Vuyo Jack, the young god-father of BEE, is no grey businessman with a one-track mind and an eye only for the figures. He is a philosopher who believes in meditation and had he not decided on becoming a chartered accountant, he would have been a musician and a filmmaker.
This information is contained in his book, Broadbased BEE — The complete guide, published by Pan MacMillan and released this month. Jack, with Chia-Chao Wu, is the owner of Empowerdex, the company that has played a key role in drawing up the BEE codes and which consults to numerous blue-chips to help implement the laws.
At 29 chapters, it’s worth having the book for heft alone: it covers every possible angle on BEE. It is also symbolic of how BEE has become extremely complex (if not confusing) to implement.
The book contains a useful evolution of empowerment: Jack has been there every step of the way and it has a fly-on-the-wall feel. The rest of the book walks you through BEE. It contains chapters on ownership, sale of empowered stakes, management control, employment equity, skills development, enterprise development as well as a section on practical implementation.
As the release accompanying the book’s launch notes: “… any business operating in South Africa will find it increasingly difficult to remain viable without adopting the principles of broad-based BEE and complying with the codes”.
In his foreword, Cyril Ramaphosa says: “There will come a time when we will no longer need to talk about the need for a policy on transformation. The practices promoted by the codes will become accepted norms for doing business in our country. Once robust and substantial contributions, as promoted by the codes, become normal business practice, BEE will become a non-issue to all of us.”
While I will use the book as we develop our coverage of BEE, it is Jack’s opening chapter that is most perspicacious. In it, he speaks of the clash between white fears and black expectations about empowerment. Traditionally white-owned companies go through what he calls a phase of denial: “We do not provide goods or services to the government who is a major proponent of BEE. Therefore, we do not need to worry about BEE. It is far removed from us,” he paraphrases. But the policies cascade and are applicable throughout the economy. Government is a huge spender in the economy and it is using its procurement budget to lever transformation.
“The black shareholder first experiences the stage of innocence where BEE is seen as a magical concept. Tales of quick wealth, easy access to capital based solely on connections and maverick deal-making among other fascinations abound,” writes Jack, adding that “often the deal-makers ambition is; ‘I’ll be sorted out for life with this one big deal’.”
Another relevant title available at major retailers at about R250 is Trailblazers: South Africa’s Champions of Change. Published by Double Storey in association with Citadel, Empowerdex and Business Times, this book is a contemporary who’s who of black business.
It lists the top 50 and top 150 most influential black business people in the country. Meant as a role-model book for young business people climbing the ladder, it is an excellent reference guide.
But Empowerdex’s definition of “influence” is questionable: it takes a company’s market capitalisation and then attributes this value even to non-executive directors. Unlike other data sets which find that empowerment is only at the nappy stage, Empowerdex’s calculation of influence can burnish BEE to a sheen it does not yet have.
Still, no quibbles with the 50 profiles in this book. They are well written and based on in-depth interviews with the top 50 black business people in the country.