That was said by the Director-General of the Department of Trade and Industry (The DTI), Mr Lionel October. He was speaking at the graduation ceremony of the first B-BBEE Management Development Programme (MDP) certificate function that was held at Unisa.
The DTI in partnership with University of South Africa (UNISA) and WITS last year launched a standardised national Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) MDP with the aim of institutionalising B-BBEE within the economic system and to professionalise the current B-BBEE Industry.
The progamme is also intended to develop a national standardised knowledge based that capacitates the entire B-BBEE industry which includes B-BBEE Consultants, B-BBEE verifiers, private and public sector practitioners.
Speaking at the event, October urged the newly qualified B-BBEE practitioners to take note of the wealth of growth opportunities that South Africa and Africa is facing. He said that growth and empowerment are interlinked and that sound B-BBEE practice will strengthen the growth potential of our country. On behalf of the Minister of Trade and Industry he thanked UNISA School of Business Leadership (SBL) and Wits for the pioneering work that has been done in establishing the B-BBEE MDP certificate programme.
Unisa Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Proffesor Mandla Makhanya reiterated that the ceremony marks a milestone in the history of B-BBEE not only at the Unisa, but also, South Africa. He mentioned that when the B-BBEE verification process commenced with the introduction of the Broad-Based BEE strategy and the B-BBEE Act, the process has achieved variable success.
'However, some benefitted enormously from B-BBEE, and others claim to have been denied access to B-BBEE opportunities because of an array of reasons. This state of affairs set the scene for the regulation of the B-BBEE verification industry, heralding a move away from a self-regulated system,' said Prof Makhanya said.
The aim is to qualify up to 3 000 students by the end of the current three-year contract between UNISA SBL, Wits Enterprise and THe DTI. Before the end of 2012 the plan is to present the B-BBEE certificate in all nine provinces of South Africa. To date training has already been scheduled in Cape Town and Durban. The DTI also announced a bursary scheme that will enable financially challenged candidates to complete the programme.
The B-BBEE Management Development Programme is a 60-credit short learning programme, comprising five modules. The programme is presented at an NQF level 7 with two modes of delivery - one being the fast track, which is a one-month programme or the normal track, which spans over a six-month period.
Enquiries:
Sidwell Medupe - Departmental Spokesperson
Tel: 012 394 1650
Cell: 079 492 1774
E-mail: MSMedupe@thedti.gov.za
Cristal Peterson - Deputy-Director
Marketing and Communications, UNISA Graduate School of Business Leadership
Tel: 011 652 0315
Fax: 011 652 0299
E-mail:petercr@unisa.ac.za
