The BEE issue

[Fanie]

I've briefly read a few posts regarding BEE and the trend seems mostly the same.

I'm not BEE, not interested in it, won't register to become BEE either, I've been pestered with it, threatened and probably lost some work because of it.

Bottom line is I spent years to have what I have, no government paid for what I know and the skills I have. I did it, me alone.

So will someone please explain to me who the hell gives this government the right to tell me I must give away even part of what I have worked to have while others were not prepared to do anything !

Surely after 17 years in power under the free ANC government where black people were favoured and had access to education there has to be these aspirant black entropeneurs brimming with skills and potentials who is going to flood the market with business. Where are they !!!!

One problem I see is that most people think they are forced to become BEE. How can any one force this. If nobody became BEE then where would BEE be now. Non existant. You cannot lose business if you are the source.

We have been experiencing HUGE problems with poor supplying from BEE companies. Something that has taken a week to manufacture in the 'old' SA now takes two months.

Just today I had a talk with yet another company manager. The semi literate answers the phone, firstly unprofessionally, then when you respond in Afrikaans you get put through from one person to the next never to reach where you want to be. Or they just put you on hold. This is terrorism of the business and discriminating against me, and I have been experiencing it quite a few times, the business owner unaware of it.

Well this is the thing that BEE does, it puts illiterate and uncapable people in positions they should not be in. If you think about it, it must be VERY humiliating for a person to be forced to do a job they cannot do !

Ok I'm on a tangent again (usually does)

The point is, if BEE creates such a big problem, why not just dump it and live without it. Nothing prevents you from employing capable black people if they are right for the job, you just don't have to employ or put up with uncapable and illiterate workers any more. I cannot understang why you would give your power to someone else.

[KimH]

Hi Fanie,

I can understand and probably relate to a number of the points that you have made in your post, however BEE is unfortunately a fact of business life in SA and rather than raging against the machine perhaps consider using it to your advantage.

The Company I work for had no choice but to become BEE compliant and we have just been through our annual review. What I would like to do is give you a better understanding of how the scoring works - please bear in mind that ours is a Small Enterprise (turnover over 5 million but under 35 million per annum).

There are 7 Elected Elements of which you need to choose 4 - the options are:

1. Ownership
2. Management & Control
3. Employment Equity
4. Skills Development
5. Procurement
6. Enterprise Development
7. Socio-Economic Development

Your first concern is 'giving away what you have worked so hard to build':

Our elected elements are 3;4;5;7 - therefore the ownership and major controls within our business remain unchanged from when the 2 owners set up this business 14 years ago.

Your additional concerns are the quality of staff and poor work output:

I think it is unfair for anyone to assume that all 'black' people are incapable and illiterate - there is also no law that prevents a business owner from applying careful recruitment and selection processes to ensure the right person is hired the first time. Furthermore training and development of staff bear it's own benefits as well.

When dealing with unhelpful employees at other companies, exercise your right to complain - business owners need to be made aware that their service, delivery, etc is not up to spec.

A last thought - Embrace and give change a chance, find the opportunity and turn the negative to your advantage.

[BusFact]

Fanie, I have had (and sometimes still do have) the same feelings and views as you have expressed. However KimH has given a most sensible reply.

You are free to ignore BEE in your business. You will lose some customers, but should ultimately survive if you run a good operation.

I have decided to simply think of it as a form of tax that one has to pay for doing business in SA. I have to pay a few grand each year for the verification and maybe have to do some admin around it. Just like VAT, PAYE, UIF, Income tax, SDL, COID, company audit and trying to sort out municipal account stuff ups.

However I don't have to give any company control away. As KimH has mentioned, we simply choose sections that don't involve company control. If your turnover is under R5million, you don't even have to choose, you are already sorted.

I even have to admit it may give me some positive results. Its made me look at what they want to evaluate and one section for example is training. This is something my staff should be doing anyway, but now its given me some focus by forcing me to look at it and stop procrastinating.

I don't think you can blame bad service on BEE. Any half decent company will train their frontline staff properly irrespective if they were employed to satisfy BEE requirements or not.

However you look at it, BEE is just not worthing getting stressed over unless your whole business involves government tenders and each point is critical. You have more important and influential things to worry about.

