The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic) has been under pressure to repeal or finalise the Transport Sector Code, and the 25 October 2021 call by the Department of Transport for nominations to re-establish the Sector Council indicates in which direction it would like this to go. 

The draft Amended Transport Sector Code made its first and only public appearance in February 2016, making it the only set of Sector Codes that has not yet been aligned to the Amended Generic B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice (Amended Codes). In the past sector codes were repealed if they are not aligned with the Amended Codes after a period of time.

Deon Oberholzer, CEO at Gestalt Growth Strategies, says that the call for Sector Council nominations is significant because it shows that the ministry wants to resurrect the discussions on the transformation of the wider transport industry. This may bring years of speculation to a close and provide some much needed clarity to an industry that have been battered and bruised by the COVID pandemic.  We do hope that the expected higher targets and costs will not break the back of struggling companies in this sector.

“If the Sector Code had to be repealed in a move similar to what we saw with the Construction Sector Code in 2016, it would shift the responsibility to the industry to come forward with a new proposed Sector Code. Companies in the Transport Sector would have to align with the Amended Codes until such time. However, there are significant differences between the Amended Codes and both the Current and draft Amended Transport Sector Code,” says Oberholzer.

Although the dtic has resurrected the process, the timelines after the appointment of the new Sector Council are still unclear. Oberholzer says it could take several months to get the process back on track, which means it could be a long time before the transport industry has a gazetted set of codes.

With the window for comments on the 2016 draft of the Transport Sector Codes closed, Oberholzer says the new Sector Council, depending on its mandate, may opt to consider the feedback already received and simply push to present a revised set of the Draft Codes for Ministerial approval.  Alternatively, they may be mandated to open the window for public comments again. This, he believes, would be the better option as a number of amendments to the Generic B-BBEE Codes have been implemented since 2016 when the draft Transport Sector Codes were released.

According to Oberholzer, transformation to comply with the Amended B-BBEE or the published version of the draft Amended Transport Sector Code is significantly more expensive and complex than the current Transport Sector Code. 

“This is especially true with Skills Development Spending where the target doubles to 6% of payroll. The minimum points needed to achieve a Level 4 under the Amended Codes are also considerably higher than what is required under the Transport Sector Codes. 

“In a competitive space, if everyone is measured on the same scale, and the entire Sector drops by 4 levels, the race would be on to make up the shortfall if B-BBEE is critical to securing and keeping business. The finish line will be much more difficult to reach in a very tough economy. ”

He says that white-owned companies that embrace transformation face a hefty bill in order to comply with the Amended Codes and achieve a Level 1 or 2 rating while black-owned qualifying small enterprises (QSEs) with an annual turnover of between R10-million and R50-million are exempt at Level 1 or 2.

Companies in the Transport Industry have been pushing for black ownership for some time now, and are increasingly being measured on black ownership first rather than B-BBEE compliance. This, says Oberholzer, has given rise to a plethora of schemes and scams to achieve ownership.

“These range from the typical ‘rent-a-black partner’ arrangements to more sophisticated schemes and scams. A 51% shareholder is defined as the controlling shareholder and any structure that removes or attempts to remove their inherent rights is by definition a misrepresentation of the base concept of control, therefore a front.

“There are many ways in which companies can embrace transformation and be prosperous, including qualifying as a Black Owned or Black Women Owned Company, without getting on the wrong side of the law. In May this year, the Minister of the dtic, Ebrahim Patel, published an explanatory memorandum that sets out the correct approach and interpretations for broad based and employee ownership schemes, and it is mostly positive.  It is aimed at clarifying the requirements if companies want to include employees in a legitimate scheme or engage with a development scheme that helps with the meaningful development of black people. If companies are in doubt over the legitimacy of their ownership scheme, they should do something about it now.” 

Oberholzer concludes saying that companies in the transport sector need to understand the differences between the Transport Sector Codes and the Amended Codes because a revision or repeal of the codes will have a material impact on their B-BBEE ratings. 

