Gender mainstreaming in Department of Trade and Industry

Meeting report

Gender mainstreaming in DTI development support programmes

Mr Alfred Tau, Acting Director-General: Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), said that new departments had been established recently, and this had meant that some of the DTI’s functions had been transferred to the Department of Small Business Development (DSBD). These transferred programmes were the Isivande Women’s Fund, Bavumile Skills Development Initiative, the Women’s Empowerment Network of South Africa, Technology for Women in Business, Techno Girls, the Black Business Supplier Development Programme (BBSDP), the Cooperatives Incentive Scheme (CIS), and the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) Technology Programme - Incubation. All personnel and business units that worked on these programmes had also been transferred to the DSBD.

The selected portfolio of programmes consisted of three groups. The first group was the Broadening Participation Programmes, which included Technology Human Resources for Industry Programme (THRIP), the Support Programme for Industrial Innovation, the Incubation Support Programme and Itukise -- an internship placement programme. The second group was the Trade Export and Investment Incentives, which included the Business Process Services, Export Marketing and Investment Assistance (EMIA), the Film and Television Incentive and the National Exporter Development Programme. The last group was the Industrial Development Incentives.

Looking at the performance of the selected programmes, Mr Tau said the Black Business Supplier Development Programme (BBSDP) in the year 2013/14 had seen a total of 375 female-owned enterprises assisted, and the value of this assistance had amounted to over R133 million. In the Cooperatives Incentive Scheme (CIS), 974 female members from assisted cooperatives had benefited. The Business Process Services Programme had created 14 751 female jobs out of 26 005 actual jobs, even though it had not beendirectly intended for the benefit of women. The scheme involving film had created only 18 female jobs out of a total of 137. The THRIP programme had involved 585 female students out of a total of 1 634, and 335 researchers out of a total of 1 362. The SEDA Technology Programme (STP) had created 759 individual female jobs, while STP enterprises had created a further 458. The Itukise programme had created 645 female jobs out of a possible 1 139. In total, the majority of jobs that had been created had been for women -- 2 800 out of a total of 5 489.

Turning to the Export Marketing and Investment Assistance (EMIA) programme, he said it was an incentive offered by the Department of Trade and Industry. It sought to partially compensate exporters for costs incurred in respect of:

• Developing export markets for South African products and services;
• Recruiting foreign direct investment into South Africa;
• Identifying new export markets through market research.

EMIA’s contribution to the Department’s mandate was that of directing financial resources towards efforts aimed at increasing South Africa’s capability and capacity to promote exports of products and services into targeted high growth markets and maintain its share in the traditional markets. Out of a total of 1 029 companies that had benefited from the EMIA programme in the 2013/14 year, 208 had been female-owned.

The next programme was the National Exporter Development Programme (NEDP), which deals with enterprises that do not meet the criteria to go abroad. The programme seeks to assist them by preparing them in all the areas the enterprise required, and had trained 372 female companies out of a total of 793 companies in the 2013/14 year.

Mr Tau mentioned two new programmes. These were the Black Industrialist Development Programme and the Revitalisation of Industrial Parks. The Black Industrialists Development Programme aimed at increasing the participation of black entrepreneurs and industrialists, improving access to finance and markets, and targeting selected manufacturing and related industries. The programme would support black women industrialists. The Revitalisation of Industrial Parks would focus on refurbishing the old industrial infrastructure developed mainly in former Bantustan or border areas by the apartheid government, cluster development, and the marketing and promotion of the parks. The programme would benefit women entrepreneurs and workers in the host regions.

The two main challenges to development support were data collection and the need to increase women’s participation in selected pipelines, such as innovation and technology and manufacturing programmes.

Ms Marianne Jacobs, Chief Director: Human Resources & Learning Centre, DTI, said the Department had developed and implemented an internal gender mainstreaming strategy. The employment equity status of the DTI at 31 May 2015 showed that 46% of women were at senior management service (SMS) level, compared to the Cabinet target of 50%, but 55.36% of Chief Directors were female, compared to 44.64% of males. In addition, there were 57% female employees compared to 43% males in the DTI. People with disabilities made up 2.67% of employees, compared to the Cabinet target of 2%.

