We regularly ask our suppliers for their BEE scorecard. Last year I spent quite some time trying to get my banks' scorecard (Standard Bank), without success.
This week I asked Telkom for their scorecard. Telkom is a public company, but majority owned by government, so one would expect them to be BEE compliant.

Surprisingly Telkom were unable to give me a scorecard. They did offer to send me a profile of their BEE activities, and there is no doubt that they are taking action around BEE, but as for a scorecard - NOTHING. The person assisting me told me that they have not appointed a ratings agency, and he mentioned that no ratings agencies had yet been accredited, implying therefore that they were unable to give me a rating. I explained that the codes state that the dti encourages verification of ratings, but that self rating is acceptable in the absence of accredited ratings agencies.

This makes life difficult for all other companies. Telkom is a large supplier of services to most companies, and a good score would help all of our procurement scores. I'd go so far as to say this is absolutely unacceptable!

What is more outrageous is that Telkom's web site states: (http://www.telkom.co.za/minisites/ir/corpgov/bee_review_progress.html)
"Telkom was ranked the Most Empowered Company in the ICT Sector in the Financial Mail's survey for 2005/2006, and was placed fifth overall of 200 companies listed on the JSE. This benchmark survey is conducted in association with rating agency Empowerdex."
Now, I wonder how they could have obtained such a ranking without a rating. How was this ranking produced, without a scorecard?

I tried to contact my other supplier Standard Bank. I have a name of a person who may help at Standard Bank, but I'm not confident I will get their scorecard.

I also tried MTN, but have been unsuccessful in obtaining a rating from MTN, or even the name of the person responsible for supplying me with this information. I should note that my own cell phone service provider is Nashua Mobile, so I actually need a scorecard from MTN, rather from Nashua Mobile. (Nashua Mobile have been rated level 5, and had this information at hand when I called them - well done!)