The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) last week said it was “shocked and disdained” by the recent clarification notice issued by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) on the new broad-based black economic-empowerment (BBBEE) codes of good practice.

The DTI had earlier published a notice to clarify that the last of the codes would be gazetted last week.

The NUM, like many companies, was aggrieved over the statement that having black participants in broad-based ownership schemes and employee share ownership programmes (Esops) holding rights of ownership in a measured entity only scored points under paragraph 2.2.3 of the ownership scorecard.

“The scoring attributed a lousy maximum of three points from the 25 points to all the broad-based entities, which neither encourages nor compels industries to advance and promote broad-based economic empowerment (with workers and communities in mind),” the NUM said in a statement.

“This begs the question of how are we going to win the fight against the triple threats of inequality, poverty and unemployment facing South Africans, when a government department mandated to spearhead economic transformation issues such regressive notices?” it stated.

Further, the union stated that the broad-based element was introduced on the realisation that black economic empowerment as it stood benefited a select few individuals, thus also contributing to vast inequalities in society.

“Ownership of the economy cannot be focused on individual wealth, but societal wealth through cooperatives and employees. What is also ironic is that the DTI is mandated to promote and support these cooperatives.

“We are not going to allow workers to continue enriching monopoly capital and a few DTI-sanctioned black elites,” it warned.

The union would continue to push for 10% Esops across all sectors for workers, ensuring the sector-code-alignment process provided meaningful economic participation for both employees and communities.