B-BBEE in South Africa

In 2003 the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act 53 of 2003 (the BEE Act) was introduced to address the inequalities suffered by black South African citizens as a result of the apartheid regime.

The aim of BEE is to increase the participation of black people in the management, ownership and control of South Africa’s economy by measuring the economic involvement of black people over the following 5 empowerment elements:

(i) Ownership
(ii) Management control
(iii) Skills development
(iv) Enterprise and supplier development
(v) Socio-economic development

The BEE Codes classify entities based on their annual turnover:

• entities with a turnover of less than R10 million are called exempted micro enterprises (EME’s)
• entities with a turnover of more than R10 million, but less than R50 million are called qualifying small enterprises (QSE’s)
• entities with an annual turnover of more than R50 million are called large enterprises.

If an entity wants to do business with the government or a parastatal, it must comply with the BEE Codes in order to qualify for licenses, quotas, tenders or other permissions that are to be issued or awarded.

In order to become BEE compliant, the relevant entity will have to be audited, either partially or fully, by a verification agency to determine its BEE status at that time. During the BEE verification process, the entity has to submit physical proof of activity, spending and contributions to the five elements of empowerment.

Meise Nkaiseng Attorneys advises and assists a broad spectrum of corporate clients, including EME’s, QSE’s and large enterprises, with their B-BBEE structures and requirements.
We were awarded the PMR Africa Diamond Arrow Award for ”best law firm” (Business Sector) in the Sedibeng Region for three years in a row (2018, 2019 and 2020).