launch of ABSIP Women in Focus, Johannesburg Securities Exchange
19 July 2006
Programme Director and ABSIP Deputy President, Ms Nomkhitha Nqweni,
Minister of Trade and Industry, Mandisi Mpahlwa,
Mr. Sello Moloko, President of ABSIP, and the entire ABSIP Executive
Team,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
50 Years of Womenâs Heroic Struggles
Next month, on 9 August, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of that
historic march of 20 000 women to the Union Buildings, then the seat of
apartheid power. It is a day of historic significance of which each and every
woman should be proud and cherish, a day that put South African women firmly at
the centre stage of the struggle.
We must remember that the victories that were scored by those ordinary women
50 years ago, left an indelible mark in the struggle for womenâs emancipation
and equality in our struggle.
This helped to inspire a generation of women to be part of the struggle for
total liberation â meaning freedom from triple oppression â because women in
our country were oppressed as women, as workers and as black people in an
apartheid society.
When we celebrate that march, therefore, this year we must remember what it
symbolises and what is its political significance. It says that women have come
a long way to be where they are today.
While women have total political freedom today they still face a number of
challenges in the economic and social arena. Womenâs emancipation will not be
complete until these have been achieved as well. We must reflect about what
this means to us as women who are liberated and are in the corridors of
corporate power.
ABSIP in the Banking and the Financial Sector
ABSIP is an important stakeholder in the banking and financial services
sector. There is no doubt that this sector is the foundation upon which
successful modern economies of countries are built. It is also equally
befitting that ABSIP has brought about the AWIF brand to represent the other
missing puzzle in the space of economic engines.
The entire financial services sector employs more women than men, yet the
corporate corridors of the same institutions are overwhelmingly dominated by
men. This is the challenge to all of us.
We are encouraged that the women of ABSIP saw it fit to create a closer
collaboration and create an avenue to increase the number of women, and mentor
more women into the sector.
We are equally encouraged and would like to congratulate your esteemed
ambassadors. I have no doubt that you have given them a lot of tasks but on my
part, I am expecting them to hold firmly onto the ladders that delivered them
to the echelons of the corporate world so that they can bring even more,
younger, women to join them.
In the variable multi-faceted evolution that womenâs emancipation has gone
through, there is still a big room for improvement in areas such as finance. It
is notable that access to this sector often determines the social class to
which you belong; it is in this sector where your home address, the type of
bank account you hold, the position you hold at work are amongst the factors
that discriminate you from wealth creating opportunities.
In as much as financial knowledge has always been important in our lives,
access to such knowledge is still a privilege to few people. The financial
sector empowers an ordinary person with:
* Personal financial planning & management â including banking,
insurance and credit management.
* Family financial affairs, including education of children. This is one of the
most common causes of family fights.
* Ability to manage and own businesses, no matter how small.
* Increased general financial literacy, especially for women.
JIPSAâs Identified Scarce and Priority Skills:
In summary and based on the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for
South Africa (AsgiSA) priorities, the following working areas for Joint
Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition JIPSA have been identified:
* high-level, world-class engineering and planning skills for the ânetwork
industriesâ â transport, communications and energy - all at the core of our
infrastructure programme
* city, urban and regional planning and engineering skills - desperately
needed by our municipalities
* artisan and technical skills, with priority attention to those needs for
infrastructure development
* management and planning skills in education, health and in
municipalities
* teacher training for mathematics, science, information and communication
technologies (ICT) and language competence in public education
* specific skills needed by the priority AsgiSA, sectors starting with
tourism and business process outsourcing and cross-cutting skills needed by all
sectors, especially finance; project managers and managers in general
* skills relevant to the local economic development needs of municipalities,
especially developmental economists.
Women, African women in particular, have home grown talents in areas of
music, fine and creative arts & crafts, design capabilities, fantastic
poetic and story telling qualities, some have very strong physical bodies and
are athletic.
When we talk about the training of women, these are some of the fields for
which you can train women in their natural environment and help them graduate
from poverty.
To complement these genetic and inherent natural talents of women with
relevant financial skills, will bridge the majority of women from the second to
the first economy, if only they knew how to make a living from such
qualities.
Critical Skills needed by our Economy
The AsgiSA interventions are dependent upon skills development in key
priority areas, as skills feature as some of the most critical areas of need
for the success of the entire programme. Sadly, we still have the challenge of
some youth who fail to acquire job opportunities even after investing in a good
three to four years of tertiary education.
