2. Acopy of the correspondence received from the Deputy Speaker was subsequently sent to the Department. As parliament was in recess until 2 August, and in view of the limitations of time, it

was agreed that the Department would offer a limited briefing on 4 August. A more comprehensive briefing would be offered at a later stage. It was also agreed that the SOEs would be required to respond to the issues raised in the Deputy Speaker’s correspondence in the briefings they are to give to the Committee in the weeks ahead.

3. Overall, the Committee feels that it was a useful briefing, and has set the basis for ongoing interaction with the Department and the SOEs on the empowerment of women.

4. Deputy Director-General, Mr James Theledi, and Director, Ms Raisibe Lepule, appeared on behalf of the Department.

1. The Department explained that it was guided in its commitment to gender transformation by the Constitution, gender equality legislation, the King II report on good corporate governance and

the Black Economic Empowerment Act, among other legislative and policy frameworks. The Department stressed that it facilitated gender transformation through meeting employment equity, skills development and Black economic procurement requirements.

2. The Department reported that 60% of the staff as a whole comprises women and 49% of management is made up of women. At management level, 35% are African women, 7% are

Coloured women, 5% are White women and 2% are Indian women.

3. The Department acknowledged, however, that it needs to invest more in building the capacity of women employed in the Department. It currently has a programme of internships.

4. The Department has sought through tendering to favour women where possible. Statistics on this will be provided at a future meeting.

5. Women have also been significant beneficiaries of restructuring in the forestry and telecommunications sectors. Fifty-five per cent of retail investors in the Telkom IPO are women.

6. With increasing emphasis on broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), Black women will be empowered more in the future, stressed the Department.

7. The Department acknowledged that it could do more to encourage the empowerment of women. It also needed to strengthen its oversight role in regard to SOEs. There is now a

‘‘strategic shift’’ to emphasising the vital role of SOEs in providing basic services to the people and serving the developmental needs of the country. Part of this will entail ensuring that SOEs contribute adequately towards the empowerment of women. The Department has established new units to more effectively fulfil its oversight role in respect of SOEs.

8. While the Department does not have a special focus on the contribution of SOEs to women’s empowerment, it co-operates with the Gender Office in the Presidency. The Department will

also seek to include the need to ensure women’s empowerment in shareholder compacts with SOEs. The Department will monitor more closely progress on the empowerment of women through SOEs. The Department will also seek to ensure adequate representation of women on the Boards of SOEs.

9. The Department provided the brief overview below of the contribution of SOEs to the empowerment of women.

1. The Department pointed out that Transnet seeks to achieve gender transformation through a Women’s Development Programme Unit that reports to the Executive of Human Resources Management. Transnet has a strategy to guide women’s empowerment initiatives. The strategy focuses predominantly on women in executive positions. A strategy focusing on women generally in Transnet has not yet approved by the Board.

2. The Department explained that Transnet started capturing proper data only from 1999. The representation of women at ‘‘prioritised levels’’ increased from 13% in 1999 to 17% in 2004. This is below the set organisational targets of 15% and 25% respectively.

3. The Transnet Leadership Development Programme includes a focus on leadership and management training and development for women. The participation of women increased from 37% in 2003 to 71% in 2004.

4. However, the participation of women in technical training declined from 9,2% in 2001/02 to 2,6 % in 2003/04.

5. Transnet business units also implement their own projects focusing on women’s development:

_ Women on Rail: Focuses on women train drivers trained by Spoornet.

_ Marine Pilot Programme: Implemented by the National Ports Authority to increase the number of women marine cadets. Forty per cent of cadets trained are women.

_ Women in Operations: In 2000 the South African Port Operations initiated a programme of training women on logistics and port management. The programme is run in partnership with Rotterdam port and Korean Maritime University. To date 12 women have gone for a two-year

training programme.

_ Women In Aviation: South African Airways runs a management-training programme targeting senior and middle management. Twenty women have been trained as part of this programme.

6. Six out of the 15 Transnet Board members are women.

1. The Department reported that women have risen from being 18,4% of the supervisory and professional staff of Eskom in 1999 to 28% in 2003.

2. Eskom has the following skills development programmes:

_ CEO Programme: This focuses on increasing the technical skills of Black women employees. The training is in partnership with Warwick University and the Da Vinci Institute for the Management of Technology and Innovation. Forty women have graduated and 50 are still going

through the programme.

_ Women’s Advancement Programme: This focuses on the development of technical leadership of women to take up senior positions in the generation, transmission and distribution divisions of Eskom.

3. In 2001 the Eskom Board approved a policy on mainstreaming economic empowerment. In 2003 Eskom allocated R517 million for BEE procurement, which has opened space for the economic empowerment of women.