“We stopped telling our clients to implement strategies to comply with the Amended Codes or the draft Transport Sector Codes some years ago, but companies should at least have a plan. The benefit of embracing the Codes and getting your business to Level 1 still remains a great competitive advantage in a tough industry, provided you do it right and cost effectively. It is important to understand how the requirements of the Amended Codes will affect your business and have an appropriate strategy to achieve a better rating in the most cost efficient way.

“It is also critical to understand the risks of dodgy ownership schemes and respond well enough to future proof your business.”

-- ENDS --

Issued on behalf of Gestalt Growth Strategies by Echo Square PR. For more information please call Kerry Webb on 082 496 0713 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

About Gestalt Growth Strategies
Gestalt Growth Strategies is a trusted business strategy and Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) consultancy.  Established in 1998, Gestalt uses original and proven business transformation models to help companies unlock business growth and shareholder value through B-BBEE.

A pilot programme to help disadvantaged students obtain a degree or postgraduate qualification, with work experience and without debt, has struggled to achieve its ambitions as work opportunities for students dwindle in an unbelievably difficult economy that has been rocked by the pandemic.

The ProudAfrique Working Student Programme, launched in April 2020 by ProudAfrique Human Capital (PAHC), is designed to uplift poor black youths who want to study further and build their CVs for future employment opportunities, while offering South African businesses a meaningful way to improve their B-BBEE score by leveraging skills expenditure on the scorecard. Students earn an income while they study and receive a full bursary through the Working Student Programme to remove student debt. Currently, 75% of the students on the programme are black females, the demographic most vulnerable to unemployment.

“What we have learned from the pilot of our Working Student Programme is that we were not prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic. The persistent lockdowns, shrinking economy and rising unemployment have created a perfect storm that has thwarted our ambitions to get the participants on our Working Student Programme into jobs, even though the students were already receiving a stipend that matched the basic minimum wage.

“The academic and life skills components of the programme have been tremendously successful but we are grappling with bridging the employment gap. Of the 16 students on the programme in 2021, only five are actively working while some have engaged in volunteer work. In 2022, we are planning to expand the programme and include 30 new students, making the challenge even bigger.

“Spiralling unemployment levels indicate that the need for jobs is always going to be greater than the ability of companies to accommodate working students. But, this does not mean that we cannot make a difference. We want to encourage forward thinking companies to help us grow the programme and help more students by opening opportunities in gateway jobs. At the same time, they can improve their B-BBEE scorecard. Having our students gain work experience while they study is essential to the success of the programme,” says Deon Oberholzer, CEO at Gestalt Group and Director at ProudAfrique Human Capital, which manages the programme.

Oberholzer stresses that the programme is distinguished from other internship and work-while-studying programmes because it removes the burden of debt when students qualify and importantly, equips them with life and work readiness skills to improve their employability, thereby creating more sustainable outcomes. “Work readiness is severely lacking amongst the youth, many of whom have never had a proper job. Even those who manage to achieve a qualification struggle to find work because they have limited skills to enter the formal job market. Our Working Student Programme wants to fill the critical gap in work readiness in order to address the problem of ‘unemployability’ amongst the country’s youth,” says Oberholzer, who points out that graduate unemployment is 40.3% for those aged 15 to 24 and 15.5% among those aged 25 to 34 years.

On the Working Student Programme, participants receive work readiness training, job competency training, study support and mentorship while they focus on developing work skills. In addition, they are enrolled in the Keys to Life programme which teaches invaluable life skills to foster accountability, responsibility and sustainability. The Keys to Life programme is SETA accredited and B-BBEE compliant. Companies benefit from B-BBEE skills development optimisation unlike any programmes currently available due to the programme’s unique structure that could them up several levels on their current scorecard.

“Companies get critical leverage on the scorecard for skills spending on higher education while employing high-performing candidates whose wages are claimable as skills development expenditure. It is an invaluable opportunity for companies to future proof their businesses with high calibre recruits starting at entry level. The programme also offers the flexibility to dovetail with the YES Programme and other learning initiatives within the company.”

