South Africa’s Black Management Forum (BMF) and the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business have launched the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) Monitor, an empowerment research and advisory agency, BMF regional president Joe Mwase announced on Thursday.
The BEE Monitor will tap into the business school’s research capability and the BMF’s 30-year track record of established advocacy capability and BEE activism.
“The BEE Monitor will provide a commercial consultancy service to the private sector grappling with the implementation of empowerment objectives, and it will take strong public positions based on its research to promote empowerment in South Africa,” said Mwase.
He said the BEE Monitor’s offering would be multifaceted and would include research and benchmarking, rating, education, consulting and advisory services.
The BEE Monitor also enjoys the exclusive rights to listed financial services company Metropolitan’s empowerment barometer — a software tool developed by the financial services company to measure progress in the five critical areas of ownership and control, employment equity, procurement, skills development and corporate social involvement.
Mwase said the monitor would make the empowerment barometer software available commercially to enable businesses to track their progress towards empowerment targets. He added that it could be programmed against defined industry charters, or against specific company objectives.
“The barometer applies a weighted scoring methodology that businesses can use to measure their empowerment level in all of these five areas at any time. These weightings are flexible and can be set to reflect the prevailing empowerment imperatives.
“The barometer can also set different weightings for specific industries or sectors of the economy,” he said.
Metropolitan head of empowerment Nathi Chonco said the company believed the BEE Monitor could play a vital role in South Africa.
“We have a couple of very good empowerment rating agencies, but there is certainly room for a full-service consultancy and agency to help drive BEE.
“The BEE Monitor is underpinned by the Graduate School of Business’s academic integrity and supported by the commercial understanding of the BMF.”
Chonco explained that Metropolitan’s decision to give the BEE Monitor sole rights to its empowerment barometer was part of his company’s commitment to empowerment and support for the sustainability of the agency.
“The barometer can provide an excellent revenue stream for the agency from day one,” he noted.
Mwase added that the BEE Monitor’s research will also contribute to the advancement of economic empowerment across a much broader constituency including rural communities, women, youth, people with disabilities and ordinary working South Africans.
“South Africa still needs to find a consensus on how the successful implementation of black economic empowerment should be defined. It is clear today that the majority of concerned South Africans agree that the country needs to make progress on three fronts: HIV/Aids, poverty alleviation and black economic empowerment.”
Mwase concluded by noting the BEE Monitor already enjoyed the backing of several corporates. — I-Net Bridge