She took the Committee through the successes and challenges of the DTI. The successes were that the employment equity plans had been implemented. The DTI had embarked on a culture journey to create a culture that would ensure employees built and experienced quality relationships and integrity. A value driven culture formed part of the DTI organisational culture. A Transformation Committee had been established and was active in monitoring progress. Posts aimed at promoting employment equity were targeted at designated groups such as women at SMS level, and people with disabilities. 40 middle and senior managers had benefited from the women’s empowerment programme so far, with five women already promoted to SMS positions and five given a part in the mentoring programme. A “Bread Tags for Wheelchair” campaign was established, the proceeds going towards the purchase of wheelchairs for people with mobility impairments. Women were also being trained on Foreign Economic Representative (FER) skills in preparation for recruitment and posting to foreign missions. The Departmental Retention Policy had been reviewed to allow for specific categories of retention, such as women in middle and senior management. The Departmental leave policy had been amended to include cultural leave. The DTI had conducted an employment equity survey and an implementation plan had been developed and implemented on the basis of the findings. The DTI had educational seminars and workshops on a range of topics. There are also assistive devices and reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities.

The challenges were non-compliance in terms of targeted recruitment by some divisions, perceptions and stereotypes on cultural and gender diversity in certain areas of the work environment, poor staff attendance at gender forums. The transformation Committee had not been afforded the opportunity to implement transformation resolutions in their divisions due to their levels.

Ms Jacobs said the DTI had a gender focal point appointed at Deputy Director level. The post was responsible for employment equity and transformation, incorporating gender, disability and employment equity, monitoring and reporting on these matters. Two Assistant Director posts were available in the sub-Directorate which rendered support in terms of internal gender mainstreaming and disability management.

Mr Tau concluded by reaffirming the commitment of the DTI’s leadership to women’s empowerment. Figures were still low for women in programmes regarding women’s entrepreneurship. The challenges the DTI faced basically had to do with broader economic system issues.

Discussion

Ms N Tarabella-Marchesi (DA) said that she would have liked to have seen the DTI’s targets for a particular year and also the challenges faced in meeting those targets. South African people came from an era from which they did not have the skills required, and these people came to the DTI for assistance. However, they were not helped, as they were told “you need a business plan and certain things in place” and therefore could not be helped. It was similar to the situation whereby “80% of the class does not have books but are expected to go home and do their homework, knowing very well that the majority of the children do not have the capacity or resources”. Based on the above, it seemed as if the DTI was working on the back foot. She would like to have seen in the presentation a statement that “in the DTI we have employed 20 women -- for example, we have so many women in leadership and these are the problems we are finding, and these women are not coming up to leadership because of A,B and C.” That was the analysis that was sought. The presentation had been very vague and more figures should have been used. When presentations were made to people in the community, these people asked themselves, “does my problem have anything to do with what you are presenting to me?” The DTI was not touching on the real issues that were affecting women, to actually make then entrepreneurs. Women constituted 52% of the population, and if women were neglected then the country and its economy would be crippled. The empowering of women should be at the centre of the day-to-day business of the DTI, because when one woman was empowered, one empowered the nation. One needed to think outside of the box and on a bigger scale, as women had the capability to create big companies and businesses. It was often said that women did not have the capacity and skills to be entrepreneurs, but what had been done about this? Whatever system was being used was failing, because women were being left behind.

Ms M Chueu (ANC) said unemployment, poverty and inequality had not been touched on in the presentation. The price of food was so high it was unbelievable, and this touched women. The food price had increased so much that women were going hungry every day, and nothing had been said about that in the presentation. With regard to the gender focal post, women were assigned only to human resources, where the Deputy Director was not a decision maker. This meant that women were being pushed to the periphery. She would have liked to have seen the gender focal person being a Chief Director of the Director General of the DTI, whose purpose was to create a viable economy. At this point in time the DG was saying that “women are to be relegated to small businesses,” which had been the case for the last 20 years, and this was unacceptable. If one looked at the small business programmes that had been mentioned, they had empowered only 2 000 women and that could not be said to have had a big impact with regard to the empowering of disadvantaged women over the past 20 years. With regard to the countries that rejected women, the reasons for the rejection should be stated and whether it was because of policy of legislative issues in those countries. The mentorship programme was vague and did not even give a time frame. The bread tag and plastic bottle caps for wheelchairs campaign did not even specify if it targeted women.

