THE DEFINITIVE TRUCKING SITE

August 2009

THE LIQUID FUELS Empowerment Charter (LFEC) was the topic of review at Gallagher Estate Conference Centre in June this year. The LFEC has the honour of being the first Charter to be successfully negotiated and implemented. Its well documented history goes back to November 2000. The LFEC has come a long way with many milestones and achievements along its transformation journey. These include an industry with an established BEE strategy and policies. 

The LFEC was signed in 2004 and creates a framework for placing 25% of all facets of the liquid fuels industry and all parts of the value chain in the hands of historically disadvantaged South Africans. This includes exploration, production, refining capacity and entry into the retailing and commercial sectors of the industry. The LFEC serves as a good example of how the empowerment process should work and is recognised as the root of broad based BEE. 

All SAPIA member companies are signatories to the Charter. More than 32% of top management and 71% of unskilled technical workers are Black. In 2007 R150 million was spent on skills development including leadership and artisans. Although the investment is running at about 90% of the target, 1200 artisans will be trained by next year.

While there are shortfalls in some areas such as preferential procurement targets, IT and some outreach programmes, there has been progress on many aspects in critical areas that need to be made up before the November 2010 deadline for implementation is reached. Of most interest for FuelWatch readers is its need to speed up the establishment of more Black-owned wholesalers and transport companies to take on more of the distribution and delivery tasks. 

This seems a good time for government to roll out the Road Freight and Logistics Industry For Reward Charter that has been simmering on the back-burner for the past few years. There are no known reasons why this Charter should not come into existence, especially since it commits government to promote the road transport industry and TETA to provide relevant and affordable training of newcomers to freight and dangerous goods transport operations. Something along these lines: 

• Government to collaborate with all stakeholders to develop a strategy to grow the industry and create quality jobs by promoting the outsourcing of non-core transport and logistics operations of businesses. 

• TETA is supposed to identify the management, professional and technical skills that the industry will require over the next decade and map out future demand/supply scenarios in a detailed skills audit that will guide and inform stakeholders. Make proposals on how to eliminate the identified skills deficits in the medium term. The proposal will quantify the financial resources that may be required to eliminate the skills deficit. 

• Identify institutions that can provide the required management, professional and technical skills and whether the identified institutions have the capacity to meet the expected demand and whether their curricula meet the needs of industry. It will make proposals on how to increase the capacity and relevance of existing institutions and establish whether there is a need to establish a dedicated institution that will focus on developing skills for the industry. Introduce new categories of learnerships - in management, technical and professional occupational categories - to help organisations to achieve their employment equity targets. 

• Develop a training programme to improve the business management skills.

One cannot help pondering how this can happen given TETA’s track record to date. This writer is not holding his breath.