President Zuma speaks at B-BBEEE Summit in Midrand

The summit was themed ‘A decade of Economic Empowerment (2003-2013).’

The two-day event, hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry, sought to “unveil the refined B-BBEE Act and Codes of good practice, to facilitate business-to-business linkages, and to create a platform for all the three spheres of government and the Presidential B-BBEE Advisory Council to engage on transformation objectives and discuss long-term goals”. Hundreds of small business owners were among those in attendance.

Minister of Trade and Industry, Rob Davies, said, “We are changing the requirement which used to cost thousands of rands to ascertain whether a business is 100 percent black-owned. All that will be required from now on is just an affidavit. We have also changed BEE codes by reducing the number of categories from seven to five.”

President Zuma said, “It has been ten years since the passing of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act. The summit aims to reflect on what has worked and what has not worked as we moved ahead to build an inclusive economy in South Africa. The South African middle class has grown from 1.7 million in 2004 to an estimated 4.2 million in 2012. According to the National Treasury, over R600 billion in BEE transactions have been recorded since 1995. Some of the companies have been listed in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. However, the problem we continue to face as we grow is fronting. Fronting is fraud – it makes people think there is progress in black economic empowerment when the progress is not there.”

Fronting refers to companies who pretend to be black-owned when they are not.

Sandile Zungu of the B-BBEE Presidential Advisory Council also gave a report from the council. He said, “The business owners who have been fronting their businesses as black-owned should be imprisoned as their actions give a false progress report on the success of black economic empowerment.”

The summit concluded on 4 October.