South Africa’s fledgling black economic empowerment (BEE) verification industry is being allowed to write the rules of BEE verification in its own favour, resulting in a closed shop of agents that benefit from keeping the costs of verification high, says Kevin Lester, owner of BEE consultancy Mohlaleng Transcend.
As the retail boom continues in South Africa, fears are mounting that the concentration of power in the hands of large retailers and shopping centre landlords is growing unchecked in tandem with excessive mall development, which is wreaking havoc among independent retailers in the country’s CBDs and high streets.
The small business tax amnesty runs out at the end of this month but, so far, fewer than 5 000 of South Africa’s estimated 114 000 minibus-taxi operators have applied for it, setting the scene for what could be a major clash between the South African Revenue Service (Sars) and the country’s most difficult industry.
Khula Enterprise Finance, the government’s small business finance agency, is planning to stick its toe into the turbulent water of direct lending to owner-managed businesses this year. It’s a sore toe, stepped upon by critics for being ineffective, stubbed by failed microcredit schemes and some internal fraud.
Thousands of small shop owners throughout South Africa are bearing the brunt of the national lottery freeze, with some reporting a dramatic loss of Saturday turnover and earnings. "It is now the second Saturday with no Lotto and my turnover on those two Saturdays has dropped by as much as 50%," says Jan Snyder, who runs Pasty’s, a convenience store in Durbanville.
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/ 23 February 2007
Millions of insects zapped with gamma-rays and let loose into the wild to destroy their mates. The very thought is enough to make any self-respecting greenie choke on his tofu. Actually, the sterile insect technique is as environmentally friendly as it gets, and forms a major part of "integrated pest management" as mainstream farmers move away from spraying poisons.
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/ 8 December 2006
After years of waging a low-key campaign to be recognised as black under South Africa’s laws of redress, local Chinese are squaring up to the government in the High Court. The Chinese Association of South Africa (Casa) wants to seek a declaratory order for South African Chinese to be treated as coloured and benefit from the Employment Equity Act and the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act.
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/ 13 November 2006
South Africa seems to be so fixated on black economic empowerment (BEE) that the unprecedented white economic empowerment taking place is either not noticed, simply assumed to be natural, or denied. The fact that it makes for an uncomfortable acronym probably doesn’t help either. When FNB recently released a breakdown of the country’s most wealthy individuals, one headline read: "Many of SA’s super-rich are black."
When the Cabinet is handed the final version of the department of trade and industry’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Codes, small business will be watching to see how government intends to regulate them. Governments have always been keen to regulate business. But one would struggle to find an intervention more subtle, far-reaching and — here’s the rub — more complicated than the BEE codes.
The small business community in South Africa has rapidly expanded over the past seven years. It is alive and kicking, with lots of painful growth, extraordinary successes, shattered dreams and ruined credit records.