Initiatives in place to rev up transformation in motor industry

The minister of trade & industry, Dr
Rob Davies, has chastised the SA
motor industry for its slow movement
towards transforming the component
manufacturing sector to black
ownership.
Future policy, he said, would demand
measurable commitments by vehicle
and components manufacturers to black
supplier development.
And he threatened that
companies that didn’t comply with
the government’s desire for faster
development of more black-owned
component makers put their access to
incentives offered by the automotive
production & development programme
(APDP) – like import duty rebates and
partial investment recovery – at risk.
But the bodies for both the
component and vehicle manufacturing
industry sectors are confident that they
have the right moves in place to achieve
this faster growth rate.
“The motor industry companies,
importers and distributors accept
that transformation is imperative,
and they are all pursuing this end,”
Nico Vermeulen, director of the
National Association of Automobile
Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa), told
FTW. “Naamsa has a number of
initiatives in place to achieve this.”
Renai Moothilal, executive director
of the National Association of
Automotive Component and Allied
Manufacturers of SA (Naacam), agreed
that the industry’s transformation
process had been too slow for the past
20 years.
“Transformation needs to run,” he
said. “We agree with the viewpoint that
growth of black-owned component
suppliers is essential for the whole
supply chain.”
And Naacam, he told FTW, had
adopted a strategy comprising a
number of initiatives to achieve this.
Some of these supplier-development
initiatives are already under way, and
a number of companies have their own
programmes.
“We are, for example, piloting
a black supplier-development
programme,” Moothilal said.
“Added to that, we have a series of
workshops rolling out an ownership
model that component manufacturers
looking to comply with black economic
empowerment (BEE) codes can follow.”
Dave Coffey, MD of Shatterprufe
and president of Naacam, pointed
out that this road show encouraged
members to sell off noncore activities
to black investors — “or, even better, to
the employees who work there” — but
retain them as suppliers.