Various B-BBEE Related Matters
There are a number of matters to address this month. I will discuss each of them briefly. Note that the brevity of my discussion does not mean that they do not have a significant impact.
1. Status of IRBA accredited Verification Agencies
In March 2016 the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors or IRBA indicated that they were withdrawing from the regulation of the B-BBEE verification industry on 30 September 2016. On 02 August 2016 IRBA issued an update on their withdrawal. The following are relevant points:
- after 30 September 2016 anyone wishing to be accredited to issue B-BBEE certificates, or to continue issuing B-BBEE certificates must be accredited by SANAS;
- existing IRBA accredited agencies are encouraged to commence their registration and accreditation with SANAS;
- a 3-month transition period has been granted for verification engagements that commenced before 30 September 2016. Such engagements must be signed off by 31 December 2016.
This has the following implications:
- companies whose B-BBEE certificates are issued by IRBA agencies must ensure that their agency is in the process of accrediting with SANAS, or will have to consider changing agencies;
- there are a large number of agencies accredited with IRBA which need to change to SANAS. SANAS currently has its hands full dealing with the roughly 50 SANAS accredited agencies. The question is whether SANAS will have the capacity to handle the volume of new accreditation’s, and the ongoing annual reviews of existing agencies;
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