Minister and SOEs in discussions with black business lobby
THE Black Business Council (BBC) on Tuesday met the CEs of Eskom, Transnet and Denel as part of engagements on how state-owned entities (SOEs) are governed.
The black business lobby group, which made waves recently for publicly backing President Jacob Zuma, also elected new leadership at an annual general meeting held on the same day.
The president was scheduled to give a keynote address at a BBC gala dinner late on Tuesday after the organisation’s two-day conference.
Businesswoman Danisa Baloyi — a council member of Business Unity SA — is the new president, while Gilbert Mosena and Zukiswa Ntlangula are the joint vice-presidents. Sello Rasethaba is the chairman, George Sebulela is the general secretary, Mzwanele Manyi is the head of policy and Sindi Mzamo is the treasurer.
Baloyi is the former chairwoman of the Road Accident Fund and has sat on various boards including those of Absa, South African Tourism and the Gauteng Enterprise Propellor.
However, she was removed as a nonexecutive director on the Absa board after a unanimous vote in the aftermath of the Fidentia scandal. In an interview Baloyi gave to Moneyweb in March 2007, she said: “It would have been easier for Absa, I guess, if I had resigned. “But my position is that only guilty people resign. If I had been found to be guilty of anything, I think I would have easily resigned.”
BBC affiliates — which include the Black Management Forum, the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants of Southern Africa‚ the Association of Black Securities and Investment Professionals, and the Black Lawyers Association — voted for the new leadership.
Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown met behind closed doors with the BBC to discuss the interministerial committee on state-owned entities reform and the establishment of the presidential SOEs coordinating council. It was recently announced that the coordinating council would fall under Zuma and would oversee and coordinate the reform, strategies and new policy proposals on SOEs.
Speaking to the SABC, Fin24 and ANN7 after the meeting, Brown said the BBC had questions about what role Zuma played and about the coordinating council.
“They raised the participation of black people in all the SOEs and I had three companies with me — Eskom, Transnet and Denel — and we talked through some of the supply chain issues with the BBC,” Brown said.
“Black people are the majority in
I had three companies with me and we talked through some of the supply chain issues with the BBC Unless the economy is in the hands of the black majority, it’s actually not going anywhere
this country and, therefore, unless the economy is in the hands of the black majority, it’s actually not going anywhere; we might as well chop off our arms.”
She said discussions also focused on how black companies and people could become involved in SOEs as suppliers, manufacturers, producers, engineers and so forth.
Media were initially invited to the round table with the minister, but at the last minute, were told that the discussion would be a closed session.