Volkswagen Group South Africa (VWSA) last month officially launched its broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) Initiatives Trust.

The aim of the trust is to increase the number of black-owned suppliers in the automotive sector value chain.

Financial Assistance The trust will do this by primarily providing financial assistance and, where required, nonfinancial assistance, such as business development advice and market access, through supplier development relationships.

VWSA will provide qualifying black-owned suppliers with this advice and support, as well as white-owned suppliers that are interested in becoming black-owned.

Although the trust carries the name Volkswagen, it is managed independently of the German manufacturer by a board of trustees.

The trustees are entrepreneur and member of government's Black Industrialist Programme Siphamandla Ndawonde, strategist and researcher Frans Nortje, and director of corporate and government affairs at VWSA Nonkqubela Maliza.

The trust’s first investment, valued at R22-million, went to Eastern Cape company Acoustex.

Acoustex is a Port Elizabeth-based manufacturer and supplier of sound-deadening acoustic insulation and extruded products.

The immediate aim of the Volkswagen B-BBEE Initiatives Trust is to support at least three other suppliers in 2017.

The trust is endorsed by the Eastern Cape government.

“The . . . trust is one of the initiatives that Volkswagen introduced to implement our strategy of deepening localisation and increasing our competitiveness and business sustainability. [It] will also contribute to the economic growth of the region,” said VWSA chairperson and MD Thomas Schäfer at the launch event in the Eastern Cape.

“VWSA continues to view procurement from black-owned suppliers as a priority from both moral and legislative compliance perspectives.

“Therefore, the initial investment of R86-million shows that we, as a company, are committed to supporting and empowering black-owned suppliers in the automotive industry through this independent trust and other company-based initiatives.”