harming the South African economy and are affecting the country's image around the globe," the company said in a statement at the time. Black Economic Empowerment The end of apartheid in 1994 left behind a skewed racial economic hierarchy that placed minority whites at the top. Since then, the African National Congress government created the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy, designed to increase the participation of blacks, Coloreds, and Indians in the economy. However, BEE has faced criticism for not doing enough to accomplish this goal and only benefiting a small number of people to a great extent. This was acknowledged in 2010 by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, at the first meeting of the BEE Advisory Council, when he said, "The story of black economic empowerment in the last 15 years has been a story dominated by a few individuals benefiting a lot." A 2010 report from the OECD concluded that the "relative improvement in poverty levels," since the end of apartheid, has actually been driven by social assistance grants and not the labour market. As of 2014, roughly ten percent of the Top 100 companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange were directly held by black investors through Black Economic Empowerment schemes. Black Economic Empowerment policies have been credited with creating a class of Black South Africans with a level of wealth on the same order of magnitude as very rich White South Africans. Black Economic Empowerment—its purpose the "economic empowerment of all black people, including women, workers, youth, people with disabilities and people living in rural areas"—requires the Minister of Trade and Industry to develop and publish Codes of Good Practice, aimed at setting guidelines for the process of BEE in the whole economy. A scorecard is used by the department to measure compliance with the BEE requirements, and is used for public procurement, public-private partnerships, sale of state-owned enterprises, when licenses are applied for, and for any other relevant economic activity. The government's Black Economic Empowerment policies have drawn criticism from the Development Bank of Southern Africa for focusing "almost exclusively on promoting individual ownership by black people (which) does little to address broader economic disparities, though the rich may become more diverse." The System has also been criticised for placing lesser educated people in more important positions in the workplace and their failure to perform to the standards required has had an immense impact on the economy.