BEE pioneers fight for their legitimacy

Some of SA’s oldest and most respected empowerment vehicles say they are fighting for survival after the commission tasked with monitoring empowerment transactions indicated that it regarded them as ownership fronts and not genuine black owners.

The question mark over their empowerment status, first raised by the Broad-based BEE (BBBEE) Commission in April 2019, has affected the empowerment scoring of both old and new transactions, affected licence applications for investee companies and acted as a disincentive to market participants to team up with the entities...