Social Practices

Transformation and broad-based black economic empowerment

The group decided that BBBEE verification at subsidiary level, as opposed to group verification, was more effective in terms of mitigating commercial risk and developing priority skills for the specific subsidiary companies. The board-appointed transformation committee has developed transformation targets for the South African subsidiaries of the group. Subsidiary companies that have completed the formal verification process include:

Socio-economic development (SED)

The group’s main SED areas of focus are the youth, sports development and HIV/AIDS. During the year under review the group’s main initiatives have revolved around Nomonde’s Children’s Home, Legacy Parks, Jakaranda Children’s Home and Malamulele Onward. The group budgeted and disbursed approximately R2,3 million in respect of these initiatives.

Legacy Parks

The South African Rugby Legends Association has been running a number of projects designed primarily to uplift disadvantaged youth. One of these projects is Legacy Parks which involves the development of sporting facilities in previously disadvantaged areas. Blue Label Telecoms joined forces with South African Rugby Legends Association, the Gauteng government, Lucas Radebe and the Protea Glen Community Forum by sponsoring the Lucas Radebe Sustainable Legacy Park in Protea Glen, Soweto.

The sporting facilities are used during the day to host school-run sports clinics free of charge for the youth in the community. These clinics also help identify talent and occupy the youth in constructive and sociable activities. In the early evenings the park is used by corporate leagues, that pay a fee, in order to ensure the sustainability and maintenance of the park. At night, the Police Services assist at the park to hand out meals and provide positive role models to homeless children who use the park as a place of security.

Malamulele Onward

Malamulele Onward is a non-profit organisation that has taken on the substantial task of identifying and helping caregivers of children with cerebral palsy (CP) in some of the most deprived areas of southern Africa. The project started in the Malamulele area of Limpopo Province and rapidly expanded to the Eastern Cape. Children severely disabled by CP survive, often into adulthood, but they and their families are neglected by the health and education systems.

Malamulele Onwards’ programmes aim to address the rehabilitation needs of children with CP through the provision of hands-on therapy and equipment to children living in the most disadvantaged areas of the region; training and empowerment of caregivers and local rehabilitation workers; and the provision of training to therapists caring for children with CP in southern and central African countries (notably Rwanda, Tanzania, Lesotho; Mozambique, Swaziland and Botswana). Malamulele Onward has been operating for nearly four years. To date, eight outreach projects in Limpopo and in the Eastern Cape have been completed involving 166 children and their caregivers and over 20 local rehabilitation therapists.

Blue Label Telecoms has supported this cause by making donations to Malamulele Onward which have been used to purchase equipment for the children. These include specialised seating equipment, wheelchairs and computers.

Enterprise development

Blue Label Telecoms, through its major subsidiary The Prepaid Company continued to provide financial assistance on an interest-free basis to ZOK Cellular (Proprietary) Limited (ZOK). In addition Blue Label Telecoms provides management and strategic support and other resources to ZOK. ZOK aims to empower budding entrepreneurs from South Africa’s previously disadvantaged communities by equipping them with a ready-made FMC G retailing solution in the form of a ZOK container. This container is a licensed business unit designed as a self contained turn-key business with start-up stock for the retail section, starter packs and airtime, public phones, fax facilities, internet services and ATM facilities. The placement of ZOK containers in previously disadvantaged areas is intended to bridge the gap in telecommunications, ICT and banking services in such areas, as well as to uplift the communities in the areas served by the containers.

The group has also provided financial support to Training @ Work, an accredited training service provider. This organisation is a black-owned exempted micro enterprise that provides a vast range of practical oriented learning and skills development programmes aimed at developing the competencies of young people and local communities – including the unemployed, corporates and government agencies. The funding received from the group has been used towards improving their business marketing, human resources and IT capacities.

Going forward, the group will be utilising the training services offered by Training @ Work, in particular, sales and call centre training.

Press release by ZOK Cellular circulated to Media attending the Launch ZOK Cellular (Proprietary) Limited. Schools initiative launch: Johannesburg: 5 August 2009: ZOK Cellular (Proprietary) Limited today launches a project that seeks to ensure that schools in previously disadvantaged communities are able to generate revenue that will help them improve the running of their schools. Hlonipha Secondary School in Kwa Ndebele (Mpumalanga) is the first recipient of this opportunity and has been selected to pilot this project. The ZOK School Income project is informed by the realisation that in providing for better education in previously disadvantaged schools government resources have been significantly stretched and there is just not enough to cover all the needs of a school. ZOK Cellular (Proprietary) Limited has come on board and is offering a sustainable income generating business to schools. ZOK Cellular (Proprietary) Limited is offering this high achieving school a ZOK Container Business Unit. A ZOK container is a licensed business unit designed as a self-contained business, enabling the operator of the business to offer retail, public telephones, and banking, internet and fax facilities. The container comes completely equipped and once delivered starts operating immediately – “Plug and Play”. ZOK believes the initiative will give the school a platform to be more self-reliant. Other advantages of such a contribution are the fact that both learners and educators who will be managing the operations of the container will have first hand practical experience of running an enterprise and the possibility of becoming entrepreneurs themselves. “Our learners also benefit from the container because now they can use the internet for research and join the global information highway,” said Mr Mabasa, Principal of Hlonipha Secondary School. For ZOK a clear benefit is the ability to bring services closer to communities that previously had to travel long distances to access them. “Before the ZOK container arrived, the community around Hlonipha Secondary School had to travel long distances in order to access products that we in the cities take for granted, like ATM machines, prepaid electricity, photocopiers, telephones and faxes. Through this initiative we have brought services to our people and saved them money,” said ZOK CEO , Nonhlanhla Matshazi. It is ZOK Cellular’s intention to continue to introduce more products that help to improve the quality of life of ordinary South Africans. “We are excited about the ZOK container because it is not just for the School of Hlonipha, but will bring much needed services to our community,” said Principal Mabasa. The pilot with Hlonipha Secondary will also include comprehensive training on all products and services as well as the business management of the container. The ZOK Container Business Unit is worth R300 000 complete with its products and services. The cost of the manufacture of the container is supported through partnerships between ZOK and key service suppliers within the container – such as Premier Foods, ABSA Bank, Vodacom and iBurst. The school will be continually supported by ZOK Cellular as per our current operations with regard to licensees but will also be monitored on an ongoing basis with regards to upkeep of the school, where the money is going to, renovations etc. Gifts were handed out to the invited guests, students and community at the launch event:

Preferential procurement

The group has initiated a move to procure on a centralised basis via Blue Label Procurement. The centralisation of group procurement will ensure greater efficiencies and coordination of the group’s transformation procurement initiatives. Blue Label Procurement completed its formal BBBEE verification and achieved a Level 2 contributor status.

As part of the centralisation process a database has been set up to continually keep track of the group’s suppliers and their BEE status. The group strives to procure all goods and services from BEE certified suppliers, where possible.