company is a manufacturer of cement, they are not construction companies.  Sephaku Cement's last old codes assessment was conducted under the dti's old generic codes.  I would agree with this.  

At least now I know what high quality consultation is, it's something to aspire to.

A letter from the CA Charter Council demonstrating logic

The verification of B-BBEE status levels occurs in accordance with the Codes of Good Practice issued in terms of the B-BBEE Act (Act No 53 of 2003, as amended). The Amended Codes of Good Practice came into effect on 1 May 2015 in accordance with the Revised Notice of Clarification issued by the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) on 15 May 2015. However, in its clarification notice, the dti determined that for purposes of Sector Codes, which includes the Chartered Accountancy Sector Charter (CA Sector Charter), the transitional period for alignment with the Amended Codes of Good Practice is extended to 30 October 2015.

The CA Charter Council (the Council) has been responsible for the amendments to the CA Sector Charter. It remains the strong preference of the CA Sector to have its own Sector Code that gives expression to its priorities of increasing access to the profession for black people and ensuring that black people play a meaningful role throughout the profession. The focus of the amendments is on skills development and the transformation of the profession.

The amended CA Sector Charter has been finalised and signed off by all stakeholder representatives on the Council except for one of the representative groups. The implication is that the amended CA Sector Charter was not gazetted by the dti's deadline of 30 October 2015.

In a letter received from the Minister of Trade and Industry the CA Sector has been given until 15 November 2015 to reach consensus and finalise the amended CA Sector Charter. It should be noted that all the constituencies are committed to reaching consensus and the Council will continue to work towards this aim. If consensus can be reached and the amended CA Sector Charter can be signed off by 15 November 2015, the amended CA Sector Charter will be effective from the date of gazetting.

Where does this leave entities within the CA Sector in terms of measurement of their B-BBEE status levels in the interim, if the amended CA Sector Charter is not approved and gazetted by 15 November 2015?

* B-BBEE verifications in respect of a financial year ending on or before 31 October 2015 will still be conducted under the extant CA Sector Charter
* B-BBEE verifications in respect of a financial year ending after 1 November 2015 will be conducted in accordance with the Generic Scorecard under the Amended Codes of Good Practice, and not in terms of the extant CA Sector Charter

The Council will keep the CA Sector updated on developments in this regard.

Regards

Tsakani Ratsela
Chairperson: CA Charter Council

BEE sector codes’ – your BEE options

A recent email from AQRate said the following

This is probably the question we are asked the most often. Will these Amended Codes and all Sector Codes really become effective on 1 May 2015. A well known BEE Consultancy recently advised that there would be a delay and this was refuted in the strongest of terms the following day by the Dti. We believe that the Dti will continue to pursue the 1 May 2015 implementation date. One of the solutions that have (sic) been suggested is that all current Sector Codes will be repealed before 1 May 2015 and that on this date everyone will use the Amended Codes of Good Practice until their particular sector code has been amended and gazetted.

The underlined section poses a wide number of issues.

1. Can the DTI summarily repeal current codes?
2. Is there a process that needs to be followed?
3. What are the ramifications of such an action?

I can't answer question one in any informed way. I would imagine they can't but will anyway. Which brings me onto the second question. I cannot see that a piece of legislation or secondary legislation can be arbitrarily repealed, there must be a standard procedure contained within our law. I don't know what that procedure is and I don't know how to ask DuckDuckGo how I go about this. Chris van Wyk suggested to me that the action of repealing a code must follow the standard process as prescribed in section 9 (5) of the act which is to put it out for comment for 60 days. 9(5) talks about "issuing, replacing or amending" a code. Chris posits that repealing is either an amendment or replacement.

Time has now run out for the sector codes to meet the 1 May deadline. If they published them all for comment tomorrow then the 60 day comment period would end in early May. They have to consider comments and hence cannot logically publish the final code the day after. The consideration period for the revised shambles was about a year. Let's say it takes them two months to consider the comments, we are looking at about July before the first code comes into effect. We know from the QSE codes et al that were published last year for comment that a sector code has no lead in period (which I certainly believe is unreasonable). July at the earliest.

