Engen Petroleum on Thursday refuted the contents of an e-mail campaign that claims the oil company will no longer sell its dealerships to whites.
“We value the support of all our customers and partners and trust that they, like us, are proud that Engen is a leading South African brand for all South Africans.
“We would like to reassure all our customers and business partners that there is absolutely no truth to this malicious e-mail,” Engen spokesperson Tania Landsberg said in a statement
The e-mail alleges that Engen management took a decision not to sell any of its service stations to white people in the future and calls on all white people to boycott Engen service stations.
“We do not engage in any business practices that could potentially destroy value in our company and pride ourselves on being ethical, fair and transparent. Engen is committed to a programme of black economic empowerment [BEE] and a significant number of appointments have been made on this basis in line with the national agenda.
“We see BEE as a value-adding strategy that will ensure the sustainability of our company in South Africa into the future,” Landsberg said.
She added that just more than 24% of service stations that were sold in the past six months had gone to new white owners.
Landsberg said Engen has received numerous queries since the e-mail emerged three weeks ago, but has not experienced a drop-off in business. — I-Net Bridge