11/18/2005
BEE, the true face...
Since the news of the week on Someamoungus seems to be BEE (no pun intended), I thought I'd roll with it and hopefully get some feedback from all of you. I have an idea that I'd like to share and get some of your thoughts on (is it possible, how could you do it etc.) I think it would be fascinating to see diagramatically a chart showing the different BEE deals being made and the personalities involved. My guess is it would form a massive spiderweb because often the same people are involved in multiple deals.
The "software" itself would work like this : you'd enter the BEE Cronies' name (eg Smuts Ngonyama), the name of the Company the deal was with and finally how much the Fat Cat had been "Empowered" (to the nearest million of course). The program would then draw lines from each name and literally connect the cronies, so we could see a) how many times they had been "empowered" b) who were the main players and, finally most importantly c) the pattern that seems to be OBVIOUSLY developing.
Ideas, comments and suggestions are welcome. The Comments section of my site has been really pedantic of late so maybe it would be better if you mailed me and then I could stick up your thoughts in the Comments section.
PS - usually comments work if you publish immediatley (ie. do not Preview) and also check both "Remember info." and "Subscribe to the Thread".
05:55 Posted in Bizness | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this | Tags: South Africa
Comments
I think if you put the ex and current ANC cronies together in the centre of the image, it shouldn't be a spiderweb - more likely a wagon wheel.
Posted by: Shaun | 11/18/2005
I don't know how correct this is but I once attended a talk where Tony Leon said that 65% of all major BEE deals involve companies owned by 8 people (Cyril Ramaphosa, Tokyo Sexwale, Patrice Motsepe etc etc). That's not exactly broad based is it?
And if you want software to do this might I suggest GraphViz.
Posted by: Farrel Lifson | 11/18/2005
Shaun, what I had in mind wouldn't be so much lumping them all togethor in the center but individually placing them on different parts of the page and then connecting them up. This is why I think it would be more like a spider-web cos often the same people in BEE are only separated by 1 or (max) 2 degrees of separation.
Farrel, I think it is probably lower now but I wouldn't be surprised if it was still over 50%. I also checked out that graph software you suggested (woah complicated), we'll have to see if I can figure it out.
Posted by: someamoungus | 11/20/2005
The comments are closed.