The Commission for Employment Equity (CEE) is the latest body to enter the fray to lambaste Eskom board member Mteto Nyati, who said at the weekend that to save the troubled power utility, black economic empowerment (BEE) must go.
Nyati, a former MTN and Microsoft boss, said in the media that internal corruption was largely at the back of empowerment policies, and the country needed a radical rethink to achieve genuine transformation minus the erosive graft.
While the CEE noted in a statement yesterday that Nyati had in no way suggested that affirmative action (AA) should be done away with to save Eskom, it took the opportunity to take a position on AA.
“Solidarity’s CEO, Dirk Hermann, is said to have previously intimated that race-based transformation is responsible for Eskom’s downfall. This type of debate seems to suggest that competence is a race-based ‘born with gifts’. That could not be further from the truth,” it said
The CEE said labour market transformation through employment equity sought to transform organisations' demographic composition at all occupational levels and that nowhere in the Employment Equity Act (EEA) were employers encouraged to employ people from designated groups who did not meet the requirements of the roles they were appointed for.
“If it is true that Eskom was reckless in the way it executed AA way back in 2002, then questions need to be asked as to how this can be remedied given that it implies that there is a huge cohort of employees that are incompetent in their roles. Certainly, doing away with AA would not be the solution.
“The question would then be: ‘Does Eskom not have performance management policies, procedures and processes?’ Management would then be blamed for not doing their jobs. The EEA is very explicit that employers should give equal opportunities to suitably qualified individuals from the designated groups (black people, women and persons with disabilities) to promote equitable representative and diversified workforces that reflect the demographics of the economically active population,“ it said.
Eskom on Tuesday also defended itself against the article, saying it embraced the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act and all government policies aimed at transforming the South African economy to deal with inequality and socio-economic imbalances.
Mpho Makwana, the chairperson of the Eskom board, said: “As the Eskom leadership collective, we place a high premium on our role as a catalyst for transformation and empowerment. Eskom continues to be the largest supporter of black-owned suppliers who are positively contributing value to the production of electricity and we promote black industrialisation as a deliberate approach to supply chain management, localisation and industrialisation in our value chain.”
In the financial year ended March 2022, Eskom procured more than R134 billion worth of goods and services from B-BEE-compliant suppliers in South Africa. This represented about 76% of Eskom’s total measured procurement spend on all contracts last year, higher than the 64.5% total measured procurement spent on black-empowered suppliers in 2021.
Procurement spend on black-owned and black youth-owned suppliers rose to 47.1% in 2022, from 34.6% the previous year, it said.
On Monday, the Black Business Council (BBC) said it strongly condemned the irresponsible and reckless utterances of Nyati regarding transformation and localisation.
It said Nyati’s views dismally failed to comprehend the basics of transformation, localisation, industrialisation and empowerment in that they projected that blacks were done a favour in their own country, where they were in the majority.
The participation of black and women-owned companies in the mainstream economy through public procurement legislation was key to socio-economic justice and redress, as per the Constitution of South Africa, and “should be unapologetically implemented” by the state and all its organs without any excuses.
“It is non-negotiable. The role of the board is to monitor compliance and ensure that all current provisions of the Constitution are implemented, not to encourage non-compliance,” it said.
The BBC said it had requested an urgent meeting with the Eskom board for clarity on the interview and to understand whether Nyati’s purported views represented the views of Eskom. A way forward would be determined after this meeting, it said.
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