This is according to the presidential Black Business Working Group Baseline 2007 Report on BEE which shows that just 10.4% of companies have achieved “excellent compliance” with high BEE scores. Released at the 1st Annual BEE Conference in Johannesburg at the end of last, the report showed that the majority of companies (78.2%) have not yet obtained BEE scores, or have scores below 30.

Jan Munnik, managing director of EES-SIYAKHA and a leading expert in Employment Equity (EE) and BEE transformation, said most companies started off on a low score and did not know how to go about improving it. The problem was further compounded due to the lack of clarity surrounding government criteria.