With regard to the “selected schemes,” all schemes and programmes should empower women not just some selected ones. Small industrial areas such as Soshanguve, Soweto and Rosslyn never targeted women. She asked where it could be said that in certain industrial areas women were targeted. She asked which automative component firms in areas such as Rosslyn had been targeted for women, as even white people and foreigners had been targeted in those zones. The same regional zones that had been targeted in the apartheid era, such as Gauteng, were still being targeted, whereas new areas such as the KZN and the North West provinces should be targeted. New industrial zones should be created. In old apartheid areas, small businesses were far from any big cities or towns, and people there had to walk to work, and the DTI was not making life easier for them. The main office of the DTI was in Tshwane, and she asked how it influenced local municipalities to change their spatial planning. Every morning on the radio, it said that the highway past Soshanguve was congested. The DTI’s responsibility was to change that by making it an economic node. The DTI was not saying how it was going to change the country’s spatial framework by putting in economic nodes where there were millions of people, not just thousands.

She asked what “where possible” meant when it was used in the reference to programmes in the presentation. This showed a “by the way” attitude of people whose duty was to implement development. The concept of development needed to be unpacked, such as where and who was going to be affected by the development. The presentation made by the DTI today ridiculed the struggle that had to be fought, as nothing was being done even though the money and resources were now at the DTI’s disposal. She did not want the DTI to come back next time and talk about small businesses, as this had been dealt with before in the strategic plan, where it had been said that the DTI should come up with an industrial plan which targeted women and created jobs where people were, such as the Northern Cape and North West Province, and not just where people migrated to in search of jobs.

The DTI had mentioned trade exports and investment incentives, but it had not said what these trade exports were producing and what it was that overseas markets wanted. The DTI should be worried that in the film programme, there were only 18 women -- what had been done to attract more women? With regard to highly skilled women in advanced technology, statistics had shown that in the last 20 years women were getting into universities in large numbers, but those women were pursuing studies that were insignificant to the economy. She asked what programmes had been put in place to attract these female students towards technology studies, so that they could be used to advance the economy of the country, as 585 females was not sufficient. The same went for the number of women researchers. Women could not get to the highest levels because the social structure had still not been rectified and women were fighting to be in the economic mainstream. She hated that things were referred to as “gender this, gender that,” as it stopped people from understanding that women were the most oppressed gender, as South Africa had built on the backs of African women. The women that had been empowered up till today were white women, without even thinking of empowering other racial groups. More programmes should focus on African women, to reach equilibrium. One did not want to see African women queuing for social grants, as they had to be on the same path as white women. This could be done only through the creation of programmes trying to produce highly skilled women in advanced technology, and when the DTI engaged with other departments such as the Department of Higher Education, it should indicate what needed to be achieved so that it could impact the economy, and they could know what targets to set as a department. The same applied to manufacturing. So much raw material was being taken out of the country. The DTI needed to get laws in place to stop that so that women could make use of it and benefit. Scrap material was leaving the country so women did not benefit by refurbishing, recycling or manufacturing products from it.

Ms D Robinson (DA) jokingly said that she did not know if there was much left to say, as her colleagues had touched on most things with so much passion. She had two points to make. She agreed with what Ms Tarabella-Marchesi had said, but at the same time she was fairly impressed that the DTI had shown some improvement in various fields, and that had not been the case with all departments. Therefore the DTI was headed in the right direction, although specifics were still needed as percentages could be given to make a good impression. She was struck by the fact that areas that had been so unsuccessful during apartheid were being reused. She asked what the DTI was going to do differently, as that had been an artificial system. She remembered one fairly successful project in the Eastern Cape, where she was from, whereby the Irish had been brought in for the production of linens and materials, but it had fallen down because of a lack of management skills, so there was a lot of work that needed to be done, and this concerned her.

