DURBAN - THE Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) Commission has been rocked by allegations of fronting and exploitation of employees.
Staff are allegedly forced to perform job responsibilities outside their scope of work and are not remunerated for the work they do.
The alleged fronting and exploitation by the regulatory institution under the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition involved administration clerks allegedly being forced to enter into performance agreements and job descriptions that are different from their contracts.
In a series of emails seen by the Daily News, a whistle-blower who is also a complainant said that before the arrival of administration clerks, the commission did not have investigators, compliance officers, a content adviser, case administrators, information and communications technology (ICT) or human resources (HR) officers.
“These administration clerks, from their initial date of employment as interns to date, became the first content advisers, HR officers, ICT officers, case administrators, investigators and compliance officers of the commission. To date, they are not paid according to the work they perform,” read the letter of complaint by the whistle-blower.
The commission is mandated by the government to strengthen and foster collaboration between the public and private sectors to promote and safeguard the objectives of broad-based BEE.
The complaint has since reached the Public Protector’s office.
“I confirm that the Public Protector, advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane, is indeed looking into that matter,” said her spokesperson, Oupa Segalwe.
Mofihli Teleki, the spokesperson of the commission, confirmed that a concern was raised and the matter was being addressed.
“The commission has since attended to the matter through internal processes. There has been consistent engagement and updates with the officials and the process is being finalised,” Teleki said.
Teleki added that when the commission was launched in 2016, it adopted a plan to identify unemployed graduates to be trained with knowledge on B-BBEE regulations to recruit from in the future.
Daily News