After 1994 BEEE was legislated. Companies and businesses are now forced to include in their strategy, a plan for Black Economic Empowerment. This entails many actions, like procurement, i.e. buying goods and services from businesses whose black economic empowerment is in place. Another action in the plan could be to supply goods or services at a discounted rate to previously disadvantaged customers or clients. It is however the intention of the BEEE legislation that businesses are transformed to employ more previously disadvantaged workers and especially in medium to higher management and ultimately to share ownership, so that more businesses are owned by previously disadvantaged persons and so ensure that Blacks are empowered not only politically, but also economically. Empowerment means according to the dictionary to give power and authority to act. The idea is that we share equally in the decision making, wealth and prosperity of the business of this country.

Millers has a record of starting with empowerment long before it was enforced. Before 1994 we employed a young candidate attorney, Livingstone Sakata. We were the first legal firm in the Southern Cape to employ a black candidate attorney. Livingstone grew up in Klipplaat and is the oldest of 6 children. His father was a Spoornet labourer. The family sacrificed a lot to help him to study. He studied at Fort Hare and was employed at Millers as a candidate attorney in the early nineties. It could not have been easy for Livingstone in a white dominated profession and mostly Afrikaans town, but he persevered. Today Livingstone is a Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions in the Western Cape and the Head of the Organised Crime Unit. He says that at one stage the attitude of some of the Magistrates and attorneys in George made it very difficult for him and he wanted to give up, but his Principal Georg Kellerman encouraged him and told him that tough people don't run away. He stayed. Millers was always on his side. They gave him power and authority to act! He says that this is what he teaches young people with potential these days, to not think you have arrived, but to grab the opportunity and bring your side. You must do your job diligently and to the best of your ability and you will succeed!

While a black person with a degree, who comes from a meagre background was empowered through a job at Millers, a mere filing clerk develops into a conveyancing secretary with para legal status. Her name is Noleen Stoffels and if you ever had her attend to your transfer, you would know that she is top notch. Noleen started in our office as a tea girl in the early nineties. Her potential was spotted by the late Georg Kellerman and he appointed her as filing clerk and gave her the opportunity to use a computer and teach herself to type. Soon a position became available and she was appointed as a typist. She worked herself up until she was appointed as secretary for the MD, Piet Bredell. He helped her to improve her English and when an opportunity arose in the Conveyancing Department, she was appointed as conveyancing secretary. Noleen expresses the same sentiment as Livingstone: "It is a combination of your employer that gives you the power and authority to act and your own attitude of grabbing the opportunity and run with it!"

Look for black people with potential in your business. Give them a chance, mentor them and give them power and authority to act and those with the right attitude will excel.


Noleen Stoffels saam met Belinda van Eck