The Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) has noted with great concern media reports and public misunderstanding claiming that the Revised Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Codes, in particular Statement 500 – Socio Economic Development could ruin charities.
B-BBEE is an integrated and coherent socio-economic process that directly contributes to the economic transformation of South Africa and seeks to create a just and equitable society.
Therefore, the statement that BEE Proposal could ruin charities-is not true as B-BBEE is intended to empower black people in general including designated groups such as people with disabilities, youth, and rural communities. There has never been any deviation from the original beneficiaries as defined in the B-BBEE Act, and the definition in the current B-BBEE Act of black people is a generic term which means Africans, Coloureds and Indians. The beneficiaries of B-BBEE are ‘black people’ as defined in the BEE Act No.53 of 2003, and the Employment Equity Act No.55 of 1998.
The Socio Economic Development (SED) element is addressing socio-economic developmental initiatives that can be tackled either through monetary or non-monetary contributions with the targeted beneficiaries as defined in the BEE legislation as stipulated above. BEE SED was never intended to displace Corporate Social Resp/Invest of companies, its meant to alleviate inherent social challenges confronted by a specific group of the society through no design of theirs as an add on to corporate social responsibility. Thus companies must continue to do their CSI in spite of the BEE SED.
The principle in the proposed BEE SED element still remains the same except the target has been adjusted to 100% as we are cognizant of the intended objectives of BEE. However, if less than 100% of the full value of the SED contributions directly benefits black people, the value of the contribution made multiplied by the percentage that benefits black people, is recognisable.
We still encourage the public to interrogate the proposed Codes and submit comments.
Enquiries:
Sidwell Medupe, Departmental Spokesperson
Cell: 079 492 1774
Tel: 012 394 1650
E-mail: MSMedupe@thedti.gov.za
Follow us on Twitter: the_dti
