The property sector achieved a mixed performance in terms of broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) over the past year, Property Sector Charter Council (PSCC) CEO Portia Tau-Sekati said on Thursday.

She was speaking at the PSCC seminar, in Johannesburg, during which the entity’s ‘2019 State of Transformation of the Property Sector’ report was released.

Transformation was an integral part of economic transformation in the country, especially given the property sector’s contribution to overall gross domestic product. Despite this, progress towards certain transformation milestones was still limited and slow, the council said.

The 2019 report was based on two pieces of legislation: the 2012 Property Sector Code and the 2017 Amended Property Sector Code.

The report revealed that property sector was at Level 5 in terms of its transformation BBBEE recognition level – down from level 4 in 2018.

While Tau-Sekati acknowledged that it was not the ideal performance, she pointed out that the industry had made reasonable efforts to meet BBBEE targets, considering the change in the recognition levels which took effect during the year and that could have taken the sector to level 6 if no further effort had been made by the industry.

Analysis based on key elements of the 2012 Property Sector Code reveal that the ownership score, which has an overall weighting of 20 points on the scorecard, shows that the industry improved overall from a score of 16.67 to 17.04 weighting points – a change from 83% to 85% in this category.

Encouraging results were seen in the category of employment equity, where the industry showed an improvement from a very poor 33% in 2018 to 49% against the target in the 2019 report.

In the areas of skills development and management control, results were relatively close to that of last year, with the industry’s performance in these areas being rated at 65% and 56%, respectively.

SKILLS FOUNDATION LAUNCH

The seminar also acted as the official launch of the Property Sector Skills Foundation, which is aimed at enhancing the overall skills level in the industry.

Further, in an industry first for the country, the PSCC also launched the Property Portal SA – a digitally-driven platform which will function as a single resource for industry information.

“With so many different sources of information available, it can be confusing for anyone to know where to begin,” said Tau-Sekati.

The Property Portal is intended to be a first point of reference that will direct users in their search process to the appropriate platform.

The one-stop-shop portal will enable access to relevant industry content. It can be accessed at https://propertyportalsa.co.za/.