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06 August 2020 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Pixabay
Antonie Beukes says although the university is involved in a number of projects that add to its BBBEE rating, considerable attention is given to initiatives to better the lives of some of its suppliers.

For the past two years, the University of the Free State (UFS) has had one of the best Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) ratings among universities in South Africa. The university recently received confirmation that its Level-4 rating has been approved for another year. 

According to Antonie Beukes, Assistant Director in the UFS Department of Finance, this rating enables the university to compete with the advantage of a 100% procurement level regarding tenders. “It will also help with our third-stream income, and more importantly, this level assures everyone that we are on the right track regarding BBBEE,” says Beukes. 

Opportunity to better the lives of others

The university had to work hard to maintain their Level-4 BBBEE status. Beukes says one of the initiatives they focused on was the development of suppliers and enterprises that are not associated with the UFS. 

“Many people think of BBBEE initiatives as a project where money is paid, and that is where the buck stops. Although this may get you some points, it is important for the university to better the lives of others.”

“We mostly focus on Exempted Micro Enterprises (EMEs) and Qualifying Small Enterprises (QSEs), because they are the small, start-up companies that need help to be sustainable. Even though assistance can take various forms, such as spending time with suppliers and offering services at a lower cost or free of charge, the university gives considerable attention to providing training to these service providers,” says Beukes.

Always strive for a better rating

The UFS Department of Finance strives to achieve a better rating each year. “The aim for next year will obviously be to be rated as a Level 3 but maintaining the Level 4 will be a big achievement.”

Beukes, however, points out that one needs to be realistic and must keep track of what is going on in the economy, as well as the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He continues: “Strict new rules regarding BBBEE scoring also came into play last year and we see that most businesses are rating lower scores (higher levels), which directly impact the UFS.”

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African historian honoured at UFS Library book launch
2016-08-23

Description: Library book launch Tags: Library book launch

The UFS Library, in collaboration with the Department of Political Studies and Governance, launched This Present Darkness, a book by the late Stephen Ellis on 23 August 2016 at the Sasol Library on the Bloemfontein Campus.

Stephen Ellis was a Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, and a senior researcher at the African Studies Centre, Leiden. He wrote ground-breaking books on the ANC, the Liberian Civil War, religion and politics in Africa, and the history of Madagascar.  He died in 2015.

The book explores how Nigerian criminal syndicates acquired a reputation for involvement in drug-trafficking, fraud, cyber-crime, and other types of criminal activity. Successful Nigerian criminal networks have a global reach, interacting with their Italian, Latin American, and Russian counterparts. Yet in 1944, a British colonial official wrote that “the number of persistent and professional criminals is not great in Nigeria” and that “crime as a career has so far made little appeal to the young Nigerian.”

Ellis, a celebrated Africanist, traces the origins of Nigerian organised crime to the last years of colonial rule, when nationalist politicians acquired power at regional level. In need of funds for campaigning, they offered government contracts to foreign businesses in return for kickbacks, a pattern that recurs to this day. Political corruption encouraged a wider disrespect for the law that spread throughout Nigerian society. When the country’s oil boom came to an end in the early 1980s, young Nigerian college graduates headed abroad, eager to make money by any means. Nigerian crime went global, and new criminal markets are emerging all over the world at present.

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