"The issue of empowerment has never been implemented correctly in the ICT sector," said Mojalefa Moseki, CIO of the State IT Agency (SITA), during a discussion at ITWeb`s BEE in IT conference in Midrand yesterday.
"Ten years later we have nothing to show. The top five ICT companies haven`t done it. Every time they report their financial results, they state they need to address the BEE [black economic empowerment] issue. Government should monitor, ensure and insist that this happens - and in haste."
He said there is currently no way to deal with black fronting, a practice that is encouraged by multinationals. "We cannot do anything about it because industry associations have no ways to deal with it."
According to Moseki, black fronting is still rife. "Three months ago a tender was awarded to a consortium and the black partner was then told it will be given money to go away, not to participate in the implementation."
He said SITA managed to award only 30% of the national IT spend to BEE companies, and could achieve 50% by March next year only if ICT associations and players are committed to true BEE. "So far there has been no commitment. We have only seen black fronting."
Dali Mpofu, chairman of the ICT empowerment charter workgroup, turned the discussion onto a positive track: "The first 10 years of BEE voluntarism hasn`t worked. But having identified that, what shall we do? If the industry doesn`t act, the government will not wait much longer."
Lucky Khumalo, CEO of Mthombo IT Services, said some large companies are using the proposed charter as an excuse; allegedly postponing BEE deals because "they are waiting for the charter".
"We are tired of the talk shows, we want to see operational involvement," said Khumalo. "We have seen the Investec and the BidVest empowerment deals, but in the ICT sector we haven`t seen anything except road shows."
Khumalo added that even with the supposed BEE companies, "when you drill down, you find that the operational involvement is purely white. Time is running out and so is the patience. We`d like to see some proper deals done."
Hasmukh Gajjar, executive director of Faritec Holdings, reiterated the sense of urgency. "The chips are down. The rules and expectations are clear. Companies cannot continue proclaiming they 'intend to do BEE in future`. Public relations and marketing is not good enough any more."
Mpofu said that monitoring of all players, including government and parastatals, is going to be critical. "We must stop fronting and short-term solutions, and introduce measures to be able to punish anything that undermines the transformation process."
The conference ended with an invitation to all industry stakeholders to participate in the ICT empowerment charter discussion process ahead of the two-day indaba on 16 an 17 September.
ICT Empowerment charter website is at www.ictcharter.org.za
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