Commission to probe limited stake of black industrialists

The Competition Commission will over the next five years conduct market inquiries aimed at investigating features of the market that obstruct the participation of black industrialists in strategic sectors of the economy, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.

This is part of the government’s four-point plan to ramp up the black industrialist programme which includes scaling up financial support from the government and the private sector for beneficiaries and increasing trade through the African Continental Free Trade Area.

“We need to scale up the number of black industrialists that are supported directly by government through various forms of support, including finance, regulatory measures and partnership arrangements through masterplans,” Ramaphosa said on Wednesday during the Black Industrialist Conference.

“These targets will guide the work of economic regulators, development finance institutions and government departments across the three spheres, with fiscal support focused on achieving these targets.”

“We will also work to unlock funds within the private sector, through supplier development funds, local procurement commitments and public interest conditions that are made when licences are issued or regulatory approvals are obtained.”

Ramaphosa also called on commercial banks to provide loans to emerging black companies and industrialists who have historically been excluded from mainstream financing.

“One of the recurring challenges and complaints is that they don’t get funding and that funding is not easily available to black businesses... The reality of the trend was sharpened to me during Covid-19, and we found that there were impossible conditions that black business faced, and now we are saying those conditions must be reformed,” he said.

“Many of them must be dropped. We must make funding available to black businesses so that they can help and contribute to growing the economy because there is no economy that can grow without funding,” he added.

During the conference, R261bn was pledged from various companies in the private sector to support black industrialists. These includes companies such as Ford, Isuzu, Mercedes-Benz SA, BMW, Toyota, VWSA, Nissan and Gibela Rail Transportation Consortium, which have pledged R23,7bn towards the programme.

In retail, companies such as Spar, Shoprite, Takealot and Clicks along with the department of correctional services, the police service and the defence department committed R80.79bn for procurement. In the financial and information technology sector, companies such as Naspers, Absa and Cassava Technologies/Liquid Intelligent Technologies have pledged a combined R14,4bn towards the programme.

In infrastructure, state owned entities Transnet and Eskom have pledged a combined R52,5bn for procurement of various engineering services, construction services, and coal for substations towards the black industrialist programme.

A RECURRING CHALLENGE AND COMPLAINT IS THAT THEY DON’T GET FUNDING ... FUNDING IS NOT EASILY AVAILABLE