B-BBEE commission cancels proposed ‘fronting seminar’
A planned ‘Fronting Seminar’ organised by Innoven Consulting and Axidex has been cancelled by the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Commission.
|||Johannesburg - South Africa’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Commission said this week it had instructed organisers to cancel a planned “Fronting Seminar” and refund R2 450 to each registered participant.
With the tagline “Fronting has a legal zone. Let us show you where it is”, the seminar, organised by Innoven Consulting and Axidex, was scheduled for October 26 at the Centurion Lake Hotel in Gauteng.
Potential delegates might have suspected that the proposed event was not consistent with the spirit of the law; now they have been told it is also not consistent with the letter of the law.
In a statement released on Monday evening, senior commissioner Zodwa Ntuli said fronting was a criminal offence in terms of the B-BBEE Act and was punishable with up to 10 years imprisonment.
“Therefore, any session, whether training, seminar or conference, purporting to teach or show people how to practise fronting safely goes against the objectives of the B-BBEE Act,” Ntuli said.
“Any person engaging in such a session clearly obstructs the performance of the duties of the B-BBEE Commission, and perpetuates circumvention. It is unacceptable to seek to give people pointers on how to get away with murder, which is a crime.””
It is not clear who or how many people had signed up to the seminar but a website in the name Innoven Consulting boasts a host of mining giants among past and present clients. The website lists Anglo American, Kumba Iron Ore, Impala Platinum, Coal of Africa and Royal Bafokeng Platinum among clients.
The B-BBEE Commission, which operates under a division under the Department of Trade and Industry (the DTI), said it had written to the organisers of the Fronting Seminar last week to express concerns and advised the organisers to present themselves for a meeting.
The B-BBEE Commission said it met with Michelle Laarman, operations director at Innoven Consulting, and Dries Visser, founder of Axidex, on Monday.
The commission had been alerted to the seminar by concerned members of the public, including the lobby group Amandla Awethu, which petitioned the DTI and the Department of Small Business Development to stop the seminar from happening.
Amandla Awethu also asked that the seminar organisers, Innoven Consulting and Axidex, be investigated, emphasising that the event sought to defeat the intended outcomes of transformation laws.
Speaking at the creation of the B-BBEE Commission last year, Ntuli noted that fronting activities were taking a sophisticated turn. She said the DTI would act harshly against individuals and companies misrepresenting their credentials to achieve higher BEE ratings.
African News Agency