The first ever workshop under the auspices of the Namibian government to formulate a black empowerment policy (BEE) was held in Windhoek this week. Originally, the Cabinet tasked the Office of the Prime Minister on 9 March 2004 to begin with wide-ranging consultations in all 13 regions. This did not take place, despite a pledge made by former PM Theo-Ben Gurirab on 28 July 2004. On that day, he said at a breakfast meeting organized by the Namibia Economic Society that "my office is very much seized with the BEE matter. We are busy consulting on the content of Namibia’s BEE policy and legislative framework". Gurirab then promised "consultative road shows with as many stakeholders, opinion-makers, and grassroots activists as possible". No such events took place.

When the new Prime Minister, Nahas Angula, took office in March 2005 reporters asked him about the BEE issue. Angula gave evasive answers, only saying vaguely it was on his task list.

On Wednesday a private company, DECTI Namibia through its subsidiary Namibia Preferential Procurement Council (NPPC) organised the workshop on behalf of the Namibian government with Prime Minister Angula as keynote speaker. He only told the 25 participants that "the workshop is aimed at signalling the start of a process to devise a compre-hensive policy on redress and redistri-bution". Jeffrey Ndumo of South Africa’s department of trade and indu-stry gave an overview how BEE and transformation charters were put in place there.

Back in October 2002, the NUNW made history by organising the first conference on BEE with the Namibia Chamber of Commerce (NCCI). Last year, Old Mutual Namibia called the financial sector together to kick-start a transformation charta for the financial sector, which has not brought results so far. The only private initiative that is actively engaged in a BEE charta is the tourism sector through FENATA, the umbrella organisation of all tourism associations in Namibia, which started in 2004.