Women’s Empowerment in State-Owned Enterprises: briefing by Denel, Eskom and Alexkor

Meeting report

PUBLIC ENTERPRISES PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
9 March 205
WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES: BRIEFING BY DENEL, ESKOM AND ALEXKOR

Chairperson: Ms Mnandi (ANC)

Documents handed out:
Denel presentation
Eskom presentation
Alexkor presentation

SUMMARY
Denel, Eskom and Alexkor briefed the Committee on the efficiency of their women empowerment programmes.

MINUTES
The Chairperson welcomed the representatives from Denel, Eskom and Alexkor and apologised on behalf of Transnet’s CEO (who requested to deliver its report on another date). The Chair explained that the representatives had to report on what they were doing to empower women in the business sector. Two reports were expected this year on this topic: one on International Women’s Day (8 March) and one on the South African Women’s Day (9 August). Mr C Gololo was asked to outline the expectations of the committee for the presentations.

Mr Gololo emphasised the importance of the development of empowerment programmes that benefit women from disadvantaged and previously discriminated backgrounds, especially black women from rural areas. He referred to the increase in women leadership in the business sector and in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and said that the country could not develop without the development of women. The ANC had adopted a 33% quota for women in all elected positions and it had resolved to have a capacity building programme for women to accompany this quota system. State owned enterprises had a role to play regarding the empowerment of women. Their presentations should outline their programmes and answer these questions:
- How was women empowerment reflected in their employment policies?
- What did their company do to encourage women to develop entrepreneurial skills?
- What skills and development programmes were available to women?
- What their expectations and goals were with these programmes?
- Where did their company not cater for the questions raised above?

Eskom briefing
Ms S Mujakachi (Communications Manager: Eskom) said that Eskom followed a business structure that provided the prescribed support for women empowerment. It had redesigned programmes that had in the past supported wrong practices. The strategies that were used to achieve the targets were to change the organisational culture and they had reviewed all policies in order to ensure their efficiency. Eskom had worked on their diversity plan based on certain levels of intervention:
- Eskom implemented monthly monitoring systems in order to monitor the progress in their company.
- Eskom had created developmental programmes to ensure pipelining, meaning they had identified the distribution of bursaries to bring women graduates into training.
- Concerning gender empowerment initiatives, Eskom had implemented a leadership developmental programme in order for managers to evaluate and manage themselves
- Eskom implemented the CEO Ladies’ programme, which is an embassy programme. Ninety ladies from rural areas went through a four year programme of training; they were all successfully integrated into employee positions.
- Eskom implemented the fast track learning system in order to preserve talented workers and giving them the chance to fill in satisfaction surveys on a monthly basis in order to ensure a healthy relationship between managers and employees.
- Eskom has implemented a talent management programme to attract and retain talent in designated groups and to assist them in attaining required skills.
- Eskom also provided job rotation and international exposure if necessary.
- Eskom has been following a work philosophy which includes flexible working hours in order to accommodate working mothers.

Ms Mujakachi noted Eskom’s general achievements regarding women in managerial positions:
- One female Generation Manager of Production (out of four black GMPs)
- One Female Power Station Manager (out of six black PSMs)
- 13,2% of the E band managers (women executives at senior level) are female (out of the 34% E band managers that are black)
- 18,4% MPS employees are female (out of the 47,3% MPSs that are black)
- One female general manager out of ten general manager positions.

Ms Mujakachi commented on Eskom’s Diversity Policy (for its Gender Development Programme) that includes employment and gender equality policies with the following directives: Sexual harassment, Flexitime policy and Mentorship policy. Within procurement, there would be opportunities for women-owned businesses. Eskom’s work/life strategy would take into account women affected with HIV/AIDS by means of offering them individual coaching sessions and counselling.

Eskom had generally achieved well in meeting its goals in 2005: there were 6 891 employed women in total of which 3883 women are in supervising management, 676 women in managerial professional/specialist positions, 676 women in senior managerial posts and 2 women in executive managerial positions. Eskom’s figures for female staff had dramatically increased since 1997 and showed Eskom’s general achievements to be in line with their gender targets.

Ms Mujakachi said that Eskom had offered 495 bursaries for university studies (62% women of which 49% were black), 181 (30% women) for technicons and 317 (43% women) for technical colleges. These percentages showed the opportunities given to women in order to provide a workforce with greater gender equality.

Alexkor briefing
Mr R Zihlangz (Alexkor: Alexander Bay) said that when he had joined Alexkor in 2002, most board members were black males. Within three years this had been changed to having 24% of the board members consist of women.

