Question time — for the Private Sector

 

SOUTH AFRICA- Whether it is the Marikana tragedy, the lack of transformation in the mining industry or that the economic growth rate of a country with such an active business community is revised to 1.5% (or that our sophisticated economy has been overtaken by Nigeria as the biggest on the continent) it is curious that business leaders have never been seriously critiqued for their role in this downward spiral.

It is easy to criticise the government for policy uncertainty, but that should not stand in the way of business doing the right things. Some of that uncertainly is, frankly, a result of business reticence and a refusal to adapt to the new South Africa.

Ironically, there has been a tendency by the ruling party to lean towards pleasing the business sector, which always threatens to disinvest. It has been torn between serving the interests of the poor and crudely responding to a business community that has one foot in the past.
Business leaders often complain about the poor business environment. The changing of black economic empowerment (BEE) laws has been blamed, with lots of resources now required to comply. But the real complaint of business is that their compliance complacency is threatened. It will now be required to do real empowerment as opposed to the fraud that has characterised broad-based BEE practices so far.

Business leaders are also complacent about corruption and don’t speak out when resources are wasted by municipalities and other state entities. This is because they are part of the rot. Consultants, for example, whose public sector bill is in the billions, rip off the public daily, causing the auditor-general to arrive at adverse findings against municipalities. Last year, a measly 10% of municipalities received clean audits, and up to R30bn was ascribed to wasteful expenditure. Few ever interrogate who receives this "wasteful expenditure". Until we ask the hard questions and investigate possible collusion, we are going nowhere fast in ensuring that the corrupter and corruptee take responsibility. It’s time we spoke frankly about business having proxies in the government for all the wrong reasons, and what this means for the corruptible business leadership we have in this country.

During the past decade, business leaders have often failed to agree on policy. You would have thought that with their constant bleating about uncertainty they would do more to present a common view on how the economy can be strengthened. When last did an organisation such as the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut speak out in any significant manner about the way government is handling the economy? When last did we hear anything of significance from the Black Management Forum (BMF)? I am pleased its former president, Jimmy Manyi, spoke out against corruption before he left. But has it since said or done anything notable?
Can anyone remember anything the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry has done other than leadership squabbles? Business Unity SA and the Black Business Council have also not covered themselves in glory on anything useful in the face of SA’s economic challenges.
This leadership vacuum in business is inexcusable.

Building this economy into a competitive global force is going to need a more serious model of public-private partnerships. Such a model must have at its core a frank dialogue in society about things we got right over the past 21 years and, more importantly, those we got wrong.
But as long as there is poor leadership that is scared to challenge the economic paradigm, especially from business, a robust economy will remain a dream deferred.

• Tabane is author of Let’s Talk Frankly: Letters to Influential South Africans About the State of Our Nation.