Staff Photographer
The disputes on ownership at the Financial Services Charter council are depressing but illuminating.
Illuminating because all along a lot of business people have been arguing that they are not “box tickers”, that the targets set by the BEE codes and charters are the minimum standards they have to achieve and that the industry was in fact committed to going beyond the numbers.
So you could believe that they would be seeking to achieve these targets, but the determination of the Life Offices Association (LOA) to put at risk all that has been agreed for the sake of a minimum target on ownership calls into question its commitment to true empowerment.
This raises the old view that the industry (represented by the LOA), with no track record of voluntary transformation, is reluctant at best and obstructionist at worst. You merely have to look at its executive profile to dampen any hope of being transformed or transformational.
We beneficiaries have to shoulder some of the blame for having such an institution representing our interests because our participation in or availability for such institutions is, at best, limited. It reminds one of old homeland debates about working within the system or outside it. We do not have the luxury of choosing when to be part of the system and when not to. We are part of the system and if we are docile we should shoulder the blame if our interest is represented in this manner.
I do not understand the fuss about the higher target of 15% ownership in the sector and believe that leaders should create measures and incentives to institutionalise transformation at the levels of equity, ownership, training and entrepreneurship.
The present game of brinkmanship does not take the beneficiaries into consideration but is a debate ruled by fear and regression.
The main beneficiaries of empowerment should be primarily black people, though it also offers the privileged an opportunity to be part of broader liberation.
That itself must be liberating to them. But, ultimately, it is the beneficiaries of BEE who should say “we now feel empowered”. We should not wait for surveys to bestow empowerment status or even the codes and charters so at issue now.
This creates a particular responsibility among black people to know what this process has to deliver and how it’s going to deliver. Given our history, it is difficult to believe that this delivery will happen out of the generosity, philanthropy or patriotism of the privileged group because its very essence prohibits that. It is therefore incumbent upon black people that they are the drivers of this process.
In all the debates about the financial services charter, we should not forget the basic premises of empowerment, because:
- They are moral in that they seek to eradicate the reprehensible, unfair and exclusive culture and practices of the pre-1994 era. Transforming the economy, growing it and making it accessible is the right thing to do, exclusion is not.
- They are legal — it is unlawful to discriminate unfairly as stipulated by the Constitution and other laws.
- Business will benefit from the diversity of skills and competencies it can have access to if it created opportunities for all to benefit as equals.
- Furthermore, new markets will develop as a result of the improved earning power of new entrants.