General
The Commission for Gender Equality says the Employment Equity Act needs to be reviewed. The call came after it emerged that black women had not significantly progressed in occupying positions of executive management in the corporate sector.
The latest Women in Leadership Census 2011, which the Businesswomen’s Association (BWA) presented on Thursday, showed the percentage of female executive managers had increased, but the number of black women appointed had decreased. The census focuses on JSE-listed companies, state-owned enterprises and government departments.
It said that, of the 1 461 female executive managers in the study, 70.6 percent were white, 14.4 percent African, 7.4 percent coloured and 6.9 percent Indian. Executive managers are the most senior decision-makers after company boards.
The entire sample of executive managers, including men, is 6 776. Javu Baloyi, the spokesman for the commission, said: “We need to look at this holistically. It could be that people are abusing the Employment Equity Act or the rules are not robust enough.”
The census showed that corporate South Africa appears to compensate for the shortfall in the appointments of black women to executive positions, by appointing a larger number to directorships. The majority of directorships are held by African women (46.7 percent), followed by white (36.6 percent), coloured (8.3 percent) and Indian (8.3 percent) women.
“The Employment Equity Act needs to be reviewed – what’s working and what’s not working and who the stakeholders are we can bring to the fore,” Baloyi said.
This comes as the Ministry of Women, Children and People with Disabilities plans to introduce a Gender Equality Bill and the BWA wants gender diversity included in JSE listing rules and the King Code.
In December the commission summoned several companies in male-dominated industries, such as Esorfranki, Bidvest Bank and Poynting Antennas, to publicly account for their slow transformation in terms of employing women and people with disabilities.
At Esorfranki, a civil engineering and construction group, its six directors are all men, according to its latest annual report. The Bidvest Group has 24 board members, only five of whom are women. Of Poynting’s seven directors, none are women.
Baloyi said the commission was also concerned about a “recycling” of the few black women in powerful positions.
Respected business leader Jerry Vilakazi said as a panellist during the BWA presentation last week: “The challenge is not the absence of women with skills; the challenge is a mindset change. It is not only males who do appointments, but in certain instances there are women in powerful positions who do not make decisions for the advancement of women.”
Vilakazi stepped down last month as the chief executive of Business Unity SA, making way for the appointment of a female chief executive, Futhi Mtoba. He was a former deputy director of transformation in the Department of Public Service and Administration.
Kunyalala Maphisa, the president of the BWA, said her organisation did not believe the Employment Equity Act should be reviewed as women as a whole faced a complicated situation and it would not help to position white women against black women.
“We are splitting hairs further. We are already a disenfranchised group,” she said. - Business Report