Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment strives to ensure that the economy is structured and transformed to enable the meaningful participation of the majority of its citizens and to further create capacity within the broader economic landscape at all levels through skills development, employment equity, socio economic development, preferential procurement, enterprise development, promoting the entry of black entrepreneurs into the mainstream of economic activity, and the advancement of co-operatives.

BEE aims to:

• Transform South Africa’s economy to allow meaningful participation by black people and to substantially change the racial profile of companies’ owners,managers and skilled professionals;
• Increase the ownership and management of companies by black women, communities, workers, cooperatives and others, and help them access more economic opportunities;
• Promote investment that leads to broad-based and meaningful participation in the economy by black people;
• Help rural and local communities access economic opportunities;

The objectives of BBBEE, as per Section 2 of the BBBEE Bill, include:

• Promoting economic transformation in order to enable meaningful participation of black people in the economy
• Achieving a substantial change in the racial composition of ownership and management structures of existing and new enterprises
• Increasing the extent to which communities, workers, cooperatives and other collective enterprises own and manage existing and new enterprises and increasing their access to economic activities, infrastructure and skills training
• Promoting investment programmes that lead to broad-based and meaningful participation in the economy by black people in order to achieve sustainable development and general prosperity

The importance of BEE to my business:

Should you want to engage with a government body your organisation will have to be BEE compliant to be able to apply for a tender; purchase a state-owned asset or enter into a public-private partnership? Private companies that engage in business with each other may also reap the benefits of being BEE compliant through preferential procurement. Being BEE compliant means you will not miss out on prospective business from companies wanting to deal with only BEE compliant companies furthermore it could also mean you gain business from non-compliant competitors.

Your BEE certificate allows your business to become eligible for grants and obtaining finance. And you can also be a beneficiary of corporate supplier development initiatives. Complying with B-BBEE will safeguard existing business and could also promote new business – having a B-BBEE Scorecard can open doors to more lucrative and sustainable business contracts as well as tenders. By complying with B-BBBEE, organisations promote economic transformation in South Africa which in turn will promote economic growth within the country due to the increase in the extent to which communities own and manage enterprises. BBBEE legislation strives to add to the value to our society through its commitment to skills development together with the contribution to social development and transformation.

According to the DTI “South Africa’s policy of black economic empowerment (BEE) is not simply a moral initiative to redress the wrongs of the past. It is a pragmatic growth strategy that aims to realise the country’s full economic potential while helping to bring the black majority into the economic mainstream”