Mr Zihlangz admitted that their organisation had problems with attracting the necessary skills required for managing posts at Alexkor and that this was even more difficult in terms of employing skilled women. He explained this in the light of the outlying geographic position of Alexander Bay. The area was inhabited by only 4 500 people and this was predominantly coloured with only 6% being African. Alexkor’s permanent staff consisted of 55% coloured males, two African males and 16% women.

Mr Zihlangz questioned whether their company had meaningful participation in terms of capacity building to empower women. Women were making a decent living by being empowered to work in the sweeping process for diamonds (where diamonds are liberated from the ground). This was a successful employment programme for it helped women by giving them a job opportunity.

Alexkor had been awarding bursaries to women via training centres. He said it was a mistake to have closed them down, because they were valuable in terms of capacity building. Bursaries should not be withdrawn although it is expensive to train people, because ignorance is much more expensive in the long term. It was important to send females to learnership programmes. Alexkor achieved the following results:
- Three women were employed as heavy machine operators
- They were working on a project to improve employee geographic profiles; in order to employ skilled people from all provinces.
- They had created a support system for women by empowering a group of women to manage a fuel station; but because of a lack of checks and balances the fuel station was shortly after managed by men.
- Female applicants received preference in terms of recruitment and an effort was made to recruit females into senior jobs. However the biggest problem was attracting female talent to their organisation.
- Two females have been sent to the South African Diamond Board in order to be skilled in the cutting and polishing process of diamonds which was a scarce skill. In future, South Africa should cut and polish their own diamonds and not send it overseas for cutting as this was not cost effective.
- Alexkor is successful (since 1992) to contribute 30% of their income to their Alexkor Development Foundation (ADF) in order to alleviate poverty amongst women. The latter results in jobs for women to keep the coast clean in collaboration with Eco Africa and also to be employed in the sweeping process as mentioned earlier.
- Mr Zihlangz said that there was no other mine in South Africa that was more prepared that Alexkor in terms of diamond preparation.
- Mr Zihlangz said that their were no policies in place to prevent the abuse of women in the work place, but that managers are exposed to workshop sessions (to better inform them on how to identify the occurrence of abuse) and that a female social worker would address these related problems if they had in fact occurred.
- The Mines and Work Act has installed a programme in order to brake down the stereotypes that exist regarding women that should not work in mines, in order to attract women to the job opportunities Alexkor had previously only offered to men applicants.
- Mr Zihlangz raised his concern on the issue that women were still discriminated against in terms of their salaries being lower than those of men, but that this issue would be addressed in the near future.

Denel briefing
Mr E Martin (Group Director of Denel) started his presentation by referring to their company’s targets (please see page two of the attached document for more details). He said that the main issue was that their company’s board of directors predominantly consisted of white males in the past but that in 2005 they only represented 45% of the board. Mr Martin said that these statistics were still not satisfactory and that more women should be employed as board members.

Mr Martin referred to page 3 to explain the total female strength in their company and said that 2002/2003 was not representative but that 2004/2005 was definitely more representative for women; even though the company was shrinking due to stronger competition in their market. Mr Martin referred to the percentage of women employed in the different disciplines of their company and said that there was an increase in female senior executives and that overall women were represented slightly higher than in previous years.

Mr Martin said that the biggest challenge for their company was employing more female engineers, especially from races other than white; because the greatest number of female engineers in their company was white. Mr Martin said that their company was committed to the training women and also the removal of stereotypes that exist about women in the work force.

Mr Martin said that their company had been working towards transformation by means of their training programmes (page 9), especially training women with the necessary skills in aircraft in order to become fighter pilots. Mr Martin said that they had already employed two female technicians to work on aircrafts and that this was the product of their mentoring and coaching programmes. Mr Martin said that the problem with these mentoring and coaching programmes was that they were voluntary and that greater results could have been achieved if they were made compulsory by means of a policy. The greatest challenge could overall be seen as attracting black talent towards the company.

Mr Martin said that their company also had internal involvement from 208 female training learners. Denel also approached the youth by identifying those learners that did poorly in mathematics and science in school (because of disadvantaged circumstances) and that they provided the funds to these learners to do their matrix year again in order to improve their results. Mr Martin said that Denel proved they could change a D student into an A student (page 10). Mr Martin also said that Denel had identified grade 10 learners with talent in Mathematics and Science in order to assist them with extra tutoring programmes until they reach matrix so that they would be able to directly go to university with the results they had achieved in their final exams.

Mr Martin said that Denel’s bursary programme spent a total amount of R2; 4 million in order to assist students and a total amount of 133 bursaries were given to female students. Mr Martin said that Denel’s training learnerships were focused on certain target groups namely:
Black Women Businesses (BWB)
Persons living with disabilities
Youth
Other black suppliers

Mr Martin said that Denel aimed at increasing their BEE spend by 10% and that they will especially focus on BWB’s in order to at least achieve a 51% equity benchmark between women and men employees. Mr Martin explained the support programmes available to BWB’s and provided numbers to justify their preferential procurement to date (page 15).

