How has the BBBEE Amendment Act changed the BEE codes?
The Broad-Based Black Empowerment (BBBEE) Amendment Act was gazetted at the end of last month and it is estimated that if your audit falls before 23 October, you’ll be subject to the current codes. If your audit falls after this date, you’ll be audited according to the new codes. Richard Pruett of Format Systems advises that to keep your BEE status up to date, you need to pay attention to what these new codes say.
Speaking at a recent breakfast seminar held at CRS Technologies, Pruett emphasised a number of important changes to the BEE codes. Here are a few:
• If you’re a level 1 company and don’t comply with the new regulations in terms of ownership, skills development, and enterprise and supplier development, you’ll lose your level 1 BEE status.
• Companies who earn over R50 million have to achieve certain minimum requirements in terms of ownership, skills development, and enterprise and supplier development.
• Companies that have turnover of a turnover of between R5 and R35 million per year (called qualifying small enterprises) have to achieve certain minimum requirements in terms of ownership and either:
- Management and control,
- Skills development,
- Enterprise and supplier development, or
- Socio-economic development.
• If you employ all the individuals you take in on learnerships you’ll receive five points.
• An astounding 10 points will come your way if you spend money on developing your suppliers.
“Now, more than ever, (and particularly with the new codes) BEE is becoming a really critical area in most businesses,” says Pruett.
“No one’s an expert yet because these codes are still too new. There’s already talk of a working group being developed in the Department of Trade and Industry to resolve the queries that are flooding in about the codes themselves and their implementation.
“So yes, we’ve got the codes but these are not all clear: there are going to be changes, fine tuning but what we can do, in the meantime, is look at the bigger picture,” concluded Pruett.
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Lia Marus is the editor of HR Pulse. She has a BA in French, Italian and Linguistics from UCT, an MA in translation from Wits and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management from the Wits Business School. She is currently studying towards her LLB through Unisa. Lia started her career off in corporate communications, where she worked as a sub-editor, researcher and marketing coordinator. She then heeded the call of the publishing world and went into the business-to-business publishing field. She worked as a sub-editor as well as a chief sub-editor. Before joining ITWeb, she managed an HR guidebook at a leading international publishing company. |
