Davies urges B-BBEE clamp

TRADE and Industry Minister Rob Davies has urged the B-BBEE Commission to clamp down on companies that do not submit reports on their transformation levels.

This is after the commission reported on Friday that it had an underwhelming response from companies listed on the JSE on their compliance with legislation.

Davies said the South African economy was still characterised by monopolies and the work of the commission was important in fostering meaningful economic transformation.

“It was important for us to put it in the Act that the B-BBEE Commission should be able to get information that will enable the regulator to tell us what the state of transformation is in the country. So far, the commission has only received 27 reports from JSE-listed companies, and that is not able to give us a holistic view of what the transformation is in South Africa,” said Davies.

The proposed threshold for registration of major B-BBEE ownership transactions, announced in November 2016, is R100 million, calculated by either combining the annual turnover of both entities or their asset value.

Scorecard The revised Codes of Good Practice, Sector Codes and Procurement guidelines have collectively resulted in a revised scorecard with higher requirements to achieve specific contributor level recognition.

The requirement for an ownership transaction has been identified as one of three priority elements under the Revised Codes of Good Practice. At its core, the objective is to change ownership patterns within the South African economy, with a targeted minimum of 25.1 percent ownership – although there are specific sectors and industries where this requirement is actually higher. In addition, the procurement element of the B-BBEE Scorecard also makes provision for additional points to be awarded to suppliers who meet higher ownership requirements.

The acting commissioner for the B-BBEE Commission, Zodwa Ntuli, said the commission took the role of the B-BBEE legislation seriously, in relation to breaking into the levels of concentration by facilitating new entrants.

“The commission had developed a B-BBEE certification web portal which will be linked to the database of the National Treasury.”