‘Start implementation now’ ALAN PEAT AFTER A year of negotiations, the broad-based black economic empowerment (BEE) charter for the forwarding, clearing and logistics industry was signed off by the negotiating team on November 30. However, according to Tony D’Almeida, who represented the forwarding industry’s “Council of 10” in the negotiating team, the charter will only be gazetted by government once the other sub-sectors in the transport industry – maritime, bus, taxi, rail, aviation and road freight – have completed and submitted their charters to the governing body, the department of transport (DoT). But, he added, in the meantime, all the interested “stakeholders” in the transport industry – government (in the form of the DoT); labour; black-owned f&c companies; bodies (like the SA Association of Freight Forwarders); and women’s groups - will be encouraging members of the industry to start work on implementing the conditions of the charter. “This charter,” said D’Almeida, “is our way of sharing with all the companies in the industry that this is what will eventually be gazetted for the f&c community – and that now is the time to align their companies to the values and principles embodied in the f&c logistics charter and scorecard.”
