Listed Cape Town-based Sekunjalo Investments on Wednesday received the Financial Mail Top Empowerment Companies Award, which is conducted in partnership with black economic empowerment ratings agency EmpowerDEX.
Iqbal Survé-led Sekunjalo’s overall BEE score came in at 76,44%, while its preferential procurement spend stood at 10,5% and economic interest at 54% — although in terms of employment equity it only managed 9,1%.
The Don Group — which is 40%-held by chair Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Thabiso Tlelai — came in second with an overall score of 74,07%, and a mere 3,7% in affirmative procurement, with another hotels and leisure group, Sun International, taking the third place with 70,04% overall.
Although Telkom took fifth position, or 67,16% overall, out of the 200 companies ranked, it fared far better than Sekunjalo in terms of pillars such as preferential procurement, skills development and black management.
Telkom has fallen sharply from the number one spot it occupied last year and in 2004.
“The award says three things to us and the business community. It is a vindication of our economic business model. But it also says that you can be successful as a business and yet care for the needs of poor people,” Survé said after collecting the prize.
“The recognition also tells us that it is possible to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor in terms of skills development and other initiatives. This is what we’ve been doing and it is quite encouraging. We hope other companies will also adopt these values which South Africa dearly needs at this point.”
Survé said it was about time that the business community started caring for the needs of the country if economic growth was to be sustainable. He urged companies to engage in job-creation initiatives in dealing with the scourge of unemployment.
South Africa’s economic problems include a lack of skills and abject poverty, in the second economy, as well as high levels of unemployment, despite more than ten years of economic transformation and BEE.
According to Statistics South Africa, the country’s unemployment rate stood close to 40%. Employment in the formal sector is 7,9-million, or 64,9% of total employment, while 2,4-million people are employed in the informal sector, which also includes hawkers.
Public Investment Corporation (PIC) CEO Brian Molefe lamented the fact that growth in JSE market capitalisation by 41% to R2,7-billion did not translate into an increase of black new-players in the financial market system.
“Clearly this is a matter that needs urgent attention or we run a risk of leaving black people marginalised. We need a cadre of managers who are sensitive and alive to issues pertaining to black people … we need to break the 4% barrier,” he said, alluding to the fact that black people’s ownership of JSE-listed companies has ranged between 2% and 4% over the past few years.
Turning to Bolivia, which became independent almost 200 years ago, Molefe noted that the country’s indigenous people were still trapped in abject poverty, despite the fact that Bolivia is endowed with large deposits of minerals as well as agricultural produce.
“Bolivia remains a poor country with its indigenous people having to bear the burden of poverty,” Molefe said, also noting that, similarly, the majority of South African indigenous people have been left out of the mainstream political and economic life since the end of apartheid.
“1994 and the advent of democracy presented South Africa with the hope of a future full of possibilities. But is this hope of a future full of possibilities simply a mirage? Is it attainable? Is it possible for the poor indigenous people of South Africa to ever become central players in the institutions that drive the economy of the land of their birth?,” Molefe asked.
“Or is freedom going to be as depicted in our Oscar-winning movie Tsotsi, a protracted encounter with hopelessness?”
Molefe said that as part of its active shareholder responsibility, the PIC would be holding discussions with 50% of the top 40 companies that have not started negotiating a BEE deal involving more than 25% of equity or operations.
“It is our hope that the other large institutional investors on the JSE, including Mr Thabo Dloti (CEO at Old Mutual Asset Managers), will join us in making these friendly enquiries,” he continued. — I-Net Bridge