TRANSFORMATION AND BLACK ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
The South African wine industry views transformation and the development of people as key imperatives to ensuring a strong, sustainable future, and has put measures in place to effect transformation and development, while verifying progress towards this vision.
Over the past decade, industry bodies have initiated strategies, structures and funding to facilitate enterprise development, effective learning, as well as social investment initiatives, which are reaping noticeable rewards.
The SA Wine Industry Transformation Unit NPC (SAWITU) was incorporated in 2016 with a fully dedicated operational division established in February 2019.
In partnership with the National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC), the industry has recently revised its processes behind meeting the statutory requirement of spending 20% of statutory levies collected on transformation related initiatives. The recent revisions place funds and programmes under the management of SAWITU. Nearly R100 million has been invested in transformation programmes over the past four years, focusing on enterprise development, skills development and socio-economic development in agreed proportions.
SAWITU provides support to approximately 65 black-owned wine enterprises and approximately 60 wine grape farmers.
These enterprises and farms are being supported with mentorship programmes, market access opportunities, show/ exhibition support, business finance, skills development and technical assistance.
Wine industry black empowerment initiatives are dedicated towards linking businesses, black graduates and professionals with opportunities in the industry.
SAWITU’s website, www.witu.co.za, provides details on programme progress, how the organisation functions and how assistance can be accessed.
Vinpro Enterprise Development Division
Vinpro, the industry association for wine grape producers and cellars in South Africa, provides services to its members and to stakeholders seeking to advance inclusive, sustainable economic growth in the wine sector. Services include, land and natural resource policy development and advocacy, business linkage service to members seeking to establish inclusive shareholding ventures, black farmer business and technical support, enterprise cost analysis and funding appraisals for industry and government agencies.
Services are grounded in more than a decade of observations in the area of land reform, sustainable development, business planning, fund raising, management services, non-profit institutional development and Agricultural Extension. In addition, Vinpro provides advisory services to initiatives of the South African Wine Industry Transformation Unit (SAWITU), National Treasury, Western Cape Department of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Winetech and the Wine and Agri Industry Ethical Trade Association. Vinpro avails professional directors to ethical trade and transformation related industry structures. As the founder of the Vinpro foundation and one of its primary funders, Vinpro provides routine contributions to the advancement of Socio Economic Development.
Kindly visit the website for more information: www.vinpro.co.za
Revised Agri BEE codes
On 8 December 2017, the department of Trade and Industry (DTI) promulgated a set of revised AgriBEE sector codes. Sector Codes are descriptions of categories against which progress is benchmarked and reported for private and government owned enterprises. Enterprises which derive their income primarily from the agricultural value chain are independently audited against these codes on an annual basis. Details of these codes and their relevance to the sub sectors are available online at https://bbbeecommission.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/AgriBEE-Final-08Dec2017.pdf.
Similarly, enterprises in the wine industry which derive the bulk of their income from tourism, would consult the DTI’s Tourism sector codes which work in a similar vein.