Please see a proposed revision of the Codes of Good Practice, in particular, Statement 000 (General Principles), as well as Code 300 (Skills Development).  This is open for public commentary for sixty days, commencing on the 29^th March 2018.

Key Amendments under Statement 000:

1. Enhanced recognition for Black-Owned entities. This amendment proposed that 51% Black-owned, as well as 100% Black-Owned entities can receive an automatic B-BBEE Level 2 and Level 1 recognition level, respectively.  They only need to supply an ownership verification certificate, ensuring that the ownership is calculated on the flow through basis, not utilising any enhancements or deemed ownership percentages.  This brings the Black-Owned generic entities in line with black owned EME’s and QSE’s.
2. Clarification of the calculation of B-BBEE scores for unincorporated JV’s, which was not in the previous version of the Codes.
3. The introduction of the Youth Employment Services (YES) initiative, and it’s enhanced recognition for B-BBEE purposes. This initiative, recently launched by the President, proposes an increase in B-BBEE Level Recognition for taking on unemployed youth, over and above an entity’s BEE initiatives.  It proposes targets based on the NPAT of the company in terms of the number of youth to be taken onto the programme (instead of headcount), as well as minimum scorecard performance for participating entities. Companies can move up to two levels up from their performance if they reach double their YES targets, and they can also earn bonus points.

There are other amendments that seek to clarify as well as make the codes more compact.

Key Amendments under Statement 300 – Skills Development:

1. Introduction of a new indicator for bursaries, which splits the 6% spending on skills development. The new indicator’s target is 2.5%, while the spending on skills development for black people is adjusted to 3.5%.   The rest of the scorecard weightings are also adjusted, although the weighting remains at 20 points.
2. Category F and G training can now represent no more 25% of the total training amounts claimed, which is up from 15%.

Unfortunately, the issue of what constitutes ‘Mandatory Training’, which is not claimable under this statement, is not addressed in this draft amendment.

Please submit any comments you may have directly to the DTI as per the instructions on the gazetted.  Alternatively, speak to your nearest Empowerdex branch, and we can incorporate your comments into our comment letter.

Regards,

The Empowerdex Team