While it was being said that the DTI needed to do certain things, it also had to be acknowledged that the pipeline was not there because the education system was not good enough, so one had to start right at the bottom, with people having a decent education and proper mentoring skills. It was not the DTI’s responsibility alone – everyone, as citizens, had to say that the education system had to be fixed so that many people could be properly educated in the right subjects, such as maths, sciences and language skills. It is important not to look at the matter in isolation.

She asked for more information on the bottle tops for wheelchairs programme, as she thought it was a remarkable idea but should be marketed and established who was going to supply the wheelchairs. Was it an isolated project or something that could be introduced in various constituencies? She was keenly awaiting how the DTI would make the previously failed programmes work, and would have to get the answers from the minutes. She then asked to be excused as she had to depart the meeting early.

Mr B Mkongi (ANC) asked what the philosophy had been when the programmes had been drafted, as the women’s struggle for gender equality influenced, and was the foundation for, the policy and programmes that were created. He had not picked up in the DTI’s policy considerations that it had taken note of the historical evidence of the country in terms of trade and export, or how one should intervene, given a structure that was patriarchal at this point in time. The structure had to be changed. The strategies and projects created were just “nice to do” and “hearsay” projects for women, and did not take note of the factors of production and the use of land for industrialisation projects in the country. The programmes did not take into account the transfer of land to women for them to use that land. They also did not factor capital in, and said the R350 000 given was not capital. What was the rationale behind giving women capital to compete with white females, who were established with capital. They did not talk about the factors of production and the actual economy.

With regard to the unemployment rate in South Africa, the strategies that were in place were chasing a dynamic and moving target. People were being skilled and technology was advancing, and then these people needed to be reskilled because technology was advancing further. Industrialization in Africa was not being focused on. African economic values needed to be considered when drafting policies, as we should not be chasing international standards. Industrialisation had first begun in South Africa in 1652, when people had been taken directly from the communal to the capitalist stage without passing through the other two stages, and that was the crisis that was being faced. The context when drawing up these programmes should be the structure of the economy in South Africa and how the people were dislocated in the structure, and how these people would be integrated. Until the correct philosophical underpinnings were undertaken, it would not work.

The programmes had not shown where the people were today and what they were doing in the particular programmes. The money could have been given, and these people could either have used the money or might have been robbed. A woman had approached him in connection with the Investment Programme, and had said that she had gone overseas and no one was buying her wine because it had not been marketed, so what was the purpose of the trip. The money used must have benefits, and situations like this were the challenges. The DTI had the capacity to help, but people were needed who understood the actual problems of the country. Seemingly, the DTI did not know what these were. The fundamental problem was the subjugation and isolation of Africans in particular, and black people in general, in the mainstream of the economy. The programmes therefore had to respond to that fundamental problem. If in general black people were empowered, it did not necessarily mean the liberation of an African person. However if the foundation was based on the liberation of Africans, it could liberate other non-Africans. The same was said, that when a woman was empowered then men were also empowered.

Ms G Tseke (ANC) asked what the relationship was between the DTI and the Ministry of Women in the Presidency. This was because in terms of the strategy, the Ministry was saying that it would like a memorandum of understanding with the DTI. It was unfortunate that the Bill for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality had collapsed. It was a very good Bill, as it would have forced departments and the private sector to empower women. It was up to the Committee and Members of Parliament to reintroduce the Bill.

Ms M Khawula (EFF) thanked the Members of the Committee for fighting on behalf of women. She said that nothing was done for women in rural areas in particular. She spoke about industries and how they were run by foreign nationals and did not benefit black people, or women in particular. The industries were often run by Chinese in rural areas. She asked what process was used for the selection of people into the programmes that had been mentioned in the presentation. What were the criteria used in the selection and what tangible evidence was there that these people actually benefited at ground level?

