South Africa’s very first invest- ment summit has been largely hailed as a great success. The R290-billion investment commitments made at the summit are a smile inducing proof of this.
What was perhaps most exciting was that most of the commitments came from South African companies.
Because of Cyril Ramaphosa’s business background, most South Africans have viewed him as well placed to fix our ailing economy.
His commitment earlier this year to raise over R1-trillion in the next five years was met with disbelief though.
This was especially since our economy was already in trouble due to years of economic mismanagement, corruption, inadequate infrastructure invest- ment and a stubborn unrealistic socialist rhetoric.
However, we are starting to believe that maybe Cyril Ramaphosa’s commitment may just be possible to attain.
The president described the investment summit as a “bold and unequivocal statement that we are determined to put behind us the period of uncertainty and discord and embrace a future of co-operation and partnership”.
It sounds great, but the president will have to work hard and consistently to restore trust in the state.
Trust, and not just the end of uncertainty, can only be restored if government and the private sector follow up their commitments with visible action and quantifiable gains.
The co-operation we need to see must not only be between government and business, but it must be among citizens as well. The one thing which is most important to achieve here, is an atmosphere of trust, and therefore confidence in each other and our mutual efforts.
“We invite you to invest in our mines and factories, farms and game parks, call centres and technology hubs, refineries and solar farms. We invite you to invest in our people, to harness their energy and unleash their latent capabilities.”
What the president and perhaps South Africans must realise is that, the most important part in this statement, which he made at the investment summit is, “invest in our people, to harness their energy and unleash their latent capabilities”. However, it is the primary job of the state, to develop citizens adequately so that there is vast talent and skill from which businesses can be built and grown.
The sort of training and development required by a vast majority of South Africans is the kind which, if undertaken wisely and consistently, would rebuild trust in the state, and among citizens.
It is this trust which is more important than any other thing we can build.
If this trust lacks in and among us, we cannot by any measure of honesty expect other countries to trust us with their investments.
It’s also important to note that, simply investing in the “mines and factories, farms and game parks, call centres and technology hubs, refineries and solar farms” may lock out most South Africans, because they have little or no ownership of such industries.
This does not suggest a simple “take and distribute” approach to improving industry ownership and economic participation, but a “train and inspire” approach to speed up new entries into these industries.
With that approach, there may be sufficient trust in the capabilities of new entrants in these industries to actually build strong businesses.
This would be in contrast to the slew of parasitic tenderpreneurs at the centre of state capture.
It is in this light that the implication of the EFF in the VBS scandal must be seen.
The double standards displayed by the EFF may have shown us the real EFF.
Whilst it readily jumps on those implicated to take responsibility and step down from positions of authority, it seems that doesn’t apply to the EFF. For the EFF, the casual perusal of Floyd Shivambu’s bank statements by Malema seems enough to mount a spirited defence of their deputy president.
Then the EFF chair Dali Mpofu can simply trivialise the whole thing on live TV, Shivambu denies, and then the gullible public is supposedly taken care of! This inspires neither trust nor respect for the EFF!
Both the ANC and EFF are implicated in the VBS scandal. They have displayed abuse of trust as if it’s nothing.
Yet it feeds into a general distrust in society which is not good for anything, let alone our economy...