Tsb Sugar is committed to government's policy of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and transformation. In this regard, Tsb Sugar has initiated various projects to comply with the indicators of BEE as set out in the BEE Codes, namely: ownership; management; employment equity; skills development; preferential procurement; enterprise development; and social investment.

Some of the BEE initiatives that are currently being implemented by Tsb Sugar include the following:

Enterprise development
Tsb Sugar has played a role in:- the establishment of a black-owned sugar distribution enterprise; the settlement of seven medium scale cane growers on property acquired by Tsb Sugar for land reform purposes; and settling 420 beneficiaries on a 1 000 hectare sugar cane farm in partnership with the Department of Land Affairs.

Furthermore, Tsb Sugar has developed and continues to support 1 256 small-scale farmers on approximately 9000 hectares (6 to 8 hectares per farmer) of land as independent growers/farmers. With Tsb Sugar's guidance, training and support, they have become full-time, financially viable farmers in their own right.

Affirmative procurement
Tsb Sugar buys about 32% of its direct purchases from BEE suppliers and is committed to increasing its annual BEE procurement spend to at least 50% purchases by 2010.

Employment equity
Tsb Sugar has developed policies to ensure that recruitment practices do not unfairly discriminate against job applicants on grounds of race, gender, disability or HIV-Aids. In addition, the company has introduced a diversity management programme to facilitate the integration of all employees into an environment that allows people to thrive. As a result, it expects to improve its retention of black employees.

Skills development
Tsb Sugar provides training and skills development to employees from designated groups, some of whom have been identified for middle and senior management positions. A combination of in-house and external formal training programmes has been used to advance this initiative.