Giovanni Arrighi, in his Marxist diagnosis of the dilemmas of development in contemporary South Africa, maintains that “to be developmental, a 21st century developmental state must be a capability-enhancing state.
Expanding the citizenry is not just a ‘welfare’ goal. It is the inescapable foundation for sustained growth—” The Black Management Forum (BMF) has been pursuing this fundamental goal for development and transformation since its inception almost 35 years ago.
It has been at the forefront of the pursuit of socioeconomic transformation by advocating transformation and developing managerial leadership primarily (not exclusively) among black people and creating organisational structures and processes that reflect the values of the wider society.
The BMF is a non-racial thoughtleadership organisation. It is not apolitical but it is non-partisan. It seeks to influence government policy, business attitude and societal behaviour to achieve its mission.
It is indeed a daunting task to seek to bean count the success of the organisation given the nature of the interventions that the BMF continues to make over the years. At a policy level our interventions do not just benefit our members but society at large.
For instance, the BMF has been instrumental in the formulation of the Employment Equity Act, since inception from green paper stage to the current legislation. Also the BMF was the midwife of the broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) legislation, having taken a resolution at the 1997 BMF conference in the Western Cape to establish a BEE commission to research and formalise black economic empowerment.
We now have a few billionaires and millionaires in the country, though some unfortunately do not have the humility to realise that their accelerated wealth accumulation was assisted by this progressive legislation. How else could you explain how the wealth of some black people today rivals that of people like the Ruperts and the Oppenheimers who built their wealth over generations.
The forum sees these two policies as BMF victories and thus we have a responsibility to defend them when they are under attack even by political parties. This is when we get criticised and labelled as a branch of the ANC.
The BMF has yet to realise the dream of being an institute of leadership that can directly train and develop the calibre of leadership that will make Africa a point of departure in all leadership matters.
We argue that until we achieve this dream we will continue to suffer from leadership that will have divided loyalty, on the one hand, espousing a Western approach while, in the subconscious mind, there will always be this Afrocentric void that continues to haunt those with the patriotic conscience.
The various progressive pronouncements that we religiously make in the various forums are attempts and efforts to close this void so that indeed we achieve some kind of balance and cultural inclusivity.
Indeed these pronouncements are transformational in nature and thus by definition continually create a burning platform and an unsettling environment for those who are benefiting from the status quo — traditionally only the white people were in this situation but they have since been joined by black people who have allowed themselves to be assimilated.
The modus operandi of the BMF is that when you have transformed the top, the culture of the organisation gets influenced accordingly and hence it is not desirable to have black people at the top who try to outcompete white people in being white. This co-option tendency robs the nation of the much desired diversity.
The membership of the BMF spreads across tertiary institutions, young professionals and all the way to senior executives. We therefore have mentorship programmes for young people where we seek to inculcate the BMF values of ubuntu, integrity, honesty and respect.
We are also strong advocates of a strong work ethic and professionalism. We argue that our graduates are better prepared for the labour market challenges than any other innocent graduate.
The BMF is proud to list people like Don Mkhwanazi, Lot Ndlovu and Nolitha Fakude, to name but three, who have cut their teeth on the BMF platform and were developed to be the brands they are today. The BMF has now broadened its area of intervention under the theme of economic revolution to benefit society in general and our members in particular.
The new frontiers are now ownership, procurement and enterprise development. It is this new approach that has seen the BMF challenging the efficacy of the property clause in the Constitution and the procurement policy of government.
We are critical of the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act (PPPFA) because of its non transformational/developmental tenets as espoused in its 90:10 formula, where 90% of the points are awarded on price and only 10% for BEE. Clearly this does not create any incentive to transform.
We are calling for a repeal of this legislation and to have it replaced by the procurement provisions of the BBBEE codes. We encourage black people to start their own businesses, hence our focus on enterprise development because we again argue that until small and medium enterprises are vertically integrated into the economic mainstream they will continue unsustainably in the periphery.
Being in the BMF provides one with a unique and a distinct privilege to make a meaningful contribution to society. As an organisation we are more interested in selfless members who want to use their vantaged positions to develop others rather the ones who ask the question, “What’s in it for me?”
Our approach to life is not about targeting and benefiting individuals per se, but a principled approach to transform society as a whole.
Jimmy Manyi is president of Black Management Forum