South Africa: The South African Breweries, the South African subsidiary of brewing giant SABMiller, will be significantly increasing investment in its national Taverner Training programme to 13 million rand per year, Sunday Times News from South Africa cited The South African Breweries on March 18.

This investment excludes the cost of manpower and infrastructure, which would bring the total investment to over 15 million rand. SABMiller said it would train 5,000 people in 2005 and expand the programme to include a mentoring component.

In South Africa, over 80% of all liquor outlets are unlicensed. The company has been pressing for the normalisation of the country's liquor retail sector, which cannot be achieved without the implementation at a provincial level of legislation dealing with licensing. Licensing is a provincial competence and most of the provinces are developing new liquor laws.

SABMiller's programme falls into two parts - assistance with the licensing process and the training of licensed taverners in business skills and socially responsible liquor retailing.

SABMiller has put licence officers in place in each province to assist traders with the application process to become legal entities. This is consistent with the company's policy of supporting proactively initiatives to normalise liquor retail licensing. It falls within the company's broader black economic empowerment (BEE) initiatives. SABMiller's licence officers assist entrepreneurs with their licence application forms where new legislation has been passed, while also facilitating taverner training to help make businesses sustainable and responsible.

SABMiller spokesman Michael Farr said that in the Eastern Cape, for example, there are over 12,000 temporary licences that have been issued as a result of successful co-operation between the Eastern Cape Government, SAB and other relevant stakeholders.

To assist businesses that have become licensed, SAB introduced its taverner training programme as a pilot in 2003. The programme was rolled out in 2004, with 759 business owners being trained.

Those licensed outlets that have undergone training have reported average monthly sales increases of 30.52%. Outlets have also experienced a drop in debtors by 28.78%, an increase in stock levels of 37.73% and a significant growth in savings and investments of 40.54%, which means they can now begin to fund their own expansion.

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