The dti-SANAS awards certificates to first BEE Verification Agencies
12 February 2009

The Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) together with the South African National Accreditation System (SANAS), awarded certificates to the country’s first Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Verification Agencies in Pretoria on 12 February 2009.

The agencies that acquired B-BBEE accreditation status include:
1. BEE Empowered,
2. BEE Matrix,
3. BEE Verification Agency,
4. DRGSiyaya,
5. Emex Trust,
6. Empowerdex,
7. Empowerlogic,
8. Honeycomb,
9. National Empowerment Rating Agency (NERA) – Gauteng,
10. NERA – KwaZulu-Natal (KZN); and
11. NERA – Western Cape.

Emex Trustee, Mella Msiza, said the company had learned a great deal from the process as a BEE scorecard and supplier verification agency. “As a new company, we are excited that we were afforded an equal opportunity to acquire skills that would enable us to make a livelihood and also empower our communities, by transferring this skill to them. And we are now more competitive, as opposed to when we started. We now meet the standards set by SANAS”, acknowledged Msiza.

The occasion was viewed as monumental and historic by the dti and SANAS alike, as it marks the start of a fundamental change in the history of B-BBEE verification. The overall aim of accreditation is to instil confidence in entities that subject themselves to B-BBEE verification, and establish a measurement of excellence against which agencies should strive, in terms of compliance with B-BBEE criteria.

Nomonde Mesatywa, Chief Director of BEE at the dti, said that the awarding of certificates was another fundamental milestone in the evolution of BEE, as the eleven companies were the first group of Verification Agencies (VAs) to have fulfilled all the accreditation requirements.

“We congratulate these companies and trust that this will give credence to the verification process. This represents the beginning of a phase in BEE that will be marked by credibility, reliability, impartiality and the harmonisation of policies, procedures, guidelines, and standards, thus creating a credible and regulated environment for measuring, monitoring and evaluating B-BBEE compliance”, said Mesatywa.

She further stated that this was an ongoing process, which would be refined; in order to ensure that accreditation of other agencies was expedited.

Lillian Mofokeng, www.thedti.gov.za