Managers at JSE-listed Altron Group will be incentivised to enforce its new empowerment plan, the company announced yesterday.
Altron is implementing a new five-year empowerment plan, called Vision 2012, which the company says will align it with the Department of Trade and Industry's (DTI's) codes of good practice. The department published new definitions of the code in February last year.
According to group executive for corporate affairs Onkgopotse JJ Tabane, the internal charter will encourage a value chain implementation of BEE best practice across the company's 32 businesses, as well as with suppliers and partners.
Group CE Robert Venter says Vision 2012 has been in the making for some time. "We want to make sure the document is not a lonely isolated event, we want to impact the entire chain."
Tabane adds that one of the most significant policy directives of this document is the fact that it links business performance of senior executives with the achievement of transformation goals. He says a portion of management bonuses will be linked to the BEE targets set for each division.
Family business
The first code in the DTI's document deals with integrated empowerment ownership, which Tabane says the company will have the most trouble with. "Altron is a family-owned business and there are some aspects around ownership which are non-negotiable."
However, he says the company will bleed the ownership criterion down to its subsidiary businesses, which already have empowerment partners.
Kagiso Ventures owns 27% of the Bytes Technology Group, Pamodzi Investment Holdings has 25% of Altech, and Izingwe Holdings has been working at Powertech's operations level.
"There are many challenges to be faced; however, with the commitment of the Altron executive and employees directly involved in the transformation process and the progress made over the past decade, I am confident the targets will be achieved," says Venter.
The company has also started targeting another DTI criterion: board and management diversity. Altron recently appointed Zakhele Sithole and Moses Sindane to the Altech board.
Other aspects of the Vision 2012 charter include employment equity and skills development, which the company has committed to improving over the next five years.
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