As a Member of Parliament, people come to her for assistance but at the end of the day, these people got no help. Many of the Committee Members came from rural areas, and she asked whether they go went to the rural areas to find out if the people were being assisted. The nuts of the amarula plant could be crushed and used to make alcohol or health food. She asked if anything was being done about that, and whether rural people were informed and trained and given the right information to stand on their own. She said she did not know a single student that had benefited from the Itukise programme.

The Chairperson asked whether the DTI had done feasibility studies in the respective areas to come up with relevant needs of the people. Women in the world of man were rated as zero, but the warning should be that without a woman, there is no man. Everyone in attendance had mothers and grandmothers, but there was no sensitivity in ensuring that women were uplifted properly. She asked for further elaboration on the point made in the presentation on the amending of the leave policy to include cultural leave. She said it should not be believed that men had to structure and deliver on women’s behalf, as women were self-sufficient

Ms P Bhengu (ANC) said many companies had left empty buildings in rural areas as people left for larger towns on a daily basis in search of jobs. She asked what the DTI had done to assist these people to get jobs in their own areas and to help women to reopen the vacant buildings. She asked what the proportion of female-owned registered companies was that the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) had on their records. She also asked how many of those female registered companies had benefited from the revitalisation of the industrial parks. In addition, what strategies were being utilized to benefit women, especially in rural areas.

The Chairperson said that because of time constraints members would be given a brief opportunity to pose questions and concerns.

Ms Chueu said that Members should rather make points instead of posing questions, as the DTI may not be able to give the responses that were needed. The DTI should take responsibility for making sure that more black people benefited in that particular sector. Foreign companies owned the logistics at the ports, so the DTI should be more involved so that jobs in the warehousing at the ports could be done by African people. Foreigners were controlling the ports and nothing was being done from the DTI’s side. She did not know which space of the economy the DTI wanted black people to occupy.

Ms Tarabella-Marchesi said that whatever was being done by the Department in the fields of industrialisation and manufacturing might take a while to implement, but South Africa was good at banking and those kinds of financial services. She asked whether that could be expanded upon so that South Africa could be to Africa what Switzerland was to Europe, and what Hong Kong was to China, in terms of the financial sector. South Africa had women that had stokvels and was storing R3 billion under the mattress. Corporate financial institutions should be brought in to to make sure that these stokvels worked, and not to have them there only to regulate them. They should be considered as small businesses, because they were corporate banks. Women were not asking for grants or funding as the money was already there and that money could be used to sustain small businesses within the private sector.

Ms Khawula referred to people with disabilities and who used sign language, and how their rights were violated. She mentioned two schools which were very expensive and after finishing at these schools, the learners still did not get employed. She described an incident in which a farmer exploited and deceived people by saying that if they did not use the land then the government would take it away. The farmer then ended up using the land for the plantation of sugar cane, and the owner of the land received only 10%. Many people were being exploited in the rural areas. After five years, one finds that the land used for sugar cane is unusable. This was happening in her own constituency.

People were leaving for the cities and big towns because there was nothing for them back home and if factories could be opened closer to them, then their lives would be made easier. People needed to know how to do things for themselves, but opportunities needed to be brought closer to them. She also emphasised that development should be brought closer to the people, so that they could be a part of the change. Building malls next to black rural areas did not actually help the people, because their small shops and businesses ended up closing because the community went to buy at the mall instead of locally at the small shops.

The Chairperson said that the suggestions and questions had been exhausted and the DTI would be given a brief chance to respond. However, because there were so many, she said that time would be given for the DTI to make their responses in writing to the Committee Secretary. She said that Ms Bhengu would act as Chairperson for the rest of the meeting.

Mr Tau said some of the inputs would be taken under advisement, and would influence the shape of the programmes created. Matters such as targets would be factored in. The DTI had spoken a lot about policies and philosophical approaches amongst other things, and had been told specifically that it needed to talk about the programmes and where they were happening. The President had told the DTI that it needed to revitalise the old areas, and should talk to him once things were happening there. The President had told the DTI that he wanted jobs created and things should happen where people lived -- whether it was in villages, townships or rural areas.