There are two possible options that could happen.

1. The DTI summarily repeals all the codes and tells everyone (as per AQRate's email) that those companies must now follow the revised BEE codes

This would be procedurally wrong and legislatively unfair. We know that all codes issued under section 9(1) enjoy the same legal status. This means that those companies subject to an industry code have no reason to even consider or anticipate implementing the revised codes. They could persuasively argue (unfortunately only in a court of law) that they can't be expected to consider the revised codes in such a short period of time. Also I would encourage some form of litigation from charter councils or their constituents to query as to whether the DTI may do this.

2)    The DTI follows the prescribed process

As I wrote earlier I don't know what the prescribed process is but I'm willing to bet that you cannot summarily repeal a piece of legislation without at least putting it to some sort of public vote or similar.

My money is on the fact that there will be a 60 day comment period whether they publish codes for comment or repeal them. If this does happen then this what I recommend you do

RECOMMENDED ACTION IF YOU ARE SUBJECT TO A SECTOR CODE

Avoid the mad rush to get your old certificate issued before the revised codes come into effect on the 1^st of May. If your certificate expires during the comment period then you are OK – get a new one issued under the old code. However if you are somewhere in between then wait until the 60 comment period has passed and immediately renew your certificate under the old code. You might be able to drag it out by about a month but I wouldn't wait any longer, don't forget that when the new code comes into effect that's it – there's no lead in period.

Related articles

BEE timeline

Who stands to benefit from the revised BEE codes

Junk status, BEE and Levenstuck

Thank goodness for Keith Levenstein. Those in the industry know that he knows not what he speaks of, and so he is a blogger's dream. In fact I reckon Hlaudi has already issued him with the very first journalist's licence.  His latest press release, which was published by Engineering News , has certainly got tongues wagging. As sensational as the heading may be, it's the only accurate piece of information that is contained in the whole article "Half the economy could become BEE noncompliant by May 2015". It's only half accurate – I would suggest that more than 90% of all companies operating in SA would be BEE non-compliant.

Let's move on to what ol' Keefie is attempting to get through to an unsuspecting public. Wait a minute, I need to go back a bit. Levenstop peddles advice and courses to those who don't know that he doesn't know what he's talking about. Obviously the more sensational the press release the more likely it is that companies are going to flock to him for "high quality advice" (with a strong emphasis on high).

Back to Levenstoy. "If the sector codes are not released in time, businesses will need to follow the amended codes released last October," he said.

Really, is that the truth? And if it is the truth then out of which source did it permeate? Even the DTI would question this version of the truth. It would be wrong for me as a concerned blogger and see-througher-of-Levenstick to leave it at that.

The issue that Levenstranded conveniently ignored is the status of transformation codes. We need to go back to the 2007 codes here (gazette number 29617), specifically statement 003, paragraph 4.3 "A sector code enjoys equal status with that of any other CODE". A Code is issued under section 9 of the BEE Act – see paragraph 3.6 of statement 003 "After considering public comment, the minister may gazette the transformation charter as a sector CODE under section 9 of the Act".

At this point Levenstrangle would be jumping up and down and saying "fuck him – he's wrong! Hasn't the idiot looked at paragraph 10.3 of the revised codes (36928), which says "….(t)he generic scorecard in Code series 000, Statement 000 issued on 9 February 2007, notwithstanding the REPEAL of that statement." ? I'll answer for the idiot. Yes he has read that section – he also knows that the specific paragraph is without legal substance and even if it was it says that Statement 000 is repealed, not Statement 003.

