Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa: Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to assess if the Black Economic Empowerment act has brought new economic horizons for the historically disadvantaged South Africans, or it has contributed to further impoverishmentof the lower classes in communities. The paper based its argument on an extensive literature review which envisaged that, despite many years of its implementation, BEE has caused the emergence of classes resulting fromfraud and corruption, fronting, difficulties in registering status, political interference, and poor accountability strategies. The paper interrogates the implementation strategies of BEE in the local government context to assess whether historical imbalances have been addressed or not. The paper concludes that the government needs to revisit BEE as an economic empowerment policy to see whether it has benefited the black majority or not. The paper reiterates further that, BEE as a black economic emancipation blueprint requires proper implementation and alignment with other economic policies such as the National Development Plan to accelerate economic opportunities for the black majority. The paper recommends the government of South Africa through local municipalities to exercise monitoring and evaluation in the BEE procurement systems are prerequisites in safeguarding the manipulation and corrupt tendencies arising from the awarding of tenders in the local government.Key words: Black Economic Empowerment, South Africa, Challenges, Prospects

Public Procurement in the Context of Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) in South Africa—Lessons Learned for Sustainable Public Procurement

“…Sometimes when we say one company is level 1 and another level 2, there is no consensus on how that is measured" (Interviewee 2). Shava's study (2016) highlights these persisting challenges, noting the high level of bureaucracy in the verification process that has caused confusion amongst emerging BBBEE companies and the need to phase out certificates issued by non-accredited verification agencies [45].…”

Identifying behavioural patterns of coupled water‐agriculture systems using system archetypes

“…It should be noted that the aim here is not to discuss the merits and demerits of the BEE, rather to evaluate the policy implication on agriculture and water management in South Africa. BEE has failed in attaining the core objective of poverty alleviation, employment regeneration, wealth creation, and general improvement of the economy (Kovacevic, 2007; Shava, 2016). The concept of AgriBEE is widely considered as ‘Shifting the Burden’ of creating an inclusive economy to agribusinesses and has caused considerable confusion and uncertainty, particularly amongst commercial farmers who feel grave injustice of handing 51% shares of their agribusinesses to ‘Black people’ to be compliant.…”

Institutional factors influencing institutionalised supplier development initiatives in the construction industry in Zambia

“…However, some areas of regulatory compliance, such as company registrations are susceptible to manipulation through fronting. Fronting is a scenario in which local people sign up as fictitious shareholders in virtually foreign companies (Shava, 2017). Fronting results in foreign companies gaining undue benefit from citizen targeted empowerment (Warikandwa & Osode, 2017).…”