Pretoria - The recently gazetted B-BBEE Amendment Bill has not deviated from the original beneficiaries as defined in the B-BBEE Act, says Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies.
The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Amendment Bill (B-BBEE) aims to align the B-BBEE Act with other legislations impacting on black economic empowerment.
"The definition in the current B-BBEE Act of black people is a generic term which means Africans, Coloureds and Indians. The current Amendment B-BBEE Bill does not propose to change the beneficiaries of B-BBEE at all," said Davies.
He also dismissed media reports that under the Amended Bill, companies will no longer receive BEE grading for appointing white women and people with disabilities.
"This statement is misleading as B-BBEE is intended to empower black people in general, and people with disabilities. There has never been any discussion about deviating from the original beneficiaries as defined in the B-BBEE Act. Therefore, the statement should be dismissed with the contempt it deserves, and the market should not give credence to such statements," he said on Wednesday.
The proposed amendments - which include the establishment of the B-BBEE Commission to establish an institutional environment for monitoring and evaluating Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment - are intended to achieve key strategic objectives.
The Bill also introduces inclusion of specific statutory offences involving fronting and other forms of fraudulent misrepresentation of empowerment status and the specification of penalties and blacklisting of entities and / or management for those offences.
Furthermore, the Bill makes provisions for empowering the Special Investigations Unit to investigate all offences involving fronting or corruption committed by both the public and private sector with regard to the application of the Act and B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice.
The public have until February next year to comment on the bill. Comments must be forwarded to Lindiwe Madonsela LCMadonsela@thedti.gov.za and Xolisile Zondo XZondo@thedti.gov.za .
