Pretoria - Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies has gazetted the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Amendment Bill (B-BBEE), which aims to align the B-BBEE Act with other legislations impacting on black economic empowerment.
The amendments also aim to establish a B-BBEE Commission that will set up an institutional environment for monitoring and evaluating black economic empowerment. It also provides for the regulation of the verification industry by the Independent Regulatory Board of Auditors, while also dealing with non-compliance and circumvention by introducing offences and penalties.
The Bill was tabled on Friday and the public has 60 days to comment on it.
The gazetting of the Amendment Bill is the culmination of the recommendations made by the Presidential B-BBEE Advisory Council.
"The B-BBEE Commission, which is proposed in the BBBEE Amendment Bill, will play a critical role including, but not limited to, oversee, supervise and promote adherence with the B-BBEE Act and Codes of Good Practice in the interest of the public, strengthen and foster collaboration between the public and private sector in order to promote and safeguard the objectives of B-BBEE; promote advocacy, access to opportunities, and educational programmes and initiatives of B-BBEE; and promote good governance and accountability by creating an effective and efficient environment for the promotion and implementation of B-BBEE," said Davies.
The Bill leaves no room for fronting as those convicted of this may be imprisoned for 10 years.
The Bill introduces offences in several acts of fronting, including misrepresenting or attempting to misrepresent B-BBEE status of an enterprise, and providing false information to the verification personnel in order to secure a particular B-BBEE status, among others.
"Any person convicted of an offence in terms of the Bill is liable to a fine or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 10 years or to both a fine and imprisonment; or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 12 months or to both a fine and imprisonment; or to a fine of 10% of that enterprise's annual turnover," said Davies.
The Bill also introduces inclusion of specific statutory offences involving fronting and other forms of fraudulent misrepresentation of empowerment status and the specification of penalties and blacklisting of entities and/or management for those offences.
The Bill makes provisions for empowering the Special Investigations Unit to investigate all offences involving fronting or corruption committed by both the public and private sector with regard to the application of the Act and B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice.
