Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies highlighted what needed to be done to pursue radical economic transformation as an imperative for the advancement of more inclusive economic growth in South Africa.

Speaking at a Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Commission meeting, he said fundamental change was necessary in the structure, systems, institutions and patterns of ownership and management and control to benefit all South Africans, especially the poor, the majority of whom are African females.

“We are aware that the pace of economic transformation, despite the efforts and good work of entities in the private and public sectors, has been too slow,” Davies noted, adding that more effective implementation of the BBBEE Act was key to advancing the pace of radical economic transformation.

“Any business that wants to [participate in] any of the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI’s) incentive programmes, will have to reach a defined level of black economic empowerment (BEE),” Davies said.

He explained that the strict implementation of the Act had led sectors such as the automotive industry to start working on initiatives to try to develop more suppliers that drew on black companies and their value chains.

“In addition, we have identified the need to regulate transformation in the manufacturing sector, which is of critical importance for the development of the country and to changing the nature of the economy.”

Davies added that there were very low levels of transformation in the manufacturing sector, which was why the DTI had launched the Black Industrialists Programmme.

“We set an initial target of supporting, through the combined effort of a number of government agencies and departments, 100 black industrialists within three years, with a target of supporting 30 in the first year.”

He pointed out that the DTI had, to date, supported 27 black industrialists with an injection of over R500-million in incentives.

“Instead of targeting 100 black industrialists within two years [as had been originally intended], we will reach that target in the next financial year ending March 2018,” Davies said.

He added that, going forward, more consistent requirements in terms of the BEE codes of conduct that applied in the different economic sectors would be an essential element of any type of interaction with government regarding licences, regulatory benefits and incentive programmes.

“We have made significant changes in the codes of conduct to try to engender a broader and more substantial form of empowerment.”

Meanwhile, BBBEE Commission acting commissioner Zodwa Ntuli said the commission aimed to publish a yearly report on the national state of transformation as required under the revised BBBEE Act.

“This serves as a baseline and informs our compliance and enforcement strategies to enable the country to measure whether or not the BBBEE Act is succeeding in achieving the objectives set out,” she said.