Mr Martin ended his presentation by saying that Denel wanted to establish a webpage in order to be more accessible to the public. He said that the industry was very secretive but that their company wanted to be more transparent to the public eye.

Discussion
The chairperson said that the department would not provide a presentation on that day, but that any questions in relation to the presentations given, was welcomed to be directed to the department. The chairperson opened the floor for questions.

Mr Gololo thanked the organisations for their efforts in getting women empowered, but raised his concern that no organisation spoke about the management of HIV/AIDS programmes.

Mr P Hendrickse (ANC: Committee of Public Enterprises) asked that each organisation should please give clarity on how they approached the youth from rural areas and in which provinces, by means of examples.

Mr Martin said than Denel looked after the general wellbeing of the workers (including those with HIV/AIDS). Mr Martin said that they launched a programme two years ago to create an awareness of HIV/AIDS amongst the workers and also to encourage them to participate in voluntary testing. Mr Martin said that Denel had the percentages and numbers of those affected with HIV/AIDS. Regarding the question of how they identify talented youth from rural areas and in which provinces; Mr Martin said that they would include these answers in their next presentation.

Mr Zihlangz said that Alexkor got the statistics of the occurrence of HIV/AIDS from the local environment (and their workers) by having a braai which everybody attended and that the only requirement was that everybody had to spit into a small bottle. Mr Zihlangz said that there was a 1, 8% prevalence of the virus and that 5% of the infected locals were contractors that came from outside Namakwaland. Mr Zihlangz said that Alexkor also worked in collaboration with the occupational health department in the local hospital, in order to provide assistance for those that were affected with the virus.

The chairperson asked Eskom the following questions:
In terms of BWB’s; what are the brake downs of the big moneys that were spend on these businesses in terms of the provinces the organisation included in their programme (in order to provide clarity on how women from all communities are empowered)?
What strategies were in place as far as fronting was concerned?

Mr S Kholwane (ANC: Committee on Public Enterprises) asked Eskom the following questions:
Regarding page 16 of their report; could further brake downs be given in terms of Eskom’s gender targets that explained which races the percentages consisted of?

Mr S Manie (ANC: Committee on Public Enterprises) asked the following questions:
What has been done regarding the fast tracking of women via promotional opportunities and the identification of talented individuals?
Were there any work place forums, based on the Employment Equity Act, in order to hear what the workers had to say? (Mr Manie suggested that workers from the organisations workforce would be present in the presentation of the next report, in order for the committee to give more constructive inputs)


Ms N Kondlo (ANC: Committee on Public Enterprises) said that she wanted clarity on Eskom’s statistics regarding the previously disadvantaged. Ms Kondlo said that the committee has not been informed on how many women were from each province, especially from the rural areas in the Eastern- and Northern Cape. Ms Kondlo wanted to know when these details could be announced in order for the committee to have a greater understanding of the efficiency of the BEE. Ms Kondlo also asked the following questions:
How did the organisations recruit the students they had provided bursaries for; did they open applications or physically go to the schools?
Regarding the youth programme; was there any bias in women’s access to bursaries?

Ms Ngcengwane (ANC: Committee on Public Enterprises) asked Eskom to give a further brake down on their figures regarding BWB’s, to provide clarity of which provinces were included in the statistics made available. Ms Ngcengwane asked whether there were managers responsible to see to it that all women from different provinces were given an equal chance to be recruited; by means of the advertisements for posts and also in the organisations’ distributions of their training programmes in the different provinces.

The chairperson said that the committee should not only be given the opportunity to talk with the SOE’s, but that the beneficiaries of these women empowerment programmes should also be given the opportunity to give feedback on the efficiency of these programmes (from a more personal point of view).

The chairperson said that the SOE’s could respond to questions by providing information on what they were doing to reach the goals of the BEE and Employment Equity Act in order to empower women.

Mr Dladla said that Eskom would send the brake down figures of the beneficiaries of the BEE (regarding BWB’s from different provinces) electronically by Friday 11 March 2005 to the committee.

Mr Dladla said that the breakdown of figures that were asked for on page 14 and 16 of their report (regarding their targets) that the professional side seemed to overlap with the consultancy aspect, although the supervisor rather represented the entry level.

Mr Dladla admitted that Eskom’s targets had not focused on the youth, but that they would start focusing more on the youth in the near future and share those numbers and their achievements with the committee in their next report.

Mr Dladla agreed that the beneficiaries of the women empowerment programme should be talking for themselves in order to evaluate the efficiency of the outcomes of this programme.

