Impartiality Statement
EmpowerBEE will be impartial, and all its staff and associates will act in such a way that they will be perceived to be impartial. In order to obtain and maintain confidence, EmpowerBEE will always demonstrate that its decisions are based on objective evidence and that its decisions are not improperly influenced by other interests or by other parties.
EmpowerBEE will demonstrate commitment to impartiality in the BEE Verification activities especially through its top management structures. EmpowerBEE will have a publicly available statement regarding the importance of impartiality.
EmpowerBEE will ensure that activities of other bodies do not affect the confidentiality, objectivity and impartiality of its activities. EmpowerBEE will avoid any situation that would create a conflict of interests arising from the activity of any other body. All EmpowerBEE personnel, either internal or external, or committees, which could influence the verification activities, will act impartially and will not allow commercial, financial or other pressures to compromise impartiality.
EmpowerBEE will require personnel, internal and external, to declare any situation known to them that may present them or EmpowerBEE with a conflict of interest. EmpowerBEE will use this information as input to identifying threats to impartiality raised by the activities of such personnel or by the organisations that employ them and will not use such personnel, internal or external, unless they can demonstrate that there is no conflict of interests.
EmpowerBEE recognizes the following potential threats to impartiality and will continuously design and implement procedures to manage the risk involved:
Self-interest threats – threats that arise from person or enterprise acting in their own interest, for example financial self-interest.
Self-review threats – threats that arise from a person or enterprise reviewing the work done by them.
Familiarity (or trust) threats – threats that arise from a person or body being too familiar or trusting of another person instead of seeking evaluation evidence to base the verification conclusion on
Intimidation threats – threats that arise from a person or enterprise having a perception of being coerced openly or secretively, such as a threat to be replaced or reported to a supervisor.