What he saw from the issues raised was there would always be policy tensions, in the sense that government naturally pursued policies that might seem contradictory at a certain level, but it was the role of government to manage those contradictions. A lot of the things were systemic, and in that system the DTI was just one component. This meant that something needed to happen in another part of the system for the whole system to work and function together. The DTI was unable to resolve all of those things alone. There were issues that required more specificities, as this would help the DTI to intervene. The programmes should be broken down one by one, including the industrial policy action plan. There were many programmes and it was hard to bring all of them into a short presentation. He acknowledged that the figures of women were very low and more things need to be done in the system in order to bring the figure up. Most of the programmes were in the rural areas and he gave examples of these. There were a couple that were far away from the people but the principle was that strategies were developed for each programme. This meant that if there was a facility that was far away, then there had to be a plan for the elements of the development.

In response to the question on the relationship of the DTI and the Women in Presidency, he said that there had not been much structure ever since the gender unit had been moved to the Department of Small Business Development. It was generally seen that the programmes which were not run by the gender unit per se, had more impact than the gender-specific ones. Therefore the issue of the DTI was mainstreaming and ensuring that right across all the programmes there had to be targets for women. This should not be done by the gender unit, but rather through a philosophy that flowed from the top of government.

He responded to the question on the use of “where possible” in the presentation. He said that not all programmes were intended to achieve women’s empowerment objectives, because of the policy tensions. One of the questions often asked of the DTI was where the foreign investments in South Africa were. That was not a gender issue -- the DTI had to ask various companies to invest and build their plants in South Africa. That was a programme on its own and that was why so many automotive companies were leaving countries like Australia for South Africa. That did not mean that the programme was against local involvement, as the first phase of the programme was to attain capability and once the company had established itself, then the other dimensions came into play with regard to empowerment. He said that IBM would be launched in an equity programme and had set aside R700 million to help black people in areas such as research and software development, but this could only happen once IBM was here. When “where possible” was used, it meant that there were different objectives but they would ultimately work together. Some of the functions, such as banking mentioned by the Committee, were not under the mandate and authority of the DTI. National Treasury dealt with banking and the Department of Transport dealt with the ports, but work was being done with them to ensure development. Many feasibility studies had been conducted and there were ten specific economic zones across the country, and the purposes were to determine the potential of those regions and what the DTI could do. He could provide information on what those economic zones were all about and what the DTI was doing and what was being achieved.

Mr Thami Klassen, Director: Regional Industrial Development, DTI, responded to the issue of the amarula benefaction project. He said concerns had been presented to the DTI at the time of the co-operative incentive schemes, and he would find out what had happened there. The DTI had worked extensively with the community with regard to the Msinga rural development project, but it had collapsed as a result of the mismanagement of funds allocated by the Department of Rural Development to a secondary cooperative. The DTI had not been involved, as the money had come from another Department. The DTI had given advice on how to correct the situation, but it had not been heeded. Despite this the DTI was still working on it with the community.

In terms of industrialization in rural areas, there were a lot other programmes that were being done with regard to the notion of Agriparks, but without the help of other departments, the projects would not achieve sustainability. He referred to the statement made by the DDG that the policies of the different departments of government should be merged.

Ms Bhengu, now acting as the Chairperson said that there were more responses required from the DTI, but it could not provide them because of time constraints. At least the ideas had been responded to and at the next meeting those and many other issues would be engaged upon.

Ms Chueu said that there was no such thing that the DTI did not have any authority over foreign investments. She gave the example of Ford leaving Mamelodi, and money had been pumped into it by the DTI. The people of Mamelodi had never benefited, as they could have benefited only from being employed. Automotive components should have been built. What people had been empowered? She said that the DTI had never given the taxi industry the opportunity, as they were the ones buying and servicing the vehicles using automotive components.

Ms Bhengu said that the end of the meeting had been reached but this was not the last engagement with the DTI. There were many more questions from the Committee and answers were needed from the DTI. The consideration and adoption of minutes for 2 and 9 June 2015 would be done at the next meeting.

The meeting was adjourned.