The Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies has invited members of the public to give their input and comments on the Draft Amended Construction Sector Code until 28 December 2016.

The code was gazetted in terms of Section 9 (5) of the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Act 53 of 2003 as amended by B-BBEE Act 46 of 2013.

In February this year, Davies revoked the old Construction Sector Code because it was not submitted on time to meet the deadline. Since then, the Construction Sector Charter Council, Davies and the Ministries for Public Works, Thulas Nxesi, worked on developing a new sector code.

Davies said the Draft Amended Construction Sector Code was a culmination of that process and a step towards having a sector code for the construction sector.

“Construction Sector Code remains one of the key sector codes that affect domestic infrastructural development and as such is one of the catalysts for the implementation of B-BBEE in the country,” he said.

“One of the key unique features of the draft sector code is that the target for Black ownership is set at 35% (32.5% for the first four years of implementation, thereafter 35%). This is higher than the ownership target for the Generic Codes and it is the second highest black ownership target, behind the Black ownership target of 40% of the Media and Advertising Sector Code (MAC),” Davies added.

He indicated that the draft Amended Construction Sector Code further stipulated that at least 50% of black shareholding needed to be held by professionals, so as to discourage passive shareholding, which was in congruent with the new era of empowerment that encourages active participation of Black beneficiaries.

The Amended Construction Sector Code recognises that the nature of the construction sector has been dominated by joint ventures and outsourcing.

However, in order to ensure that outsourcing does dilute actual benefits accruing to Black people, it stipulated that no more than 25% of the value of a contract can be outsourced to an entity or entities with a lower B-BBEE status level.