FSA would like to thank our members for submitting reports to the Forestry Sector Charter Council for the 2021/22 financial year. The Council have finalised the FY2021/22 Annual Status of Transformation and the Annual Report . It is good to note that the number of reporting entities improved from 37 to 113 in the latest report, with all MLEs submitting both the B-BBEE certificates and Underlying reports reiterating our Sector’s commitment to transformation. The sector also maintained a Level 4 B-BBEE status when excluding the bonus points. We have also attached a summary of the Status report.

We encourage our members to continue to report on their B-BBEE performance as required and hope to have a bigger number of reporting MLEs.

We have also attached the results of the 2022 Sanlam Gauge. This report is based on the B-BBEE scores of 10,336 companies, by far the largest survey of transformation in South Africa that covers all sectors. The Forestry Sector is featured on page 48 of the report. Amongst others, this report aims to measure the impact Covid had on transformation.  It is as usual good to see the Executive Director of the Charter Council, Ms Makhosazana Mavimbela once again presenting balanced and constructive comments in the report and cautions readers against viewing the sector through the skewed lens of non-compliance and says despite the challenges relating to the implementation of B-BBEE during the year under review, companies in the Sector are committed to transformation. While acknowledging a decline in the number of businesses that reported for the 2020/21 period, particularly among QSEs and EMEs. Ms Mavimbela furthermore reiterated the commitment of companies in the sector to transformation, adding that results show that medium and large enterprises (MLEs) improved in all the scorecard elements from the previous year with the exception of management.