Anglo American’s South African units turned to black companies for 37% of total goods and services procured in 2008 as part of a drive to meet affirmative action targets, it said on Monday.
The black economic empowerment (BEE) scheme is designed to include more black South Africans in the country’s mainstream economy after decades of exclusion, and requires companies to meet quotas on black ownership, employment and procurement.
Anglo, the lead investor in South Africa with interests in platinum, coal, iron ore, diamonds and gold among other resources, said it spent R23,3-billion on procuring goods and services from black companies last year.
It also invested in small and medium businesses and said the combined turnover of these development initiatives, aimed at empowering black entrepreneurs, totalled R1,3-billion.
Anglo said its total spending on black procurement plus the turnover from the small businesses it supported rose 42% in 2008 versus the previous year.
The diversified miner said the development initiative, Anglo Zimele, had invested in nine new companies last year, while its junior mining investment arm Anglo Khula Mining Fund invested in two new mining ventures.
The country’s mining charter says companies must sell a 26% stake to blacks by 2014, and increase the number of black managers among their ranks to 40%.
Headquartered in London, the Anglo group accounts for more than 2% of South Africa’s entire gross domestic product, and is the largest employer in the private sector, with about 77 000 permanent staff and about 35 000 contractors. – Reuters