Revealing research on the South African Automotive Component Sector’s response to HIV/AIDS shows that the component supplier community does not consider HIV/AIDS as a major threat to their business.

The study – one of the first of its kind based exclusively on the South African automotive sector – was commissioned by German development company InWent and conducted by the Automotive Industry Development Centre at over 100 component manufacturing companies in five provinces.

AIDC  Project Manager Sibo Camagu said the survey showed that the component manufacturing sector did not fully grasp the consequences of HIV/AIDS on the sector.

“3% of respondents said their investment decisions were impacted by HIV/AIDS, 77% did not research the impact of HIV/AIDS on production costs and 74% did not research the impact of HIV/AIDS on the labour force,” Camagu said.

Camagu said it stood to reason that generally the supplier community did not know the impact of HIV/AIDS on their business because only 39% of companies had voluntary testing programmes and almost half of those could only encourage less than 45% of their employees to know their status.

“The proof of efficacy of any HIV/AIDS Programme is in the percentage of staff that has tested.  This is the first step in assessing the impact and developing plans to address the inevitable consequences. You can’t know the impact if you don’t know which staff are affected in which departments and what risk that poses,” he said.

HIV/AIDS international expert Martin Weihs said productivity and profitability are core concerns for enterprises, large and small.

“AIDS weakens the economic activity by squeezing productivity, adding cost, diverting productive resources, and depleting skills. The mining company Gold Fields South Africa estimated that HIV/AIDS would have added US$10 per ounce of gold produced without any intervention. They embarked on a comprehensive programme a few years ago and are confident that they can reduce the impact to just under US$3 per ounce. A proper response to HIV/AIDS not only makes business sense, it is the most humane thing to do,” Weihs said.

“To a large extent companies believe that they have addressed AIDS if they have a policy filed somewhere but it is clear that companies need to do so much more to reduce their business risk to the disease.

“It is also not enough understanding who or how many are infected but also who and how many are affected by carrying the burden of family members with HIV/AIDS.  Most people who carry heavy domestic  worries into the work place are never going to be as focussed and effective as those without these issues’’, Weihs said.

38% of companies with a turnover of more than R50m per year have an HIV/AIDS policy while less than 8% of companies with a turnover of between R1m and R50m have an HIV/AIDS policy, according to the research.

44% of companies had an appointed HIV/AIDS co-ordinator , but only 28% of companies expect HIV/AIDS to have a significant impact on their business within 5 years.

 “These statistics reflect a serious apathy to a very imminent threat.  South Africa has about 5.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS with 18% of them economically active adults, Camagu said.

Weihs said the AIDC’s HIV/AIDS programmes were co-sponsored by the German Development Cooperation (DED and InWent)  and were aimed at assisting companies assess and address the impact of the disease on productivity.

The AIDC HIV/AIDS Programme is currently being expanded to include companies throughout South Africa, Weihs said.

For information contact Martin Weihs at mweihs@aidc.co.za or Arnelle Heynes at aheynes@aidc.co.za