A victory for higher education as revised B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice take effect

The higher education sector in South Africa every has reason to celebrate as the amendments to the Department of Trade and Industry’s broad-based black economic empowement (B-BBEE) Codes of Good Practice came into effect as of December 1.

Human Nature Consulting director, Jo-Anne Hay, said there were two main challenges in the domestic economy that drove these amendments, namely, job creation and addressing funding for tertiary education.

“The 2.5 percent target is a significant part of the skills development scorecard and corporates will need to focus on this to maintain their required B-BBEE Levels. It would be beneficial for corporates to instead concentrate on their core business and work with an organisation such as Feenix to ensure the effective allocation of funding,” said Hay.

One of the main challenges businesses who choose to contribute to bursaries face, is to identify and vet students within their sector and to manage the administration of the funding and support payments and this is where organisations like Feenix step in. Hay said the compliance needed to claim this spend for B-BBEE purposes was very specific and could be challenging to obtain the documentation required from each student. 

As a crowdfunding platform for education, one of its purposes is to connect funders with university students. Njela said Feenix carried out a vetting process for each student and ensured that all documentation required for B-BBEE verification was obtained.

Now restricted to the securing of long term employment and no longer includes further education and training. This is a significant change affecting 5 Skills Development Bonus points.

This is a clarification and means a supplier that is at least 51% owned by black people defined under Black Designated Groups.

Means a legal agreement between an individual and an entity that would employ the individual until his or her mandatory date of retirement.

Means an Entity in which: (a) Black women hold at least 30% of the exercisable voting rights as determined under Code series 100; Black women hold at least 30% of the economic interest as determined under Code series 100; and (c) has earned all the points for Net Value under statement 100.

Replaces the Net-Value Date with an amended wording that relates to the commencement of the Time-based Graduation Factor. It means the later of either the date of commencement of statement 100 or the date upon which the black ownership transaction became effective and unconditional.

Amends the qualification of beneficiaries to 51% Black Owned or Black Women-owned QSEs or EMEs. Previously it included 30% Black Women-owned entities.

This article originally appeared on IOL.co.za