Over the next five years, as it embarks on its R84bn infrastructure programme, power utility Eskom has to appoint two new staff every working day - and it is adamant that one of them will be a black woman.
The need to recruit 5 000 skilled employees will impose unique challenges even for Eskom, widely acknowledged as SA's most empowered company. Having launched an affirmative action and employment equity drive in the early 1990s - well before it became a moral and regulatory imperative - Eskom is in a better position than most to meet the skills crunch head-on, while retaining its empowerment momentum.
Other state-owned enterprises (SOEs), less empowered and operationally far less efficient than Eskom, will find the balancing act more difficult.
The SOEs have been tasked with spending more than half of the R400bn government is setting aside to improve public infrastructure over the next few years. However, in this endeavour they have to contend with shortages in key skill categories, particularly engineering, technical and project management skills.
The sharp decline in technical and artisan skills in SA over the past decade is hurting the private sector as well, but the damage is more severe at SOEs, where more aggressive employment equity policies have led to an exodus of skilled and experienced white staff.
But government is adamant that the new expansion phase must not undermine its empowerment strategies. "The SOEs, especially in the current phase of expanded investments, cannot take a shotgun approach and undermine employment equity legislation and rely on a small pool of skills," says James Theledi, deputy director-general in the department of public enterprises (DPE), the shareholder ministry for most SOEs.
"What is required is for SOEs to set realistic employment equity targets and over time demonstrate how they are planning to bring black people, women and disabled people in their businesses to the required skills levels," he says.
That is proving easier said than done. Though empowerment will not take a back seat in the current expansion phase, many analysts expect a shift of emphasis at least. At Transnet, CEO Maria Ramos has introduced white managers into senior positions that previous policy would have almost exclusively reserved for black executives.
Transnet's approach should perhaps be best viewed from the perspective that the transport utility, as with most other SOEs, has reached a certain level of maturity; they are, to a large extent, transformed and empowered.
Theledi says most SOEs are ahead of the requirements of the recently enacted broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) Act and its accompanying scorecard in terms of employment equity and procurement targets. But they will be expected to continue to lead the private sector in implementing BEE, he says. "We generally expect SOEs to go beyond compliance and lead the implementation of BEE. We agree with them on the key performance indicators and targets for both socioeconomic and financial issues in their three-year corporate plans. These plans are formalised in a shareholder's compact between the ministry and the boards of SOEs."
Companies such as Eskom have intensified their recruitment and training strategies to ensure that current and future black and female employees are the ones that fill the newly created positions.
Eskom human resources MD Mpho Letlape says that when head-hunting candidates, the company will endeavour first and foremost to employ South Africans, particularly women and black candidates. Only then will the net be spread to include other South Africans, Africans and expatriates.
In its drive to bring in skills, Eskom is building up a database of former employees who are working in other sectors of the economy, have emigrated or have retired. "They possess a wealth of knowledge that can aid our expansion programme significantly," says Letlape.
But to ensure that their knowledge and skills are transferred, Eskom has set up an extensive mentorship programme where the alumni will be shadowed by a number of current employees. "We ensure that, once on board, they are actively promoting skills transfer and skills development," Letlape says.
Another leg of Eskom's strategy is an extensive training programme through learnerships, bursaries and other student support initiatives. Of the 1 000 learnerships that Eskom supports every year, mostly at its own facilities, it has traditionally employed about two-thirds of graduates.
Letlape stresses that employment equity is a guiding principle in both the recruitment and training drive. "For us, employment equity is business as usual. We talk about it, measure it, track it and pay for it - it's institutionalised."
Eskom is already close to achieving its 2010 equity targets, which include 65% black staff at managerial level (March 2005: 58%) and 40% women representation (29%).
For others it has proved tougher. At Transnet, just over half of senior executives and managers are black. But at the middle management and professional levels, more than two-thirds of staff remain white. "We remain concerned at the slow pace of transformation at that level," Transnet concedes in its latest annual report.
Undoubtedly, SOEs have made the biggest inroads in terms of spreading empowerment through their huge procurement budgets, which require suppliers and contractors to enact BEE policies. "Our suppliers and contractors have to ensure that employment equity and other BEE measures are implemented and that they meet our scorecard criteria," says Letlape. "Clearly, we will assist them as far as possible in achieving this but if you have a low score, you will not get our business."
Over the past six financial years, Eskom has spent almost R29bn with BEE firms, including buying coal from black-owned miners. In the 2004/2005 financial year, that figure rose sharply from R8,3bn to R10,3bn, of which R1,1bn was spent with black women-owned businesses.
Over the same period, Transnet has, on average, allocated about 40% of its procurement to BEE companies, particularly small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). But as the infrastructure roll-out picks up and SOEs import more hi -tech equipment from abroad, that ratio will fall.
Though the privatisation drive has ground almost to a halt over the past four years, over the next year the DPE has indicated that a number of smaller, noncore subsidiaries of Eskom, Transnet and arms manufacturer Denel will be put up for sale. Empowerment will be a major criterion in the disposal programme. Says Theledi: "All potential buyers including foreign companies are considered in terms of the tender criteria, which normally include the empowerment elements and now are even more structured through the BEE scorecard ."
Another important drive by government has been to boost the financial support it offers to empowered companies, particularly SMEs. Over the past year, most of the funding institutions owned by government appear to have overcome years of inefficiency and are starting to distribute much-needed start-up and venture capital funding.
Empowered companies, particularly SMEs, are a focus of this drive and even development finance institutions, such as the Industrial Development Corp and the Development Bank of Southern Africa have reallocated significant resources to their SME and BEE loan books.
