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CESA’s interventions to drive constructive and sustainable transformation
‘Watch this space’!
This year will see Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) take the
lead in transforming its membership and industry. This is a critical
theme in the light of the many obstacles the country is facing more
than 20 years after democracy, despite significant strides made by
government to transform society, CESA President, Lynne Pretorius,
told members of the media at a function, in Rosebank. “Consulting
engineering is experiencing similar challenges. Broad-based black
economic empowerment (BBBEE) policies also gave rise to ‘fronting’,
and questions are being raised about the effectiveness of the BBBEE
scorecard in realising transformation,” cautioned Pretorius.
Change driver
This presidential theme for the year is being driven by CESA’s
Transformation Committee, which comprises members from both
Established and Emerging firms. The committee will promote trans-
formation as an ethical business practice and monitor progress
made by its members beyond the requirements of the Construction
Sector Scorecard. In addition, it will help members understand that
transformation is an ongoing process:
• Facilitate sustainable BBBEE practices within the industry
• Promote the practice through member’s professional and business
activities, among others
Pretorius noted that this intervention is essential considering that
black ownership is still low at all levels of the industry.
“An overall assessment of employment by race indicates that the
percentage of black employment has varied between 40% and 50%
since 2007. There has also been no notable increase in black staff
within CESA membership over the past four years,” she said. Of the
533 firms on CESA’s current database, only 122 firms are black-owned,
with this ownership less than 51%, at present.
Women in the minority
Meanwhile, the percentage of women engineering staff employed by
CESA members is between four and six percent of total consulting
engineering professionals, and black women make up about 12% of
this group. Transformation of the consulting engineering profession
is also being hindered by the limited number of learners competent
in mathematics leaving the school system, while the industry has to
compete with other sectors to attract talent from this small pool to
engineering degree programmes. She says the status quo has been
extremely damaging to the profession, with these unconvincing sta-
tistics further eroding the credibility of the sector. “Typical statements
made in the country refer to ‘engineers being old whitemales’ and that
‘consulting engineering firms are only interested in making money’,”
noted Pretorius. CESA’s interventions to drive real and sustainable
transformation will include developing a pipeline of engineering
professionals over the long-term by identifying and then supporting
learners with a technical aptitude at secondary school level. It will also
consolidate efforts to create and implement a process for supporting
tertiary engineering students and mentor graduate engineering staff
in the workplace to develop their skills and competencies required
for professional registration.
CESA takes action
Meanwhile, the association has identified a host of potential support
programmes for small, medium and micro enterprises, which con-
stitute about 95% of CESA’s existing membership. Of this grouping,
only 24% are black-owned with black ownership greater than 51%.
Pretorius said CESA is also offering to partner with government
departments to second young engineering staff in the public sector
to member firms where they will gain critical experience. It will also
develop awareness programmes to combat the barrier faced by
women in the industry in order to attain a win-win situation for both
employers and employees in our sector. Importantly, the thorough
detailing of BBBEE in annual declarations of members firms submitted
to CESA will definitely bolster this transformation agenda, as we will
for the first time to be able to measure and monitor transformation
in our industry at a detailed level over overtime as opposed to being
reliant on BBBEE scorecards, which are not always a true reflection
of the demographic profile of our industry. In the words of Pretorius,
Enquiries: Dennis Ndaba. Tel. +27 (0)11 463 2022 or
SOCIAL ENGINEERS
39
March ‘17
Electricity+Control