Skills development, one of the priority elements on the B-BBEE scorecard, can earn a company up to 25 points, making it critical. But, it is expensive if it is not done wisely according to a proper strategy. The Working Student Programme represents a sound opportunity for maximising skills expenditure. However, Oberholzer says that the benefits go beyond achieving a higher B-BBEE score and meeting skills development requirements. “The real reward is in nurturing the cream of South Africa’s youth on their road to greatness. The feedback we get from our students is validation that we are on the right track and that this programme has great potential to change lives. Several  of our current students would have been forced to abandon their tertiary studies had they not joined the Working Student Programme. We are exceptionally proud of their unwavering will to learn, to pursue their dreams to achieve a qualification, and break the cycle of poverty that has held them and previous generations of their families in its grips,” says Oberholzer.

Hear their stories at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av6pMR07pL0

He concludes: “We have faced some challenges during our pilot of the Working Student Programme but we believe that they can be overcome with constant innovation. When lockdowns forced everyone to work and study at home, we pivoted and restructured the academic components to enable online learning. The students continued to receive their stipends, which in some cases helped feed their families during the pandemic.  The employment component remains a challenge but we will continue to knock at it with a jack hammer until we get it right.”

Companies that are interested in learning more about participating in the Working Student Programme as a means to optimise skills development expenditure for B-BBEE points, while contributing to the upliftment of aspiring students are encouraged to contact them at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. See the full Working Student Programme brochure here http://www.pahc.org.za/brochure/

Issued on behalf of Proud Afrique Human Capital by Echo Square PR. For more information please call Kerry Webb on 082 496 0713 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

About ProudAfrique Human Capital
ProudAfrique facilitates learning in a range of subjects and competencies, facilitated through trusted and accredited learning institutions. The company also assists companies with their B-BBEE accreditation to help maximise their B-BBEE benefits from training and development initiatives in the future. ProudAfrique collaborates with the University of the Free State Business School in offering Short Learning Programmes, which are recognised through a process of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) to predefined formal programmes, like the Higher Certificate in Management Development. ProudAfrique now also offers the skills programmes that form part of the Diploma in Human Resource Management and the Diploma in Labour Relations offered by the Academy of York.  The learning is directly applied to the workplace by using client-based mentors and extensive workplace-based portfolio work and assignments. http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=14415

By Deon Oberholzer, CEO: Gestalt Growth Strategies

The perspective that patriarchy is a construct created by men to oppress women effectively implies that we need to destroy it in order to give women a chance to be successful. However, stopping men from being successful is not the solution. If we do that, we will continue to get what we have; the highest unemployment in the recent history in South Africa. Our failure is that women are not being equipped to effectively win. Leave the men to run well while enabling women to run even better may mean that our economy can actually grow.

We should be driving home the message that women are capable and can be massively successful. But, for more women to be successful, they need to identify and harness their power, get educated, and prepare to change the world. In August, being Women’s Month, we heard positive stories of women movers and shakers achieving great things, of efforts being made to address inequality and gender pay gaps in the workplace, of women rising above adversity to get educated and find jobs. This is reassuring and confirms that we should view women empowerment from a perspective of developing inner strength as opposed to the perspective of them needing intervention in order to have a chance of success. Perhaps the mantra we are seeking is; “I am, therefore I do, therefore I have” versus “I have, therefore I do, therefore I am”.

One step forward, two steps back

South Africa was making some reassuring gains in advancing equality for women in the workplace. But, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely stunted the slow-gathering momentum. More women have lost their jobs compared to men, with women accounting for about 2-million of the 3-million jobs lost during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020[ii]. A year later in March 2021, women’s employment was still down by about 8% while men’s employment was back to normal. Women who are employed are working less hours per week, while men, you guessed it, are back to normal.[iii] While the COVID-19 pandemic has undone some of the gains that were made for employment and equality of women over the past two decades, it has also exposed structured fault lines in the country which have had serious knock-on effects, disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable women. Of the country’s unemployed, according to Statistics SA, black African women are the most vulnerable demographic group with an unemployment rate of 38.5%, followed by coloured women at 26%. Women have been impacted harder by the pandemic because they tend to earn less, have fewer savings, work in the informal economy, and comprise the majority of single-parent households. Unfortunately, the burden of childcare mostly falls on women so the closing of schools and early childhood development centres disproportionately affects them.

