Johannesburg - White men remain the preferred candidates for top management in the private sector while women, especially black women, and people with disabilities are hardly considered.
Despite the fact that many people with disabilities have the requisite qualifications, they are mostly relegated to administrative positions.
These are some of the preliminary observations by the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) regarding transformation.
After some alarming observations, the commission held public investigative hearings in the private sector for five days last week. It invited companies to account for their slow pace of transformation, inadequate promotion of people with disabilities as well as to explain how they were dealing with gender equality and women empowerment.
Mercedes-Benz South Africa, Pick n Pay, Rhodes Food Group, Big Five Construction, Tiger Brands, Vermeulens Build It, SAB, Kloppers, Sasol, Oos Vrystaat Kaap Bedryf, Hall and Sons, Mafikeng Toyota, RCL Foods, NWK and EH Hassim Builders World were among the companies invited to make representations about why, 22 years into democracy, women weren't well represented in senior management.
The hearing also aimed to help companies transform the workplace.
Asked why the face of the top management of his company was white, a RCL Foods' representative said that wasn't the case.
He said RCL Foods was a new company made out of the merger of four firms and all the managers of the companies were white.
When it came to the lack of people with disabilities in top management, RCL Foods and NWK said they couldn't find anyone to occupy those positions.
CGE legal researcher Dennis Matotoka said the commission also found that some private companies didn't have a proper sexual harassment policy because they didn't think it was important.
“The problem with private companies is that the person says ‘This is my company and this is how I will run it’, without looking at laws and policies to obey,” Matotoka said.
He, however, said they'd uncovered a lot of good too, such as bursaries that companies had put in to place to address imbalances.
THE STAR