Transport sector B-BBEE charter available from DoT

In a piece of grand political rhetoric, minister of transport Jeff Radebe has just launched the integrated transport sector B-BBEE (broad-based black economic empowerment) charter in Kliptown, Soweto – the birthplace of the ANC’s freedom charter in 1955. “This,” said Fred Jacobs, Safmarine executive and one of the guiding hands behind the maritime sub-sector charter, “is an amalgam of the eight sub-sector charters – namely aviation, bus, forwarding and clearing, maritime transport and services industry, public sector, rail, road freight and taxi.” The integrated charter is available in booklet form from the department of transport – including each of the charters for the sub-sectors. It’s going to be a valuable guideline for industry, according to Gavin Kelly, operations manager for the Road Freight Association (RFA), who added that it had been keenly awaited for some time. Radebe commented: “The finalisation of this charter has been a long and painstaking process, largely because of the complexities in the industry itself,” he said. “But also because, as we were trying to finalise it, there was also thinking in government about how we can make this strategic intervention benefit as many of our people as possible.” The codes of good practice on BEE that were gazetted and released in February 2007 provided a legal framework for aligning all the charters, Radebe added. “These were, of course, informed by the BEE Act of 2003. This should tell you that before the existence of the BEE Act and the codes of good practice, the transport sector was already ahead with the development of BEE charters. “It was then necessary to align all the sub-sector charters after the issuing of the final department of trade and industry codes of good practice on BEE.”