Returning to 36928. Paragraph 3.2.3 of Statement 000 has the following to say about sector codes "A measured entity in a sector in respect of which a sector code has been issued in terms of section 9 of the BBBEE Act as amended, may only be measured for compliance in accordance with that code." Even the new codes recognise that you need sectoral codes (Levenstrungout is an expert on fronting and sectoral codes you know). This is the juncture at which the DTI have got themselves firmly stuck up a pole. The sectoral codes issued under section 9 of the BEE Act are still in force and if they are not amended, replaced or repealed then they will not only not talk to the revised codes, but they'll still be applicable. (The word repeal has been added to the amended bill/act – I don't know what the legal status of the amended act is.). I've spoken to a few people at charter councils and they are galloping away at re-alignment. However this takes time. The Act says that any amendment must go out for comment for 60 days. Then the dti has to ignore consider the comments and then ignore them some more and then publish the final code. The sectoral codes are desperate to meet the dti's April 30 deadline so that all can be harmonious.

Back to Levenstigmatised's aversion that if the sectoral charters aren't aligned or repealed then you default to the revised BEE codes. This is such embarrassing bullshit, I'm sure the DTI are turning their heads in shame. In short, ignore this press release as rubbish and steer clear of poor BEE advice.

Related articles

Complete scorecard (and the occasional cynical quip) for 36928

The new BEE codes and their impact on socio-economic development contributions.

What is the legal status of the new codes?

Challenging the 2013 BEE codes in a court of law - the ball has started rolling

Less than R10m turnover and an EME, I don't think so

The DTI asserts and tells us about applicability of industry charters

You've got to love this statement

the dti is the only empowered and competent authority to pronounce on the application of Sector Codes, the Codes of Good Practice and any other relevant matter with regards to B-BBEE

We can now officially blame the DTI for all the little spelling mistakes, Dilly, more spelling mistakes, long bouts of silence when clarity is required, more spelling mistakes, backwards and twisted logic and more spelling mistakes – oh yes and Dilly. This is almost the same as the ANC describing themselves as "selfless". Be that as it may – the DTI is............. competent.

To find out what this is all about read the attachment – it's actually well written (id est the sentences flow, the spelling mistakes are not apparent etc) and it does actually explain when a charter is to be used and not the DTI's codes. Still defies business sense though - but that really isn't the DTI's mandate, well at least not in this country.

Oh yes - it also makes legislation retrospective.  And this is unconstitutional - I'll let  Andrea Minnaar, senior associate at ENS explain it

The habit of bringing legislation into effect retrospectively or retroactively conflicts with two key South African constitutional principles, being the rule of law and the principle of separation of powers.

The rule of law is entrenched in section 1 of the Constitution of South Africa (“the Constitution”) which states that:

“The Republic of South Africa is one, sovereign, democratic state founded on the following values:
(a) Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms.
(b) Non-racialism and non-sexism;
(c) Supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law.
(d) Universal adult suffrage, a national common voters roll, regular elections and a multi-party system of democratic government, to ensure accountability, responsiveness and openness.”

One of the applications of the rule of law is that a person should be able to know the law in order to be able to arrange his actions accordingly.  In this regard Mokgoro J, in her concurring judgment in the case of President of the Republic of South Africa v Hugo 1997 (4)(SA 1 (CC), held that:

“The need for accessibility, precision and general application flow from the concept of the rule of law.  A person should be able to know of the law, and be able to conform his or her conduct to the law.”

Udge and Dilly on the retail ‘needs BEE charter’

Ajay Lalu, the managing director of Black Lite Consulting, said yesterday that the government had little or no leverage on broad-based BEE in the retail sector.

He criticised the sector’s enterprise development programmes and employee share schemes, saying some of them were used to sugar-coat empowerment programmes as they did not fundamentally transform the supply chain.

via www.iol.co.za

But wait it gets worse.  Dilly gets to say something in the same article

Andile Thloaele, the chief executive of consultancy Inforcomm, said the reason retailers lagged behind with BEE programmes was because they were not incentivised. He also added that BEE guidelines were too diluted to get the sector to fully comply.

