Townships and rural areas are in line to benefit from the arrival of the Property Industry Charter which is due for implementation in June 2005, the Minister of Public Works Stella Sigcau said on Monday.
She was addressing delegates and industry stakeholders attending the launch of the process to create an empowerment charter for the property sector.
Sigcau said the department had joined forces with the private sector in embarking on a process of establishing a transformation charter.
"The charter, accompanied by a scorecard to guage the performance of business against set targets, will serve as a strategic framework for effective transformation over the next decade and beyond," she said.
"The process will help accomplish a greater sense of unity through co- operation but also address economic and social problems associated with the property sector."
Although she said the department expected transformation was industry- driven, if this did not happen, "the department would be forced to intervene in whatever way appropriate".
However, she could not say how the department would step in, saying only that she supported a negotiated settlement and
hoped the charter processes would be ruled by this spirit.
Sigcau and the Deputy Director-General Lydia Bici called on black economic empowerment (BEE) entities to take advantage of the charter in transforming the industry which is mainly white-owned while at the same time helping the country achieve its broad-based BEE goals.
They also issued a warning to established and foreign companies that sought to falsify their BEE credentials in order to qualify for government contracts.
Bici said they would be conducting rigorous exercises to root out "fly- by-night" and fake empowerment companies and would involve BEE ratings agencies in identifying such culprits.
Bici told I-Net Bridge that the Property Sector and Construction Charter Committee (PSCCG), chaired by Andy Ntondi, is currently developing a status quo report to ascertain shortages or lack of infrastructure in townships and rural areas.
A task team will consolidate all pertinent issues that will shape the final charter.
In addition, the group would incentivise developers, estate agents and other enterprises that were willing to conduct business in townships, villages and other rural areas in terms of developing infrastructure such as shopping malls, roads and schools.
Bici lamented the lack of black estate agents and other stakeholders and urged them to approach the PSCCG in ensuring a higher degree of inclusiveness on broad-based BEE and transformation.
The PSCCG is made up of the South African Institute of Black Property Practitioners, the South African Property Owners Association, the Women's Property Network, the Estate Agents Affairs Board, the South African Black Technical and Allied Career Organisation, the South African Council of Shopping Centres and the Institute of Estate Agents of South Africa.
I-Net Bridge
Publisher: Inet Bridge`
Source: Inet Bridge
