> Thandisizwe Mgudlwa
At the Black Forum Conference of September 2004 held at the University of Pretoria, a link between Entrepreneurship and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) was debated extensively.
Although now its 12 years on since the Black Business leaders and BEE stakeholders gathered, the issues they discussed at the conference are still far from being addressed, as the majority of South Africans and their African counterparts are still living in poverty.
Currently, the are about five African countries which practice BEE. These are of SA, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Morocco, Mauritius and Namibia.
Titled, “Entrepreneurship and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE): An alternative way”, the forum asserted that entrepreneurship is sometimes seen as a process of few peoples.
Some notable outcomes included that, “Although some persons have innate abilities as entrepreneurs, many can also develop this capacity in their life through a learning process.”
According to Timmons (1999: 27), entrepreneurship is a way of thinking and reasoning.
“At the heart of entrepreneurship is the creation and/or recognition of opportunities.”
Therefore, entrepreneurship can help disposed people to change their social life, from poverty to wealth.
On the other hand, BEE is a policy aimed at empowering previously disadvantaged people in South Africa. Botswana, Zimbabwe, Morocco, Mauritius and Namibia.
In Nigeria, BEE seems no longer to be a top of the list these days.
Essentially though, is the question, what is the link between BEE and entrepreneurship?
The forum noted that the history of the Unites States could assist them in explaining how entrepreneurship can contribute to job creation and change the lives of millions of people in SA and the rest of Africa.
How can this be achieved? How can an entrepreneurial mind-set be implemented among the African population? These questions and others were going to ground the paper.
This paper would explain why to focus on entrepreneurship as a remedy to improving African’s lives and eradicate poverty.
The final report also developed definitively entrepreneurship as an alternative way of implementing BEE in an entrepreneurial context.
Furthermore, it was noted that society is the social and physical context in which people establish or acquire businesses.
“Entrepreneurship is important for any society to generate economic growth for social-economic welfare of the population in general” (Van Aardt et al., 2002: 3).
In this regard, Michel Porter (1990: 125) noted that entrepreneurship is at the heart of economic advantage.
The forum further declared that in a South African divided society, where a large part of the population leaves in poverty, entrepreneurship needed to be a ‘must’.
The whole paper has developed a strategic framework in which BEE can be implemented in an entrepreneurial context.
It has been found that during the years 1970s, entrepreneurship was defined as a way of thinking, reasoning, and acting that is opportunity obsesses, holistic in approach, and leadership balanced (Timmons, 1999: 27).
Although this definition of entrepreneurship has evolved over the past decades, however, the core of the concept remains the same.
According to Timmons (1987: 409), entrepreneurship results in the creation, enhancement, realization, and renewal of value, not just for owners, but also for all participants and stakeholders.
At the heart of this process according to Timmons, there is the creation and/or recognition of opportunities, followed by the will and initiative to seize these opportunities.
Therefore, entrepreneurship requires a willingness to take risks-both personal and financial.
During the years 1990s, entrepreneurship was associated with the creation of start-ups.
Today, entrepreneurship has evolved beyond the classic start-up notion to include organisations of all types at all stages.
Thus entrepreneurship can occur -and fail to occur- in new firms and in old, in small firms and large, in fast and slow growing firms, in the private, not for-profit, and public sectors, in all geographic points, and all stages of a nation’s development, regardless of politics (Timmons,1999: 27).
In simple terms, Antonites (2003: 29) defines an entrepreneur as an individual with the potential to create a vision from virtually nothing.
Furthermore, “Entrepreneurship requires a willingness to take calculated risks, both personal time, intellectual and financial, and then doing everything possible to fulfill ones’ goals and objectives.”
This would also also involve “building a team of people with complementary needed skills and talents; sensing and grasping an opportunity where others see failure, chaos, contradiction, and confusion; and gathering and controlling resources to pursue the opportunity, making sure that the venture does not run out of finance when it needs it most.”
At any time, the entrepreneur needs certain resources to start a business venture, or to realize a business opportunity, either outside or inside the business, which are financial, and human resources (Van Aardt, 2002: 5).
From all the definitions outlined here, entrepreneurship holds the promise of future growth, expansion and long-term financial gain; that is why sometimes a small business that is only aimed at the survival of its owner cannot be seen as an entrepreneurial venture (Van Aardt 2002: 5).
The term Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) started slipping into vocabulary of Blacks Activists at about the same time that “Black Advancement” was the term invogue in the late 1970s in South Africa during the Freedom Struggle.
But it was only in the late 1980s, that it began to be used strongly as a counterpoint to the weak “Equal Opportunity” that had been given prominence by the corporate sector.
However, the term as used in the 1980s may well end up being judged by history of the anti-Apartheid Struggle prior to the elections of 27 April 1994.
The term also found itself smack in the middle of the political turmoil that was enfolding in South Africa at that time.
According to Paul Browning (1978), the goal of BEE is to assist in the process of dismantling apartheid and creating a non-racial representative government in South Africa.
“The empowerment strategy has two distinct elements. The first is the breaking down of social barriers as result of increased Black incomes. This will lead to changes in lifestyles and greater communication between Blacks and whites. This in turn will ease the process of political change. The second is the creation of wealth within the Black community sothat in a capitalist society Blacks will be able to vote with their money” (Madi 1997).
The BEE Commission defined BEE as a strategy aimed at substantially increasing Black participation at all levels in the economy. BEE is aimed at redressing the imbalances of the past by seeking to substantially and equitably transfer ownership, management and proportionate control of South Africa’s financial and economic resources to the majority of its citizens.
It also aims to ensure broader and meaningful participation in the economy by Black people. From this definition, there is a keyword that needs to be underlined and which explains the whole policy of BEE,
BEE is a strategy aimed to redress the imbalances of the past by increasing Black participation in their national economies.
For an example, in March, 2008, Zimbabwe’s President, Robert Mugabe signed the Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Bill into law.
The law gives Zimbabweans the right to take over and control many foreign owned companies in Zimbabwe. Specifically, over 50% of all the businesses in the country will be transferred into local African hands. The bill defines an indigenous Zimbabwean as “any person who before the 18th of April 1980 was disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on the grounds of his or her race, and any descendant of such person.”
Moreover, the 2004 forum had concluded, other ways must be explored as alternative means for implementing BEE.
“Entrepreneurship is one. The present initiative tackles the process in the South African context.”
In the past weeks, this column has dealt with the issue of culture used as a tool to destroy or enhance a people’s freedom.
