Business execs and govt ministers gather in ‘unprecedented’ meeting to fix SA

President Cyril Ramaphosa and a coterie of ministers gathered for an ‘unprecedented’ meeting with business sector leaders to discuss ways to navigate South Africa out of its many problems.

The meeting occurred amid fears that investors were preparing to hightail it out of the country over government’s inability to address a myriad of problems, including unrelenting power cuts, foreign policy misdirection fuelled by political uncertainty, rapidly disintegrating infrastructure and rampant crime.

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Three most urgent priorities

Business leaders have agreed to partner with the government to tackle three areas identified as urgent; these include energy, transport and logistics and crime.

CEOs from South Africa’s largest companies have committed to beefing up the skills and resources needed to address these problems and have agreed to work through relevant partnership structures to address the key priorities identified.

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“The work will be directed through the government-led National Energy Crisis Committee (Necom), National Logistics Crisis Committee (NLCC) and Joint Initiative to Fight Crime and Corruption (JICC), overseen by a Joint Strategic Operations Committee,” said Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya.

The country’s leaders in both sectors recognised several potholes in the road to economic growth and committed to working together to address staggering unemployment levels.

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Areas of joint action

CEOs under Business for South Africa (B4SA) and Business Unity South Africa (Busa) will assist the government to “further capacitate Necom” and integrate the private sector in the NLCC.

Most notably, the business sector will assist the National Prosecuting Authority and Investigative Directorate “from an arms-length distance” to implement recommendations from various costly commissions of inquiry, including that of state capture, the July 2021 unrest and the high-level review panel on the State Security Agency.

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B4SA steering committee chair Martin Kingston said, “Government and businesses have successfully demonstrated the benefits of the partnership for the common good of South Africans through the Covid-19 pandemic, the vaccination programme, the recent formation of the Resource Mobilisation Fund, and many other examples.”

Busa CEO Cas Coovadia added, “Business is ideally positioned to ensure a better future for the
the benefit of all, which makes this partnership agreement with the government critically important.”