A compendium of patsy experts.  I cannot imagine why anyone (other than a parastatal with a large budget and no sense) would want to make use of the services of Udge and Dilly.  Udge has the most bizarre agenda, the crux of which is fundamentally anti-business.  It seems from this article that he has a paw in the drafting of the new mythical codes, viz

He criticised the sector’s enterprise development programmes and employee share schemes, saying some of them were used to sugar-coat empowerment programmes as they did not fundamentally transform the supply chain.

And Dilly - well Dilly was on the steering committee of the ICT Charter, a document that demonstrates very little knowledge of anything really.

A bit more on charters to come

Two articles caught my eye recently.  

ICT Charter - Let it die

After eight long years of toing and froing, the ICT sector will finally have clarity on how it should implement empowerment, as the long-awaited charter has been submitted for gazetting. However, this is not exactly good news.

Nicola Mawson postulates that the charter is going to cause more trouble than the problems it plans to solve.   One of the more relevant issues is the fact that ICT companies need to achieve a 30% ownership target.  She (correctly) observes

Legislation in the sector was meant to make things easier – not make it so hard for companies that transformation becomes a spiral of red tape, instead of a way to empower those who deserve to benefit. The charter will create a regulatory nightmare in its current form – and do nothing to redress the imbalances of the past. After almost eight years in the making, it's frankly defunct now anyway – the sector has moved on and done its own thing in accordance with the codes.

I really don't want to labour this blog with Levenstein (the content on this blog is far superior than anything his company has ever published), but the underlined section is very valid.  By labouring the charter point our hero is wreaking havoc with the whole process, you know, spanner in the works type of thing.  Oh yes, on that subject, I saw a Facebook comment from the same Incredible Skulk stating that he spends 30% of his time checking on BEE certificates to make sure that the companies aren't fronting (unlike his company of course).  Do you see the business model now?  Simple - reject a certificate and then phone the offending company telling then that their certificate is invalid.  And the rest is obvious; actually there is another revenue stream that no-one really knows about - if anyone has the Levenstein/Tempest email please can you post it in the comments below.  It makes for the most interesting reading and business model.

Back to Mawson

On top of which, the charter adds requirements to stipulations. If an ICT company wants to sell cellphones to a mine, for argument's sake, it will have to comply with the mining charter so the mine can gain procurement points. Ditto construction, financial services, tourism... the list goes on.

I've seen this problem.  I have a client out in Westonaria who was told by the mines that they have to comply with the mining charter's HDSA requirements if they want to do business with the mines.  In other words a BEE scorecard (correctly issued or whatever) is not good enough in that sector.   The fact that this is an untenable situation cannot be missed by the DTI (or can it).

AgriBEE target under fire

Not much going on here because the charter was gazetted under section 12 two years ago.

Johan Pienaar, the deputy executive director of AgriSA, said he was concerned about the lack of an overarching BEE charter in the sector. The government had gazetted the charter in 2006 (actually it was in March 2008), which should have been published as a code of good practice but had not.

And then he said

commercial white farmers had taken the initiative to assist black farmers in gaining market access, pointing out that organisations such as GrainSA and the Wool Growers Association in the Eastern Cape had contributed close to R200m towards AgriBEE-related initiatives.

You can read the contra arguments in the article.

And finally - or as my mate Grant says "ask me something about sport"

A transformation charter which will apply to all sports organisations is being drawn up

 Speaking in the National Assembly during the debate on his budget vote, Sport and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula said South Africa was still witnessing a sporting environment where there was a skewed picture of sporting facilities and opportunities.
"It is a responsibility of this government to fundamentally change the status quo, and ensure that South Africa has national teams and the amenities are a true reflection of South Africa's population," he said.

To ensure actions were focused and directed, SRSA (sport and recreation department) together with the stakeholders had started a process of drawing up a transformation charter which would apply to all sports organisations.

The speech the erstwhile ANKLE (ancyl) president made is full of great ANC rhetoric, words like national discourse, realisation of  priorities of national objectives, robust debates, engaged and mobilise.