In a survey conducted by the Department of Education, in the context of
unemployed graduates, to establish what it was that employers wanted, it was
concluded that the fundamental qualities are good communication skills, problem
solving skills and information technology skills.
The foundation of these traits is obtained from reading, writing,
calculation and ICT training.
The skills challenges that we face today necessitates that we understand the
entire picture of from where skills come, and where they are in demanded. It is
for that reason that our various skills pathways contribute differently to our
society.
In 2005, South Africa had 700 000 students in universities, against 400 000
in colleges and other tertiary training. This trend is very different from
other international models used as benchmarks in developed economies. The
international norm is that for every one student at university, there are seven
in the lower level tertiary education system.
Of even greater significance is the fact that although financial and ICT
skills are so important in our daily lives, the rate at which students are
exposed to these fields is, to an extent, still seen as a privilege.
We are hopeful that the institutions that ABSIP members represent, as well
as your constituents will help us shape the landscape of financial literacy
that is needed by the entire nation, irrespective of whether you earn a social
grant and keep a Mzansi account or you are a successful black economic
empowerment (BEE) candidate managing several millions of rands.
The Financial Services Charter:
We commend the significant role that ABSIP has played in the formation of
the Financial Services Charter (FSC). This charter remains one of the most
critical areas of intervention that if successfully implemented, will be a
defining moment for our economy. We encourage you to continue showing strong
and dedicated leadership in the process of implementing the charter.
In a BEE Survey launched by KPMG on 29 June, it was found that:
* 55% of the 298 companies surveyed recognise BEE as a tool for both
organisational growth and compliance with legislation.
* It is encouraging that most companies have identified a board member to
drive the BEE process.
* Financial services sector scored the highest in ownership targets, but was
the lowest in skills development and on par on enterprise development. This is
disappointing given that this sector is well resourced to support entrepreneurs
with funding and mentorship and again, the sector has good resources and client
networks to create training opportunities.
* The survey also found that 20% of financial services companies did BEE
from a compliance basis.
We are looking forward to the day when we will have realised the goals of
small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) development, infrastructure
development, agriculture and BEE ownership transactions that were borne out of
the Charter, and the day when the Charter would have created a visible landmark
in our society.
I want you to remember, at all times, that the opportunities created through
the FSC must consciously be extended to youth and women. That implies a major
paradigm shift from todayâs experience where women and the youth continue to
participate second to men.
Financial Services Sector Key inputs to Shared Growth. General access to
finance for business use and access by BEEs and women to:
* micro credit
* cost of finance
* skills to grow the sector and financial literacy at basic and higher
levels
* investment decisions and country ratings
* sustain good macro-economic and fiscal regime not induced by inability to
spend
* financial plunge and spending in the public sector
* venture capital
The Role of AWIF within ABSIP
The above are some areas that ABSIP could assist in.
The behaviour of capital markets is important to all of us and from a
political side, it is always important that we create policies that will have
positive spin-offs in the economy, especially, by bringing in youth and women,
especially into the mainstream.
As black business, I want to challenge you to create a voice that is visible
and relevant towards our future in this Age of Hope. Black business has to be a
force to reckon with in policy terms and at other levels, especially dealing
with those factors that are within our ability to address. The numbers are
still very very dismal, especially with regard to women. The latest statistic
from the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) states that
there are only 2 827 black accountants in South Africa. Of those, there
are:
* 243 African Females to 474 African males
* 176 Coloured females to 243 Coloured males
* 543 Indian females to 1 148 Indian males.
In very concrete terms, I hope you can assist us with the following:
* human resource development â a ground breaking programme has been started
by KPMG which can be expanded to working with JIPSA to reach out to youth
* visibility and voices to influence investment decisions and ratings
* making South Africa a financial services sector destination for example the
development of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
* broad access to finance â BEE, housing, micro, ventures.
You are the cream of the crop of our society and we look up to you to
increase the pool of like minded people, to cross â pollinate into world of
FTSE, Fortune 500, Dow Jones, and so on.
I want to congratulate AWIF and the parent institution ABSIP for this long
awaited baby, being launched tonight, arriving in the world of abundance only
to receive an over-stretched list of expectations.
We are encouraged that as we move generations of strong women leaders, this
50th anniversary of women who marched to the Union Buildings in 1956, today we
mark a milestone of women who pave the way into stock exchanges of the
world.
I thank you.
Issued by: The Presidency
19 July 2006