Mr Dladla said that the braking down of numbers for each province regarding where the beneficiaries came from, would all indicate that they are urban based. For example the statistics for employees of Eskom’s power stations situated in Mpumalanga, mostly include employees from other provinces, but it should be seen to it that Mpumalanga benefits from the empowerment programme as well.

Mr Dladla said that the fast tracking and monitoring programmes of Eskom focused on benefiting women from rural areas, but that it had not been efficient in all cases, since there was no clear proof that those assistance programmes had uplifted those women when referred to the high unemployment rates in rural areas.

The chairperson thanked Mr Dladla and all the other men that were speaking on behalf of the women that benefit from women empowerment programmes. She asked Denel to present their response to the questions.

Mr Martin said that Denel provided opportunities for skills transfer for youth in rural areas via advertising in all local newspapers and also by personally visiting schools in order to identify the talented learners themselves. Whatever goods and services are required from Denel, are subject to the standards that are determined by the engineers, in order to assure quality. Therefore the skills transfer programmes would identify talented youth that could be trained to maintain these standards.

Mr Martin said that the forums regarding work skills were not easy and he encouraged the members of parliament to assist Denel when they are hosting these forums, because they are not always equipped with all the answers.

Mr Martin said that Denel would make their business diary public (electronically) in order to address the issue on a lack of clarity regarding some aspects of the implementation and results of their empowerment programmes.

Mr S Gasa (Chief Director of the Department of Public Enterprises) said that the department made a presentation in August 2004 regarding the empowerment of women and that within that, the mainstreaming strategy was mentioned as well as that it had been put into action. Mr Gasa told the honourable members that this strategy has put a monitoring process in action as to monitor the progress of SOE’s and to get respond on their problems and achievements. However, Mr Gasa said, the monitoring was not functioning optimally and the process had to go further and include the beneficiaries’ opinions, in order to better understand what could be envisioned for the future successes of empowerment programmes.

Mr Gasa said that SOE’s must give a detailed report on their achievements before the date that the meeting is scheduled for, in order for the committee to engage more effectively. Mr Gasa said that a proper date should be set for the committee and the SOE’s to workshop their ideas and also that the SOE’s must provide the committee with their reviews of their reports, before their reports have been modified, in order for the committee to follow the SOE’s more thoroughly.

Ms B Letompa (Researcher for the Department of Public Enterprises) raised her concern regarding each SOE’s language policy in the advertisements they place in local papers. Ms Letompa said that the SOE’s should take the high illiteracy into account as well as the fact that not all people in the rural areas understand English. She asked the SOE’s to take this into account when they want to advertise in this manner again.

Ms Seperepere (Department of Public Enterprises) thanked the SOE’s for their presentations and added that she just wanted to inform the house on a number of issues:
The committee members that expressed their concern regarding the employment of rural women should know that the government have integrated the sustainable development programme in their manner of approach, in order to monitor SOE’s on their implementation of their programmes.
The department has been engaging with SOE’s and is in touch with the executive managers in order to organize them to fund (through there development fund) the need in their communities.
The SOE’s are therefore further expected to increase their efforts to sustain the new education programme by means of throwing in their weight in rural areas.
Concerning the members’ issues regarding HIV/AIDS; Ms Seperepere said that the department has done a review on SOE’s and that they have personally visited Alexkor and Transnet to interview the managers and employees in order to evaluate the efficiency of the HIV/AIDS programmes implemented. Ms Seperepere said that the department used the national department of health for guidance in order to create a strategy that outlines the SOE’s commitment on HIV/AIDS.
Ms Seperepere said the training and skilling of employees should accelerate within the available support structures and that its strategic importance should not be underestimated. Ms Seperepere said that SOE’s needed to include the outcomes of their graduation programmes in their reports more effectively. Ms Seperepere said that it was necessary to see in which jobs the trained employees were put in eventually and more thorough debates had to be initiated in order to increase income opportunities.

Mr Manie said that issues should be approached in a different way and that the roles of the Eskom and Transnet foundations should be reviewed in order to address issues in a broader way. Mr Manie said that the honourable members and SOE’s should try to initiate a workshop opportunity in order to share each other’s best practices with each other. Mr Manie concluded that different communities have different needs, knowledge and expertise and that it is exactly this broader spectrum of knowledge that should be put together in order to provide a clearer and broader picture.

The Chairperson ended the meeting by saying that a workshop opportunity would be launched in the near future that would be facilitated by the department with the SOE’s and members of the portfolio committee in order to interact more efficiently in discussions and understand each other to get a grasp of everything that is expected from the women empowerment programme.

The chairperson thanked the SOE’s for their presentations and the department for their presence. The meeting was adjourned.