The government will use performance scorecards to measure progress towards black economic empowerment (BEE) by private enterprises, according to the Chief Director of Black Economic Empowerment in the Department of Trade and Industry, Philisiwe Buthelezi.
She told the Parliamentary Select Committee on Economic and Foreign Affairs that the scorecards would also be used to detect and prevent fronting (the token use of black faces in companies in order to gain credibility) by companies seeking financial assistance and procurement from government.
Buthelezi said government would use the ratings to monitor companies’ progress and added this would facilitate the process of setting measurable targets for BEE.
‘There is a certain test that they [companies] will have to go through before we can confirm whether they are black-owned or not,’ she said.
‘We see BEE as a component of continuous economic transformation of our economy… increasingly characterised by competitiveness and greater equity,’ she added.
The BEE strategy document covers areas of transformation since 1994 as part of government’s plan to overcome economic inequalities in South Africa.
It also defines black economic empowerment, the instruments to be used by government to achieve it, as well as monitoring and implementation phases and financing.
Buthelezi said government viewed economic transformation as an important phase of the transformation in South Africa.
‘An economy that does not have the capacity to allow its people to fully participate in it where inequality is extreme, is not an economy that can grow,’ she stated. – I-Net Bridge