Forth right comments from Bheki Sibiya who encourages black entrepreneurs to ‘travel the road less travelled' and to seek new skills.  "If we want to grow and be where we want to be we need to invest in the skills develop pillar on BBBEE.

Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) will continue to be relevant in South Africa until the economy mirrors the demographics of the country and 80 percent of the productive means of the economy are owned by the previously disadvantaged.

This is according to newly appointed Eastern Cape Development Corporation chairman and former president of the Black Management Forum, Bheki Sibiya, who shared the organisation's perspective on BEE at the East London IDZ Service Providers' Day recently.  He added that BEE was a multi generation project which would take about 30 - 40 years to implement.

"BBBEE is affirmative action to empower black people and to create a level playing field - the key challenge for government is to ensure that the policy meets its objectives," he said.

Sibiya emphasised the importance of ownership as one of the key pillars of Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment. He, however, said the biggest challenge in this regard was black people fronting for white owned companies.

 "Fronting, whether done knowingly or unwillingly, the effect is the same.  Black people need to analyse ownership opportunities that they are given.  They need to scrutinise it and ensure that it is not fronting," he said. 

Sibiya also encouraged black entrepreneurs to ‘travel the road less travelled' and to seek new skills.  "If we want to grow and be where we want to be we need to invest in the skills develop pillar on BBBEE," he said.

The East London IDZ Service Providers' Day is an initiative by the organisation to empower its service providers and to create a conducive operational environment and encourage maximum compliance of service providers to procurement guidelines.

"The East London IDZ attaches great importance to their service providers as they are an integral part of the East London IDZ success," said ELIDZ Chief Financial Officer, Ntombizine Madyibi. 

She said during the 2008/9 financial year, the East London IDZ had spent a total of R179 million towards BBBEE enterprises.  "This translates to 59% of contracts awarded by the East London going to BBBEE enterprises," she said, adding that the zone had exceeded its 50% target for the financial year.