[sterne.law@gmail.com]

BBBEE will law will always cause debate.
A few things to clear up -
Nothing forces you to comply - unless you are a government agency.
To say that the government has had 17 years to balance things out is some what harsh. Group Areas act was not the first and the only piece of legislation that discriminated. Legislation dates back to 1810 and some of it makes the Group Areas Act seem "nice" So to expect 200 years of wrong to be corrected in 17 is non sensical. By the same token it does not mean we should wait 200 years!!!!!!!
There is no COMPULSORY element of BBBEE that says you must have Black ownership!!! You can score your points through other stuff, in fact a company should get at least 65% without hassle. Black ownership was/is the shortcut method and probably the biggest fault with the "system". It was for this reason that BEE was changed to BBBEE - to move away from top down to bottom up approach.
It is this top down approach that leads to incapable people being in middle, senior and executive positions, which in turn leads to resentment and also means that those that are capable are cast in the same pot, some what unfairly.
Company' s that have and are adopting the bottom up approach, that is spend time and money on the training, perhaps bursaries(which score spoints on social side) may not benefit as quickly but build a more solid and stable work environment that is sustainable.
BBBEE is probably once agin an example of good intention and thought process but poor execution fueled by the quick fix mentality.

[Dave A]

I think what concerns me most about the OP is the implied connection between color and competence. The two are totally unrelated - the real connection is between training/education/experience and competence.

When I was visiting Spain, I could not speak a word of Spanish and it did make things tricky. It certainly didn't make me any less intelligent.

The OP doesn't like BEE. I don't like BEE. But as long as you frame competence levels along racial lines you're actually validating BEE's existence.

[BusFact]

But as long as you frame competence levels along racial lines you're actually validating BEE's existence.

Now thats an excellent point. Hadn't thought of it like that before.

[Fanie]

This has nothing to do with the old scapegoat 'racism' and the next that will be brought in here is the 'apartheid' excuse - (whatever that is). Why does someone always come up with the 'they are not ALL like that', the discussion isn't about what applies to each and every single one out there, but in general (same as blacks are not all bad, but neither are all whites good).

Business has very little to do with your skin colour, I have to do with them all, and I do not feel I have to discriminate against any group.

BEE is actually racist, by demanding so or so many people in a business (any and all) must be from this or that race group. Then why are black businesses only black and why aren't they penalised for not having a majority of the other groups in there... ? although I don't know of any self started and functional black companies... enlighten me.

It sounds to me like the all black movements you get in SA and the USA - of which there are HUNDREDS, but if someone dares to start a white movement they are critisized as racists. What's wrong with this picture ?

The problem is people are not employed on the basis of their abilities, but on the basis to qualify for the financial advantage. Start by trying to phone the city council and try to locate a capable person that can handle a problem.
Phone private companies and just hear how their phones are answered. Then try to get technical information from Philamon who is the 'expert' on the floor but hardly knows what you're talking about. (and no, not ALL of them are incompetent - but most are ! ).

The result is a poor quality employee that does not belong in a post other than making their presence 'legal'.You cannot expect government to function one way but the private sector has to operate another way.
Why are competent whites still laid off so blacks can take their place - mostly a lesser capable person - or our services would not be in the state they are in - you will agree with me when your power goes off for an extended period of time.

There is a reason why 8 million of the 12 million whities already left SA, and this is one of the reasons.

You all seems to forget, or is not old enough to know what it was like before this lot took over.

If I have to make a choice between having to deal with someone I cannot fire or do away with on the basis of his ethnic status -or live with the consequenses - I'll choose the consequenses each time. I just have to listen to the demands made on businesses by people who did nothing to it getting there to make me tatally allergic.

[Fanie]

When I was visiting Spain, I could not speak a word of Spanish and it did make things tricky. It certainly didn't make me any less intelligent.

In SA they would have made you receptionist to qualify for BEE !

If you are not capable of doing a job then you must not be appointed in the post. There is a jealousy from blacks because white people have certain abilities. Take pilots for instance, black people does not have the ability or the judgement to do professional flying. So why MUST there be black pilots ? Does it really matter HOW many white vs black pilots there are - and why does it matter ? There are many jobs that black people excell in, but I do not hear whites crying about it !

the real connection is between training/education/experience and competence

Absolutely ! If you go into a shop to buy something, do you expect the person who is going to help you do so in a sensible way or are you content with, after wasting your time, eh eh eh eish I will cal the boss kind of thing ?

