More time needed for Nam BEE policy

The Office of the Prime Minister, which was mandated to come up with the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy, has announced that it needed more time to come up with a comprehensive document.

Addressing the media in Windhoek yesterday, Prime Minister Nahas Nagula said his office was aware that the policy should have been in place already, but more still needed to be done and consultations on the TESEF were currently underway. In March 2004, the Office of the Prime Minister was commissioned to design a BEE policy to address the issues of redistribution of the country’s wealth among previously disadvantaged Namibians.The document will also be referred to as a Transformational Economic and Social Empowerment Framework (TESEF) or Transformational BEE.However, Angula said a draft document presented in March this year, relied heavily on the South African experience of BEE and did not capture the Namibian reality and failed to place it into context.Realising more work was needed, Angula sought a Cabinet decision to expand the time to work on the draft discussion and policy proposal on broad-based BEE.”The social empowerment strategy should promote capacity development, entrepreneurial acumen, factor productivity and competitiveness.Moreover, the Transformational Socio-economic Empowerment strategy should aim at changing the ownership patterns, the economic structure and social classes in the country,” said Angula.A TESEF technical committee was authorised by Cabinet and comprises members from the Office of the Prime Minister, Ministries of Finance, Mines and Energy, Trade and Industry, Information and Broadcasting, Gender Equality and Child Welfare and Labour and Social Services.In March 2004, the Office of the Prime Minister was commissioned to design a BEE policy to address the issues of redistribution of the country’s wealth among previously disadvantaged Namibians.The document will also be referred to as a Transformational Economic and Social Empowerment Framework (TESEF) or Transformational BEE.However, Angula said a draft document presented in March this year, relied heavily on the South African experience of BEE and did not capture the Namibian reality and failed to place it into context.Realising more work was needed, Angula sought a Cabinet decision to expand the time to work on the draft discussion and policy proposal on broad-based BEE.”The social empowerment strategy should promote capacity development, entrepreneurial acumen, factor productivity and competitiveness.Moreover, the Transformational Socio-economic Empowerment strategy should aim at changing the ownership patterns, the economic structure and social classes in the country,” said Angula.A TESEF technical committee was authorised by Cabinet and comprises members from the Office of the Prime Minister, Ministries of Finance, Mines and Energy, Trade and Industry, Information and Broadcasting, Gender Equality and Child Welfare and Labour and Social Services.