When there are children to care for, feed and home school, it’s mostly women who step-up to the plate and that means less time to find work or take on more hours. The disproportionate weight of childcare responsibilities born by women dragged them down in other ways. Fewer of them could access the COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant (SRDG). Why? Because the conditions of the grant were such that it could not be accessed along with another grant like the Child Support Grant (CSG). Effectively, unemployed women were penalised if they were also the main caregiver to a child and were claiming for a CSG. The conditions of the SRDG, which partially excluded women and highlighted the snags that come with ignoring gender roles, will have to be revised if it is reintroduced.

Gender roles need questioning

Traditional gender roles that emphasise women as primary caregivers aren’t entirely a bad thing. It is a commonly held view that women are natural caregivers and maternity has immeasurable value in society. But, it is when this role is undervalued and the overemphasis leads to the exclusion of women from work, education and participating in economic activities that it becomes a big point of concern. This has been amplified in the wake of the pandemic. Females were more likely to cite “family commitment” as a reason for not attending school than males (17.1% compared to 0.3%)[iv], according to Stats SA.

Its unemployment figures also show that in both Q1: 2020 and Q1: 2021, more than four in every ten young females were not in employment, education or training. Looking at the impact of COVID-19 on female unemployment worldwide, several reports show that more women than men have lost their jobs. So, this is not unique to South Africa. The industries in which women typically work have been more severely impacted by lockdown closures such as hospitality, retail and domestic services. Women are also segregated into low-wage occupations and the informal sector where they lack social protection. It is time to reset the system to deal with these inequalities. This includes some serious efforts to address the inequality in childcare responsibilities, the inequalities that exist in the opportunities that women have to participate in the job market, the inequalities in the access to education and the unequal balance of single-mom households.

Perhaps we should also be brave and question if the traditional light penalties on men for having children out of wedlock could be contributing to the disproportionate single-mom households. As long as women, as the primary caregivers to children risk their jobs when the schools close, and as long as they continue to be employed in the most vulnerable sectors with the least structural support, it will only get worse. The effects of the pandemic will be felt by women and girls for years to come unless their employability and marketability for better paying-jobs is improved through equal access to education, skills development opportunities, and funding for women-owned businesses.

So, what does action look like and how does it differ from lip service? Well, at the height of the pandemic last year, we launched a Working Student Programme managed by our skills development facilitation business, ProudAfrique Human Capital. It aims to address the issue of employability by equipping students with life and work readiness skills to improve their employability in the formal job market. Students work while they study and receive mentorship, allowing them to qualify with a degree or postgraduate qualification, with work experience and without debt. Currently, we have 12 young women on the programme who are proving that coming from a disadvantaged background does not determine or limit potential. Additionally, our Intombazane Development Trust, whose beneficiaries are young black woman under the age of 29, gives small, owner-managed businesses the opportunity to invest in the development of South Africa’s next generation of female leaders while achieving legitimate, compliant B-BBEE ownership without the risk of fronting.

Our view is that including women cannot be a simple bean-counting exercise. Instead, it should be a concerted commitment to ensuring that when women become part of an organisation, their integration is meaningful and their employability is sustainable. Through these initiatives, we hope to do more than just pay lip service to supporting women in pursuing and achieving success. We want to see women escape the cycles of poverty and dependence that has held them in its grip for generations. ENDS About Gestalt Growth Strategies Gestalt Growth Strategies is a trusted business strategy and Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) consultancy. Established in 1998, Gestalt uses original and proven business transformation models to help companies unlock business growth and shareholder value through B-BBEE.