It does not matter if the guy in a post is green or blue - if he does the job best then he is in the right position. It does not work in SA unfortunately.

I do not think the reason for BEE is to distribute work fairly, it is a one way valve only.

[Fanie]

To say that the government has had 17 years to balance things out is some what harsh.

Well, the same excuses are still being used today that was used 17 years ago. In another 17 years time we will still hear them. Not sure what ground reform has to do with BEE.

During the 'apartheid' years black people claimed they did not have equal opportunity to become what they can become.

Now that they have, where are those that come out of the educational system, start businesses and flourish. 17 years is more then long enough for this to happen, in fact there should have been a bunch coming out there for a few years - unless it's going to take centuries !

It has nothing to do with balancing things out. There is nothing to balance out. You take what is there and what is available and you build on that.

This gov got a working (not perfect) infrastructure with everything in place but functional. It is currently being screwed up well enough that we are dumped into crisis after crisis after crises. BEE is but one of the tools to keep you buzy and keep you uncomfortable and out of what is really going on.

[AndyD]

Phone private companies and just hear how their phones are answered. Then try to get technical information from Philamon who is the 'expert' on the floor but hardly knows what you're talking about. (and no, not ALL of them are incompetent - but most are ! ).

The last two or three times I got rained on I was wearing my springbok rugby jersey therefore it must be my springbok rugby jersey that causes it to rain. It doesn't always rain when I wear it but I'm convinced it has an effect on the weather most of the time.
If you can see a hole in this statement you'll understand why I see a hole in yours. Just because you had bad experiences with service assistants who were black it doesn't follow that their skin colour is the problem or even that most black service assistants are incompetent.

There is a jealousy from blacks because white people have certain abilities. Take pilots for instance, black people does not have the ability or the judgement to do professional flying.

This sounds to me like you're claiming black people are biologically inferior and you're also suggesting that they know it and harbour ill feelings against white people because of it. I'm at least going to ask you to come up with some credible evidence to back up your opinion. In fact it would be great if you could show some evidence for these next two statements as well please.

Why are competent whites still laid off so blacks can take their place - mostly a lesser capable person

There is a reason why 8 million of the 12 million whities already left SA, and this is one of the reasons.

[Fanie]

There are 7 Elected Elements of which you need to choose 4 - the options are:

1. Ownership
2. Management & Control
3. Employment Equity
4. Skills Development
5. Procurement
6. Enterprise Development
7. Socio-Economic Development

Kim, I don't know what position you have in your company, but let me explain it perhaps in another way.
What you have in your home is something that you and your husband/wife gathered over some time. It is your's and you worked to have what you have, right ?

Now - an outsider of a different ethnic group is going to move into your house and expects any of the four points on your list to be enforced in his favour - or your accounts double the end of the month. No come on, think about if for a minute. Apply BEE inside your home and see if you are staying or moving.

In a business that you don't own or where you did not spend your own blood sweat and tears to get where it is today it is easy to 'give away'. Most of the big business guys doesn't care as long as het gets more contracts and makes more money, but there are those that is proud of their humble 'achivement', for what it's woth any way.

[tec0]

Fanie -> I have lost more companies that I care to remember, what I personally know is with a "partner" that has no real interest in your company is that they “close down” and “liquidate” and normally one is left with nothing. That was my first and last experience with this “system”.

Yes family took over a few of my ventures and yes it was steered to the ground but again I am an easy soft person so... In my life I have made about 3 people very rich and was rewarded with a “notice” because I was considered a “threat”. I fired myself on a few occasions.

I even worked for free for one of South Africa’s largest companies in hope of employment and I was forfeited due to my pigmentation. I have paid for studies “very expensive studies” got “good” qualifications based on the national qualifications framework or NQF “I stand to be corrected” and had contract work for a view months then the “policies changed” and I basically lost what little I had left.