4. Four out of 15 members of the Boards of the Eskom Group, 6 out of the 10 members of the Eskom Development Foundation, and I out of the 7 Eskom Enterprises are women.

1. In 1994, 21,2% of the staff of Denel was made up of women. In 2003 it was 26,1%. The racial break-down of this was not clear from the statistics provided. The necessary information will be

provided at a future meeting.

2. In 2002 Denel aimed to achieve 10% representativity of women at executive, management and technician levels. Currently, women make up 28% at executive, management and technician

levels.

3. Of the 164 bursaries offered by Denel for studies in the technical fields, 39 are being taken by women.

4. The Department observed that ‘‘there has not been a significant increase in employment equity in Denel, particularly in relation to women’s empowerment’’.

5. Two out of the 14 members of the Board of Denel are women.

1. The Committee feels that the briefing provided by the Department was not comprehensive enough. Some members also feel that there was nothing substantially new in this briefing

compared to previous briefings. However, as acknowledged in sectionA1 andA2 above, the Department was given limited time in which to prepare. Moreover, it is not fair to expect the

Department, in the circumstances, to have full details about the contribution of SOEs to the empowerment of women. Clearly, some of the issues have to be raised directly with the SOEs. As a start, a copy of this report will be sent to the relevant SOEs. The Committee and the Department need to co-operate in ensuring that the SOEs make adequate progress.

2. The information received was somewhat uneven and not detailed enough. The Committee is unable to draw comprehensive conclusions at this stage. It seems that progress on women’s

empowerment is uneven—significant in some areas and very slow in others. Overall though, it is clear that the Department and the SOEs have made a valuable contribution to the empowerment

of women over the past 10 years. But, clearly, as the Department also acknowledges, much more needs to be done.

3. The Committee is very clear that SOEs can make a major contribution to the empowerment of women. They command assets of over R170 billion and employ over 120 000 people. State organs need to lead the way in the empowerment of women as examples to the private sector.With the greater emphasis now being put on the developmental and service delivery roles of SOEs, there is an even greater imperative for them to contribute more significantly to women’s empowerment.

4. The Committee is pleased to see that 55% of the retail investors of the Telkom IPO are women. If this form of restructuring of SOEs most benefits ordinary citizens and women, where

restructuring options are decided on, the Committee feels that IPOs should be given consideration. However, this is a tentative view of the Committee and will be explored further in exchanges with the Ministry and Department.

5. The Committee is very impressed that 60% of the staff of the Department is made up of women and 49% of its managers are women, and commends it.

6. While recognising Denel’s specific challenges, the Committee is concerned about its slow pace of progress in empowering women, and will raise this with Denel at an appropriate stage.

7. The Committee is interested to know why there has been a drop of women in Transnet’s technical training programme from 9,2% in 2001/02 to 2,6% in 2003/04, and will pursue this with

Transnet.

8. The Committee feels that it is not acceptable that only two of the 14 Denel Board members are women. The Committee would like the Ministry and Department to consider ensuring that at

least a third of the members of the Boards of SOEs are women, unless there are exceptional conditions that do not allow for this.

9. The Committee sees this as an initial briefing, and in this sense has found it useful. The briefing is seen as part of an ongoing process of engagement with the Department and SOEs on the empowerment of women. The Committee believes that a comprehensive briefing should be given by the Department and the SOEs on the empowerment of women in early August every

year. Over time, the Committee would like more detailed information to get a better sense of progress, and to be better able to also contribute to achieving greater progress. It would be

useful, for example, to get more information on—

_ the levels at which women are being employed;

_ the sectors in which they are benefiting from tenders and procurement;

_ the skills development programmes they are participating in;

_ the racial break-down of the women employees and beneficiaries;

_ a provincial and local break-down of the statistics on women’s empowerment;

_ a rural-urban break-down of statistics.

It would also be useful for members of the Committee to be better informed on the opportunities available for women’s empowerment through the SOEs so that this, as with other information, can be conveyed to people on the ground through members’ constituency work. The Committee would also like information on how the Department and SOEs are fulfilling government objectives on advancing the needs of people with disabilities, particularly women. The Committee feels though that statistics, however detailed, are not enough. There has to also be an assessment of the outcomes of these statistics. We need to better understand how the material conditions and the lives of women are being affected by the progress recorded in these statistics.

10. The Committee believes the Department should consider setting up a unit to actively monitor progress on the empowerment of women by SOEs.

11. The Committee will arrange a meeting with the Department and the SOEs in the first quarter of next year to take forward the issues raised in this report and assess progress.

12. The Committee expresses its appreciation to the Department for its co-operation in regard to the briefing. The Committee also acknowledges its appreciation to Mr Chris Sibanyoni of the

Information Services Section for assistance in drawing up this report.