Mining sector gearing for BEE

THE Chamber of Mines says its members are ready to embark on Government’s black economic empowerment (BEE) policy and to apply it at all mining companies once the green light is given.

‘We are waiting for somebody to press the button and inform us the empowerment policy will kick in; we have already set up a special task team,’ said Veston Malango, General Manager of the Chamber of Mines (CoM).Speaking to The Namibian last week, Malango said the CoM was taking the Transformation of Economic and Social Empowerment Framework (Tesef), as it is officially called, very seriously because it would enable previously disadvantaged Namibians to benefit from this sector of the economy.’Since mining is contributing some 12 per cent to Namibia’s economy, Tesef will play a big role in mining companies,’ Malango added.’The CoM will hold a meeting towards the end of this month to discuss Tesef because we want our members to be fully geared for the transformation process.’ The task team will extract the main issues in the 60-page document, which the CoM head office scanned and put on CD-ROM copies that were distributed to all members, and present them at the meeting, with the main emphasis on the criteria and implementation guidelines. It has been six years since Government announced it would draft a BEE policy, but it has not yet materialised. Last July, Prime Minister Nahas Angula, whose office is responsible for the drafting, confirmed to The Namibian that the document had been lying at the Swapo Party headquarters for months for consideration and to receive the final go-ahead.Asked why an official Government document had to be referred back to Swapo, he said it was a matter of ‘reaching consensus on ideologies’.’We need political consensus in the party as some [there] have the opinion that economic empowerment should not just be given, but should be earned. Others [in Swapo] feel that BEE – or Tesef, as we officially call Namibia’s transformation – should just be the co-option of previously disadvantaged Namibians [into companies],’ Angula said. ‘We must bring together these two thought lines,’ he added. He could not say when this process within Swapo would be completed. Back in 2004, Cabinet had instructed former Prime Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab and his office to embark on the drafting of the BEE policy, but this was not done. His successor, Nahas Angula, embraced the task and advertised for a consultancy. Decti Namibia under local lawyer Malverene Rittmann won the N$1,9 million contract for the policy drafting process in early 2007. Several hearings and workshops with the business sector were held over a period of about 12 months, which culminated in the printing of the Strategy Document in December 2008.Tesef outlines company ownership of up to 50 per cent to be achieved over several years for historically deprived Namibians (HDNs), 50 per cent of HDNs in management cadres, 50 per cent of board members, 50 per cent of deprived women in top, middle and junior management and ’80 per cent of previously deprived individuals (DIs) in all permanent staff’.Preferential procurement from local companies that are majority black owned will also be counting in favour of private-sector firms. The various BEE components will translate into points for an eventual scorecard to be scrutinised by a Tesef Measurement Secretariat, which will be overseen by a Tesef Governing Board. Companies have to register there for Tesef compliance and to obtain their scores.White women also fall under DIs but their ownership is limited to 30 per cent.However, with the delay caused by the Swapo headquarters, no law for Tesef is in sight yet and economic analysts doubt that it will happen this year. The financial sector recently adopted a voluntary BEE policy along similar lines as the proposed Tesef, and it was given the green light by Finance Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila. The Namibian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI) held a business summit last June and published a BEE position paper, which states that ‘the lack of a BEE policy and legislation creates a vacuum, which limits Government’s initiatives … beyond affirmative action.’