BEE charter delay persists for f&c industry

WHILE THE black economic empowerment (BEE) scorecard for the forwarding and clearing (f&c) sub-sector of the transport industry has been finalised, the overall transport charter (into which it falls) has not – with some of the other sub-sectors, particularly the taxis, not yet up-to-speed. This has follows the gazetting of the codes of good practice on broadbased black economic empowerment (BBBEE) in February – when a generic scorecard was also devised, on which the transport industry will base its BEE progression until the individual sub-sector scorecards are ratified by the department of transport (DoT). And that, according to industry sources, is only likely to happen later in 2008. “The intention,” FTW was told, “is that when everything is completed, the transport charter will be launched with all the subsector scorecards attached.” Most likely process with the f&c industry would be for the minister of transport to gazette it as a Section 12 organisation – which would encourage agents to adopt the charter and its scorecard. Once all the sectors are ready, then the f&c industry would be classified as a Section 9 organisation – when the industry scorecard would become obligatory, and companies would not be allowed to use the generic scorecard. NOTE: The generic scorecard awards points amounting to a total of 100 on the seven elements of – ownership (20 points), management control (10), employment equity (15), skills development (15), preferential procurement (20), enterprise development (15) and socio-economic development (5).