Now I am a degenerate gambler, my health is a joke and I am trying to get my “new” business going as my old one is indeed facing a slow execution as I cannot compete against large corporations and there low prices and good standing with the “system”

Slowly everything is slipping away, it like trying to hang onto hot water. In the end I find that things are just close to impossible.

So just be happy you have what you have. And try to hang on to it “responsibly”

Don’t get mad get educated, there is so much we don’t know and maybe, just maybe you will stumble onto a brilliant way to deal with problems and then set an example for others to follow.

[Fanie]

The last two or three times I got rained on I was wearing my springbok rugby jersey therefore it must be my springbok rugby jersey that causes it to rain. It doesn't always rain when I wear it but I'm convinced it has an effect on the weather most of the time.
If you can see a hole in this statement you'll understand why I see a hole in yours. Just because you had bad experiences with service assistants who were black it doesn't follow that their skin colour is the problem or even that most black service assistants are incompetent.



This sounds to me like you're claiming black people are biologically inferior and you're also suggesting that they know it and harbour ill feelings against white people because of it. I'm at least going to ask you to come up with some credible evidence to back up your opinion. In fact it would be great if you could show some evidence for these next two statements as well please.

How did biology get into this ? I'm not claiming black people are inferior in any way - but they are under developed to perform in posts they are employed in as a preference to white people. It is the same as expecting YOU to be able to do what I do, you cannot, but you still get put into such a post whether you can or not.

Let me give you some credible evidence -

The government has GIVEN hundreds of farms to black farmers to date. It was on Tv a little while ago that the last three is now also on the edge of bancrupsy. The minister was showed very upset wondering why a brand new tractor was sold for R 15 000 by the 'farmer', animals dying of thirst. Not a single farm was sucsessfull. All these farmers had the same excuse 'No but the gaverment did not give us money to farm'.

Do you have any idea what white farmers came home to after the war ? Nothing ! Their houses were burnt to the ground. There was no live stock alive, whatever they had was destroyed. How come these people stood back up without government help, without disater funds, without any money and without any posessions !

If they WERE THE SAME they would have sat in a straw or muddy leanto waiting for something to happen to enhance the conditions.

You have to think about a few things to realise there are differences between different races in SA. Also the quicker you begin to realise that all people are not equal the sooner you will realise we have all different abilities. You cannot force someone to have the same abilities that someone else has, and this is what BEE does !

The redicule of the situation in SA is that around 3500 farmers were murdered to date. Do you know what 3500 people in a place looks like ? You claim you are a rugby fan, how does 3500 people in a group look like ! The government did squat to date to protect the food source of our country (never mind the persons) with the result that we have gone from exporters of produce to importers. No farmer no food.

This is the same as you woking where you do but now you have to pay the boss to be able to work there. In my opinion no government with any kind of integrity would stand for something like this. Don't tell me we are the same - a different government would firstly protect the assets of the country then worry about what they can gain personally !

Whe I was doing military service I remember, if a farmer had drought troubles the army brought water and feed for the animals because that farmer is our bread and butter (in case you don't know where it comes from). This non thinking government doesn't think so.

How many examples do you need ! South Africa is not in a recession for the same reason the rest of the world is ! We should not be in a recession at all - in fact, South Africa should be cashing in on the rest of the world !

Here, look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuEc-nFULY8
White and black people do not think alike. Sorry, blame God, perhaps his sense of humour.

My opinion - (similar as HF Verwoerd said many years ago). I say the few whites in the country cannot run and maintain the whole country. Black people has to become educated and litterated and skilled so that we as a country can build and flourish. And BEE is not helping - it's ruining.

[tec0]

Right, just one tiny little question... how are labour brokers not exploiting minorities? You make a wonderful argument but the truth is, I remember some stupid idea of people working together. It was a first attempt of a “Volks Staat” and do you know what happened?

Well white people exploited other white people to a degree where it resembled slavery. The rich and powerful gave the “workers” so little that they couldn’t live and by force they couldn’t leave. Eventually the system broke down “yes there were much more elements but the short of it is; not everything is everyone’s fault.

Remember this “if” South Africa fails we "all of us!!!" fail with it...

Being brash about it, is not helping...

[Fanie]

Hi Tec0,

Sorry about your misfortunes.
I may not be able to help much, except maybe with a message !