bee advisory council plan on track  
05 March 2008

The long-awaited Black Economic Empowerment Advisory Council is expected to be up and running within the next five months, to provide direction to black empowerment policy and its implementation. First proposed about four years ago, the 20-member council will include five representatives from the government’s economic cluster, among others.

Its role would be to monitor and advise on black economic empowerment (BEE), described as lacking co-ordination. “What we’ve said is that it must be a statutory body, like the energy regulator or the national credit regulator. It must have teeth,” said Peter Vundla, chairman of the presidential black business working group, after a members’ meeting at the Union Building yesterday.  Much work has already been done and the issue was expected to be presented for cabinet approval, trade and industry department director-general Tshediso Matona said.
With President Thabo Mbeki as chairman, the working group discussed alignment of the BEE sector charters and codes of good practice in a process expected to take six months. The last target was  9 February 2008.  “We are confident that it is possible to resolve all these problem within six months,” Matona said. He said the proposed council would play a central role in unravelling the impasse over the harmonisation of BEE charters and codes.

However, Vundla said, the council should come after all outstanding issues were finalised, which would give it scope to begin the task of monitoring targets.  It was also expected that preferential government procurement policy would be brought into line with the codes. One of the other matters raised at yesterday’s meeting was funding.  The existence of several development finance institutions and commercial funds aimed at black-owned enterprises was recognised and described as a positive development.  Of concern, however, was the high level of risk-aversion, the effect of which could be to slow BEE.

Black business representatives said the good-practice codes provided a framework for the service charters and enabled stakeholders to interact.  However, they called for the use of the codes as a minimum standard for BEE compliance.  Black business also endorsed Eskom’s campaign to reduce national electricity consumption by 10%, saying it required “prudent use of electricity by all households and industrial consumers”.

It also welcomed the reduction in corporate tax announced last month in the finance minister’s budget speech.  However, it drew attention to the “cascading effects” of fuel price increases. Matona said the trade and industry department could not offer much help: “Our incentives tend to target market failure, and fuel does not apply.”

Wilson Johwa, www.businessday.co.za