Financial services group Metropolitan, the operating subsidiary of listed South African empowerment group New Africa Capital and also a major sponsor of SA Rugby, has offered to assist the organisation in its transformation efforts, following claims of racial bias and a hearing that threatens to divide South Africa’s national rugby team only three weeks before the Rugby World Cup is set to kick off in Australia.
Metropolitan is involved in a three-year sponsorship with SA rugby. The company was the anchor sponsor of last year’s U-21 World Cup, and is the official injury insurers to SA Rugby until the end of 2004.
“In the same way government agencies and corporates use their buying power to push for transformation and empowerment among their suppliers, so too must sponsors hold the sport accountable for progress it has made towards this goal,” said Phillip Matlakala, Metropolitan Life executive, on Monday.
Matlakala said in light of the controversy around the national rugby squad, his company had told SA Rugby managing director Rian Oberholzer of its wish to help rugby transform.
“We could have simply stood on the sidelines shouting for change, instead we have opted to try and assist rugby further in its efforts to transform the sport,” said Matlakala.
“At the end of the day transformation is not just about meeting targets or quotas. It is about embracing a culture of change and this requires tremendous effort internally.”
He said Metropolitan would be happy to impart its transformation experience to SA Rugby to assist in meeting the objective of making rugby a sporting code that reflected the whole of South Africa.
He hoped other SA Rugby sponsors would follow suit to engage rugby in the transformation process.
“There are some very progressive companies among rugby sponsors and I am sure that collectively, we could make a valuable contribution,” he said.
“Metropolitan urges SA Rugby to conclude the investigation as quickly as possible and more importantly, that it be dealt with in an open and transparent fashion.”
Metropolitan has been at the forefront of black economic empowerment and transformation since it was unbundled from Sanlam in 1989. The company measures its transformation progress against a number of benchmarks including employee demographics, skills transfer, procurement practices, social investment and broader educational initiatives.
The company also has a chief executive of empowerment, and a board level sub-committee that measures Metropolitan’s executive against their progress in transforming the company.
It was recently given the highest ranking for empowerment among financial services companies by rating agency Empowerdex. — I-Net Bridge
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