Articles
Mining & Industry News
30 August 2019

Welcome back to our series of articles about Impala Rustenburg where we showcase how our people and our business make a difference – every day. 


Our focus in this article is on small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs). SMMEs are uniquely positioned to provide job opportunities and to contribute significantly to South Africa’s gross domestic product. SMMEs play a major role in most economies, particularly in developing countries.

Formal SMMEs contribute up to 60% of total employment and up to 40% of national income in emerging economies. In emerging markets, such as South Africa’s, most jobs are generated by SMMEs, which create four out of every five new positions. 


The SMME sector in South Africa is an attractive market opportunity to drive our country’s economic growth. The National Development Plan envisions that by 2030, SMMEs will contribute 60%-80% to the increase in our gross domestic product and generate 90% of the 11-million new jobs needed in our country. 


At Impala Rustenburg, we are committed to bringing this vision to reality via our enterprise and supplier development programmes. 


‘Enterprise and supplier development’ (ESD) is a term that combines preferential procurement, supplier diversity and development as well as enterprise development programmes to service business needs. These are all part of South Africa’s broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) policy to advance economic transformation in the country. 


Impala Rustenburg, and its parent company Implats, is committed to supporting and developing local SMMEs through our procurement, enterprise and supplier development programmes.

Preferential procurement and investments in ESD provide important opportunities for social and economic transformation in our communities. Our ESD activities are an enabler for preferential procurement and in line with the Mining Charter and B-BBEE codes.

We continue to increase investments in supporting local black-owned and black women-owned businesses.


Let’s look at each of the ESD elements in turn. 


Preferential procurement is a national policy that encourages government departments and businesses to buy goods and services from previously disadvantaged individuals or businesses. At Impala we strive, as far as possible, to source all goods and services within South Africa, with an emphasis on local businesses defined as tier 1, 2 and 3 based on how close they are to our operations. 


At Impala Rustenburg, tier 1 refers to the mine lease area (which includes the Bafokeng villages, Freedom Park, Seraleng and Meriteng), tier 2 is the Rustenburg municipality and tier 3 refers to the Bojanala district. 


During our financial year ended 30 June 2019, we’ve put a significant focus through our procurement teams to support “local-to-site” (tier 1) suppliers – those that have ownership from directly and indirectly impacted community members and do not necessarily operate within the mine lease area.

Impala Rustenburg is proud of its operations, which increased procurement spend with “local-to-site” suppliers by 23% and business was conducted with 119 “local-to-site” suppliers, amounting to a total value of R1.6bn for FY2019.

The average spend per supplier increased from R10.9m to R13.7m during FY2019 where the most significant impact was within the core underground mining activities.  


Our procurement policies support supplier diversity, which involves sourcing products and services from previously under-used suppliers. This helps to sustain and transform our supply chain to better reflect the demographics of the community in which we operate.

We have adopted a targeted approach to increase our procurement spend with black-owned businesses. During our 2019 financial year, we saw an overall increase at all Implats South African operations to 45% (from 32% during FY2018) – this is a R592 million improvement in procurement spend with black-owned businesses.


Supplier development, a key element of ESD, focusses on working with certain suppliers to improve their performance for the benefit of the buying organisation. This leads to improvements in the total added value from the supplier in in terms their B-BBEE rating, their product and service offering, their business processes and performance, and improvements in lead times and delivery. 


Enterprise development, on the other hand, promotes economic growth and contributes to reducing poverty by building SMMEs, membership organisations to represent them, and competitive markets that are stronger and more inclusive.

SMMEs in South Africa are recognised as a driving force for economic growth and job creation. Enterprise development programmes offer black entrepreneurs the opportunity to find support and training to further develop their small businesses.


At Impala Rustenburg, our ESD programme provides important opportunities to community-based entrepreneurs. Since 2013, we have provided support to 41 local black-owned businesses through two principal initiatives – Aurik and Raizcorp – and helped them grow their monthly turnover with Impala on average by more than 60%.  


ESD is not a static process, it continuously evolves as suppliers and enterprises emerge and grow. Our future plans including refocusing our ESD activities to find new black-owned companies (with the emphasis on youth- and woman-owned enterprises) from our host communities to strengthen and enhance the sourcing of mining goods and services. 


We plan to identify companies that are potentially ready to trade with Impala and enrol them into a three to six month programme to equip them with business skills, register them on the mine’s vendor list, assist them with vendor committee presentations, and provide ongoing mentoring and assistance for a further six months to unlock opportunities through daily buying. 


Look out for further updates in forthcoming publications and remember to tune in to Radio Mafisa FM 93.4 on Fridays at 18.10pm to find out how Impala Platinum truly does make a difference.

Tebogo Mashego, owner of Ditsogo Projects, an Impala supplier development beneficiary.

 

Share this article with a friend...