By Mandla Mpangase
The Tshwane Automotive Special Economic Zone (TASEZ) is strengthening its partnerships with tenants and local communities to ensure that Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) becomes a shared journey of inclusion, opportunity, and practical transformation.
This was the central idea emerging from a workshop held by the BBBEE Commission at TASEZ on 4 November 2025, where business representatives, community leaders, and small enterprises came together to explore how collaboration can unlock sustainable growth for all.
Sibusiso Khuzwayo, acting executive for Zone Operations at TASEZ, in summarising the workshop, noted that there was broad agreement that BBBEE is not just about compliance, but about connection, linking big business with township suppliers, emerging manufacturers, and service providers in ways that build long-term capacity.
“We are trying to create an enabling environment that creates opportunities for robust partnerships,” said Khuzwayo. “Our role at TASEZ is to bring together three interests: businesses that want to make a profit, communities that need opportunities, and local suppliers who are eager to grow.
“The real challenge is making sure all three talk to each other, and that’s where TASEZ steps in.”
The BBBEE Commission outlined the key elements of the codes and explained various technical details companies and emerging entrepreneurs needed to know in order to meet the BBBEE requirements.
Time was spent on tackling real-life issues, providing answers to questions from the businesses and emerging entrepreneurs in the room.
In his closing, Khuzwayo went through the issues raised during the morning. There were a number of concrete measurable steps suggested, including providing the tenants with a database of the SMMEs from the local communities; ongoing training; hosting regular meetings focusing on ways to support local businesses in transforming and growing their businesses; and creating network opportunities.
Khuzwayo emphasised that enterprise and supplier development – a core element of BBBEE – sits at the heart of TASEZ’s economic inclusion strategy, and proposed establishing targeted development funds and mentorship initiatives that would directly support small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in key sectors such as automotive components, logistics, and waste management.
“We must sit down together, identify 10 high-potential SMMEs, and support them with training, mentorship, and market access. When we meet again in six months, we should be able to see tangible progress.”
Khuzwayo noted that one of the recurring challenges is the lack of visibility between the tenants in the special economic zone (SEZ) and local suppliers.
“If tenants are not aware of who’s on our local supplier database, we’re doing something wrong,” he said. “We want to ensure transparency so that when procurement opportunities arise, our tenants can source locally before looking elsewhere.”
The workshop also explored opportunities in waste management, which Khuzwayo described as “a sector rich with potential for community enterprises”.
With the automotive industry generating substantial waste by-products, TASEZ is exploring how to support cooperatives and small businesses that can turn this waste into income-generating opportunities, from recycling and materials recovery to green manufacturing.
He also noted that the workshop had called for specialised technical partnerships with entities in the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) and other automotive sector bodies to enhance BBBEE scorecards in ways that are practical and impactful.
“We want future engagements to be more focused, whether it’s on training, supply chain inclusion, or skills development,” Khuzwayo said.
“If we’re told that South Africa will need 10 people skilled in robotics in the next five years, we want to ensure we’ve already started developing them locally. We can’t say ‘we can’t find them’, we must create them together.”
The BBBEE workshop marked the start of a new cycle of collaboration between TASEZ, its tenants, and the communities surrounding the Silverton automotive hub.
Rather than treating empowerment as a tick-box exercise, Khuzwayo said, the goal is to make it a shared ecosystem of value creation.
“This cannot be a TASEZ issue alone,” he concluded.
“Transformation and growth are only possible through collaboration. We need business, education, youth, and communities to come together so that the benefits of industrial development are truly shared by all.”
The day’s discussions underscored that BBBEE needed to be more than just a policy. It needed to be a partnership model in action, designed to ensure that as the TASEZ grows, so too do the people and enterprises around it.