The Broad-Based Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Commission should take action against companies that are found to not be complying with the B-BBEE requirements for transformation, Minister of Trade and Industry (the dti) Rob Davies said on Friday.
“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,” Davies said.
“So far, the Commission has only received 27 reports from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) listed companies, and that is not able to give us a holistic view of what the transformation is in South Africa.”
Davies was speaking at the breakfast session held by the B-BBEE Commission on the national state of transformation, in Johannesburg on Friday.
He said that the Commission needed to also deal with verification agencies that were found to be promoting misrepresentation and fronting by issuing B-BBEE certificates which do not give a true reflection of the transformation status in companies.
“Our economy is still characterised by monopolies, we do not have inclusive growth. We need to industrialise and grow the economy but ensure that we give people equal share to participate and be real players in the economy,” Davies said.
“We need to know that we can rely on the scorecards that they are a true reflection of where we are in terms of transformation.”
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.
She said that the Commission had already initiated investigations into cases of fronting and targeting the verification industry.
Ntuli also announced that the Commission had developed a B-BEE certification web portal which would be linked to the database of the National Treasury.
She said the portal, which would come into effect from 1 April as an effort to reduce fraudulent B-BBEE certificates, would also allow government and State-Owned Enterprises to go on to the B-BBEE website to verify the legitimacy of B-BBEE certificates from suppliers.
– African News Agency (ANA)
