"It`s clear that if we don`t get our house in order as an industry, the government will intervene, and we don`t want government driving this," said Dr Hasmukh Gajjar, executive director of Faritec Holdings and keynote speaker at ITWeb`s BEE in IT conference in Midrand this morning.
He said the information and communications technology (ICT) empowerment charter should set the definitions, targets and timelines for black economic empowerment (BEE) transformation, and minimise the level of opportunism and non-governance.
Gajjar added that government sees ICT as a priority sector and its expectations from the sector are clear - it needs to set and achieve sustainable empowerment targets. He urged industry players to act quickly. "Government has given us a window of opportunity to develop our own BEE charter. There`s a sense of urgency, so let`s roll up our sleeves."
Gajjar highlighted some of the key issues the charter needs to address, including sustaining BEE companies. "We have failed miserably to sustain black-owned enterprises in the sector. How do we ensure they don`t die?"
He also raised the question of the BEE status and the role to be played by state-owned enterprises, the State IT Agency and arivia.kom.
Gajjar also pointed to the fact that there is a cost attached to the charter and transformation process, and there is a need to raise the question: "Who is going to pay for this?"
Martin Vergunst, MD of Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) SA, addressed the issue of how multinationals can participate in BEE transformation
With a compound annual growth rate of around 30% per annum over the past three years to its more than R600 million turnover, CSC`s local arm can continue the trend only if it embraces BEE, believes Vergunst.
"Growth cannot continue unless we address the transformation issues in the SA marketplace. There is a general belief that multinationals cannot give up equity. But I believe we need to do it; we can and we will do it."
He said the challenge for multinationals is convincing the SA market of their commitment to transforming the SA economy. Vergunst doesn`t believe multinational need special treatment in terms of BEE requirement targets and weighting. "We want to transform CSC to be a South African company; I want no special purpose vehicles in order to be able to tender for contracts.
"Our strategy is to do true transformation. Multinationals should be included in the process and play a key role in the development of the charter."
Dali Mpofu, group executive director at Altron and chairman of the ICT empowerment charter workgroup, said the ICT industry has the advantage of having learnt from "the relative mess that has happened around the mining charter" and can ensure a more orderly process.
He said the workgroup aims to consolidate the many parallel BEE initiatives rather than stifle them. He urged industry players to participate in the charter discussion and familiarise themselves with the charter discussion document which is available on the workgroup Web site.
"Some of these issues should be bedside reading if you want to get involved in the charter formulation," noted Mpofu.
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