The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has rejected claims by black economic-empowerment (BEE) advisory firm EconoBEE that there is likely to be a delay to the scheduled May 1 implementation of the revised BEE Codes of Good Practise.

“We are on track for the May 1 implementation of the codes and any suggestion to the contrary is wishful thinking,” departmental spokesperson Sidwell Medupe told Engineering News Online on Friday.

EconoBEE claimed in a statement earlier this week that the implementation of the codes would likely be delayed until the end of the year, as the DTI would not have enough time to incorporate public submissions before the targeted implementation date.

“When the DTI released the new codes in October, the government entity was required to give a 60-day period for public comment.

“Although this period has now been completed, the department still needs to read the submissions, correct errors, make changes and submit the final codes for gazetting, all in time for implementation on May 1, which is almost impossible,” the firm argued.

The revised codes introduced several subminimum targets for three priority elements, namely ownership, skills development, and enterprise and supplier development.

These included 40% of net value points for ownership – net value being one of the measurements for ownership which set the extent to which shares held by black shareholders were free from encumbrance – 40% of the total weighting points for skills development and 40% for each of preferential procurement, enterprise development and supplier development.

Large entities were required to comply with all three priority elements, while qualifying small enterprises (QSE) were compelled to comply with at least two of the three priority elements, one of which being the ownership priority element.

The codes provided for the downgrading of the broad-based BEE status level of both large entities and QSEs by one level in the event that the above targets were not met.