Fikile - don't make the same mistakes that everyone has made.  Get a good charter drafted (which includes correct punctuation and spelling) and make sure that your administrators know what they are doing - otherwise it'll be a (insert your own expletive here), like all the others.  

Transport Charter gazetted says Engineering News

Again this twitter thing speaks.  I tweeted a while ago that the Transport Charter was going to be gazetted.  I heard it from the WKRP man.  Engineering News reports that it has been gazetted - all except the Aviation Charter, which is still under section 12.  It's not up on the DTI's website yet. 

The gazetting comes in time for the BRT debate 

The Code would also ensure that the taxi industry provided commuters with reliable, safe, affordable, efficient and quality public transport services.

Good luck with this one.

As soon as it is published I'll tweet on it.

Perhaps the BEE seas have been chart(er)ed

The (beach) sands of time are running out for those who wish to comment on the Tourism BEE charter.  I went through it and found it weak and lacking in substance with its fair share of REALLY BAD errors - did you know that the two generic scorecards add up to 102 points without bonus points.  And then there is the grave mathematical error under the 2012 scorecard for management where the total is supposed to be 14 but it clearly adds up to 16.  If you want to see my breakdown please mail me and I'll send it to you.

But I think I missed the point almost completely after I read Kevin Lester's comments.  He has gone through the scorecard in the minutest detail and looked at everything from the procedure to substance of the scorecard.  I've attached his email here.

The most important to me is that of applicability, Kevin isolates certain instances where a type of activity might appear to  have a  tourism angle but in fact does not fall into the sector.

• Restaurants that are outsourced canteens of corporates or government departments
• Conference venues run by corporate training companies or operated on an outsourced basis by large corporate

We could probably think of a number of instances where this just won't work.  I am therefore forced to somewhat agree with jungle jim that the generic codes are probably the better bet here.

Financial Sector Charter

So where is this going?  It appears that the banks walked out of the negotiations because the black ownership requirements could not be agreed upon.  It is difficult to figure out what happened here but I really hope that they did walk out, this kind of protest is so overdue.  Cosatu does it at the drop of a hat and then they condemn the banks for behaving like the unions.

Now that I have climbed off my soapbox where does this leave us.  We all know that the deadline is the 31st of August (this year!!!! DTI) and it doesn't seem that this issue is going to be resolved.  I have seen a version of the newest charter and it is largely aligned with the dti's codes and seems to be well thought out.   Apparently a meeting will be held by Trevor next week to resolve this issue and  the charter will be gazetted under section 9(5) at the end of the month.  I hope it is the new charter and not the one gazetted under section 12 because we'll never get this issue resolved.

And finally

I've noticed that Vuyo is moving away from the ownership debate and looking at sustainable empowerment in the form of enterprise development, which pleases me greatly.  His last article makes for very interesting reading, he shows up the folly of gazetting and meeting deadlines.  The end of this month marks the end of the interim period and I doubt whether anything has been done in the last six months.  Can the dti afford to have more egg on its face by extending the deadline?  We'll have to wait and see.

And on the subject of charters, Vuyo is absolutely entitled to the last word

'It appears the charter festival may be slowly turning into a no show"

Charters vs the codes

I received an email from Sakkie O'Neil from Nedbank regarding the necessity for sectoral charters. 

Sakkie is a recognised expert on the Financial Sector Charter (FSC) (and no slouch on the COGP either).  He (correctly, I think) observes that it may not be possible to align charters with the COGP, but that you could allow for a little leeway within the COGP to incorporate sector specific targets.  The example he uses is:

"although the Codes address SME and woman-owned company loans, the banking industry may through the Banking Association, agree with the DTI on additional measures to promote this.  This may be for bonus points."

Sakkie concludes with "you then end up with specific deliverables agreed between the relevant parties."

This makes perfect sense to me.  You should really allow each industry to set there own types of targets for certain elements. For example the tourism sector should have specific requirements for employment equity and skills development.

Great idea.  Now let's start lobbying.