Pretoria - Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) has welcomed the appointment of the BBBEE Advisory Council announced last week by President Jacob Zuma, describing the move as long overdue.
"We believe the council is critical to advise government on economic transformation and want to urge it to move with speed in ensuring acceleration of the speed and substance of transformation," BUSA said.
According to BUSA, South Africa cannot be a significant global economic player as long as the majority of the people are not meaningful participants in the formal economy.
The functions of the council, which is chaired by the President (Jacob Zuma), are to advise government on black economic empowerment, review progress in achieving black economic empowerment, provide advice on draft codes of good practice and advise on draft transformation charters if required.
On the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit underway in Denmark, BUSA said it remained committed to working with government in reducing greenhouse emissions.
The South African government this week released concrete targets to reduce GHGs by 34 percent by 2020 and by around 42 percent by 2025.
The commitment is made on condition of a serious and meaningful outcome from the Copenhagen meeting, which includes agreements on significant legally binding emission cuts from developed countries meaningful technology transfer and technical and financial assistance to developing countries, like South Africa.
"Although business has already made significant efforts to improve energy efficiency as a result of the energy crisis, particularly in energy intensive industries, a quantum leap in effort will be required to meet this target," said BUSA.
