Indeed, the Nedbank decision to terminate the Athletics South Africa's five year sponsorship agreement a year early is not only regrettable but unfortunate in the context of the development in the country. It quite sad that there is too much attention on what ANC youth league president Julius Malema says than the impact of Nedbank withdrawal in terms of fulfilment of the socio-economic development contributions for the purpose of addressing the legacy of our apartheid past. Malema's misgiving on the Nedbank saga is very much informed by an inherent tendency to marginalise black people and Africans in particular. For instance, Nedbank appointed a new chief financial officer but suddenly stripped her of the powers reasonably conferred to her predecessor, in the same way Old Mutual restructured reporting lines of its chief executive officer. In the same breath, Alexander Forbes followed with the controversial appointment of Sello Moloko as “nonexecutive” chairman deliberately abolishing the executive chairmanship post initially occupied by Bruce Campbell. Unfortunately, affected people here happen to be black. To a great extent, all of this provides a proof of underhand tactics employed not to achieve acceptable levels of equity representation on senior top management — a key transformation measure associated with the management control in terms of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act. This includes lack of commitment on the part of business to balance the number of black people who manage, own and control the country’s economy. It's a coincidence that no one raised any concerns about this deep-seated and prejudiced agenda to exclude black people in operational roles? Or, perhaps it's a matter of being too quick to find something wrong when Malema raises a point of view? Whatever it is, Malema does not belong to a generation that embraces a quite diplomacy to issues that present a major obstacle to reducing poverty and socio-economic inequality in the country. As a militant cadre of the young lions it's well-known fact that he will never keep quite and watch the status quo perpetuating the legacy of the apartheid and imperialist ideology which aims to undermine development in society and exploiting this for its own ends. It's for this reason that we should engage with the issues at hand not the person who raises these issues. Because the latter has a potential to create bias and subjectivity to our ongoing national discourse on transformation agenda. And thus negatively impact on the transformation of our economy to perform below its potential. I remain, Morgan Phaahla Ekurhuleni
"Sometimes, if you wear suits for too long, it changes your ideology." - Joe Slovo --- On Fri, 10/2/09, Gugu Ndima <[email protected]> wrote: From: Gugu Ndima <[email protected]> Subject: [YCLSA Discussion] Nedbank’s decision to terminate sponsorship is two-faced-“they undermine BEE, but yet they want to preach morality” To: [email protected] Date: Friday, October 2, 2009, 3:34 AM Nedbank’s decision to terminate sponsorship is two-faced “they undermine BEE, but yet they want to preach morality” Nedbank decided to strip the CFO of her powers to report to the CEO directly. This was exposed by the Director-general of the Labour department Jimmy Manyi. When inerrogated on the matter, the lame excuse provided was that she admitted that she had little experience in Risk management. Our government has advocated skills development and if the CFO had admitted to such a short-coming then they should have given her support instead of degrade her and in the process ridicule black competency. The irony is that this amendment was done after her appointment and she was never told of this sudden restructure in the interview stages. Now they want to justify why they have terminated their sponsorship for ASA....this is evidence of a high level of resistance towards transformation in Lily-white corporate SA; it makes me wonder if the chairman isn't just a black token with no say, as the WHITE CEO made this pronouncement. Their justification for this decision is that they do not wish to associate themselves with an institution that condones lying, but in actual fact sponsorship goes beyond the organisation being sponsored as those that work hard in building careers as athletes are the ones that suffer the most. This goes in line with the need to re-visit the implementation of BEE, BBBEE, AA as it seems that corporate SA implements these legislation when it suits their Imperialist agendas. Have they considered the disadvantaged communities that are in dire need and actually benefit from this sponsorship? Looking at the hastiness of the decision it's quite evident that there was no consultation process and it's more of a relief for the Nedbank group to rid themselves of this sponsorship endorsement. One wonders had this been the rugby board that was tangled in this debacle, would the same decision been deemed fit? No one can condone the actions of Chuene in all probability and considering the implications it has on Semenya's future internationally; however this does not substantiate what Nedbank is doing. ASA does not comprise of Chuene alone and Semenya is not the only athlete in ASA. This action exposes the mentality that still characterises white companies in South Africa. Corporate Social investment is deemed an obligation that simply needs to be adhered to as required by government. We need to support people like Jimmy Manyi that have decided to tackle Companies head on. The process of transformation is moving at a snails pace and clearly the efforts that have been done thus far are undermined by those that still choose to find loopholes in the legislatibve frame work of pieces of legislation that are in existence purely for the advancement of the black majority. Nedbank strongly needs to reconsider the repercussions of this decision and the impact it will have on it's image in relation to BEE. Gugu Ndima (In her personal capacity) National spokesperson (YCLSA) 076 783 1516 [email protected] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
