AMENDED B-BBEE CODES OF GOOD PRACTICE CONTAIN SIGNIFICANT CHANGES AND SEEK TO ALIGN POLICY TO GOVERNMENT’S ACTION PLAN

AMENDED B-BBEE CODES OF GOOD PRACTICE CONTAIN SIGNIFICANT CHANGES AND SEEK TO ALIGN POLICY TO GOVERNMENT’S ACTION PLAN

The Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) hosted a stakeholder engagement on the Revised Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Codes of Good Practice at the National Empowerment Fund in Johannesburg yesterday.The aim of the engagement was to ensure that business chambers and their members understand their role in the implementation of the Revised B-BBEE Codes.

According to the Acting Chief Director of Black Economic Empowerment at Trade and Industry, Mr Liso Steto, the objectives of the stakeholder engagement on the Revised B-BEE Codes are to get an understanding of the challenges and concerns of business regarding the Revised B-BEE Codes and also to address the concerns.

“This is an opportunity to provide business with a practical understanding of applying the revised codes and explaining what these codes mean for business. The amended B-BBEE Codes contain significant changes and seek to give effect to Section 9 of the Constitution by providing opportunities to those who were marginalized,” said Steto.

The context within which the B-BBEE legislative framework was revised was Government’s top agenda of economic transformation and its expression in the National Development Plan (NDP), and the drive for supplier development, localization, industrialization, job creation and skills development.

This being said, the revised codes are more focused and constructive. The seven elements have been reduced to five, by merging employment equity with management control, and enterprise development with preferential procurement, retaining ownership, skills development and socio-economic development.

“The emphasis has shifted from only ownership to include priority elements of enterprise and supplier development as well as skills development. Of the hundred and nine available points on the scorecard, twenty five are for ownership, twenty for skills development and forty for enterprise and supplier development,” Steto said.

To promote localization and industrial policy, the codes require that suppliers for preferential procurement must be B-BBEE compliant and fulfill regulatory requirements, meet at least three of the local procurement, job creation, raw material transformation/beneficiation and skills transfer requirements. Furthermore, the targeted beneficiaries for enterprise supplier development have to be fifty one black-owned and black-women owned enterprises.

“The thresholds have been adjusted, giving enhanced recognition to black-owned small medium enterprises and to promote access to markets. Fifty one percent black-owned automatically qualifies for level two, and those that are hundred percent black owned qualify for level one,” added Steto.

The revised codes came into effect on 1 May 2015. The implementation of the Codes is supported by the amended B-BBEE Act 53 of 2003 as amended by the B-BBEE Amendment Act 46 of 2013, which came into operation on 24 October 2014.