Equity appointees must add value
GOVERNMENT AND business should get together before any targets are set for the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) Act, according to Dr Piet Bothma, c.e.o. of the Transport Education and Training Authority (TETA).
"There's a need to get the stakeholders together to decide on targets which are achievable," Bothma said.
And there's also a question about the 2014 deadline for implementing the targeted empowerment levels Ð with 12 years possibly being too short a span to achieve anything meaningful, he added.
"It's not an easy and short-term resolution," Bothma told FTW. "It's a long-term process that needs to be put in place."
But authorities tend to be too dictatorial and impose hard targets, he added.
"International practices suggest that there must be a value-added element in any promotion within a company," said Bothma. "Diarising 2014 could mean giving added authority to people who don't add value.
"Twelve years to achieve targeted empowerment levels could be very problematic."
There are two problems. First that there's a basic element of often having to start from scratch on skills levels and work up. Second that industries tend to be slow in reacting to such changes.
In training and education Ð the necessary way to upgrade skills levels - the main focus, according to Bothma, will be on strategies for achieving even distribution of all genders and race in a business organisation.
Tied in with the BEE Act, there are also the current demands of the Employment Equity Act, which eventually aims at getting blacks to higher management levels.
The key, according to Bothma, is for even distribution of ownership to take place over a set period of time.
"An action plan is needed," he said. "Companies need to pass a policy with development targets of their own, and an employment policy to succour the plan."
This should be seen as a development strategy, making sure that there is a focus on people with potential who can be developed to the next level.
"Once you reach director level," Bothma said, "then the equity process can kick in."
In some areas, he added, there seems to be a perception that to provide equity, companies "give things away".
But companies cannot be expected to accept that, said Bothma.
"The people need to have value-added benefit to a company before equity can be re-distributed," he added. "That's international practice."
