âI stand here as the guilty party, who is always accused of embarking on too many consultation processes,â said President Cyril Ramaphosa at the launch of the second phase of governmentâs partnership with the private sector last night.
âThey say: âOh, he loves consultation, heâs indecisive, he always wants to talk to other people.â And look at where we are today: with all [of] you, collaborating.â
Ramaphosaâs tone was triumphant; a metaphorical backslap for his ability to wrangle 140 CEOs into helping the government fix three of its most intractable headaches. And many of those CEOs, who packed out the auditorium at the Industrial Development Corporation in Sandton, would argue a toast was justified.
After all, a year ago when the partnership launched, its ambitious goals of ending blackouts, fixing South Africaâs ports, and reining in crime and corruption seemed about as attainable as peace in the Middle East.
Yet, as Ramaphosa pointed out, there has now been no load-shedding for more than 180 days (though everyone in the audience immediately touched wood when he said that), and Transnet seems to be just about getting a handle on the snarl-up at the ports. Sure, crime is more out of control than ever â if anything, more of the country has been surrendered to industry mafias â but progress on two out of three ainât bad.
Now, said Ramaphosa, South Africa needs to aim much higher. It was an echo of Discovery CEO Adrian Gore, who had earlier spoken of how, if the chips keep falling right, the country could hit 3.3% GDP growth by 2025 â a rate not seen for more than a decade.
âWe must become much more ambitious. Yes, Adrian, we want to hit that 3%, or 3.5% growth, but I want us to raise our gaze, to aim much higher,â Ramaphosa said. Economic growth, he said, âlies at the heart of everything else that we seek to achieve in our countryâ.
Earlier, Gore had laid out the targets for the second phase of this partnership between business and government, with clear targets due in 2025. These include:
- Maintaining zero load-shedding, with Eskomâs energy availability factor above 64%;
- Boosting renewable energy generation capacity to 4GW;
- Building 1,000km of new power transmission lines;
- Securing R28bn private sector investment in the countryâs rail network;
- Increasing the countryâs rail capacity to 193Mt, from 170Mt; and
- Addressing gaps in the countryâs money-laundering regime, so the Financial Action Task Force removes South Africa from its greylist.
Gore said that if these reforms are expedited, South Africa could hit that 3.3% GDP growth target. âItâs a massive stretch, but then ending load-shedding was a massive stretch. This can be done if we push really hard. But the prize here is massive,â he said.
If the country can top 3% growth, the economy will create 2.5-million jobs, he said; if it fails to hit that target, âthe effect is perniciousâ.
âMutual suspicion’
Optimism among business leaders â at least, on Tuesday night â was running high, even if those 2.5-million jobs wouldnât solve an unemployment crisis in which 42.6% of South Africans are unemployed, if you include those whoâve given up looking for work.
CEOs such as MTNâs Ralph Mupita, Sasolâs Simon Baloyi and Anglo American Platinumâs Craig Miller joined a beaming Ramaphosa, agriculture minister John Steenhuisen, mineral and petroleum resources minister Gwede Mantashe and finance minister Enoch Godongwana on stage for a happy snap.
Martin Kingston, chair of Business for South Africaâs committee, which set up this partnership, revealed that these companies had contributed R250m to the cause last year. This year, they plan to fork out another R150m.
Yet despite that, Ramaphosa admitted that many in his own party, the ANC, still donât trust the private sector â a long-held suspicion that underpins the anti-business sentiment which manifests in legislation like National Health Insurance, which would decimate private medical aids in its current form.
This trust deficit has meant that opening up ports to private operators, for instance, has run up against stiff opposition.
âSome of these processes were quite terrifying for a number of people, people in my tribe and government, who were fearful [that] the private sector would come and swallow us, and cut jobs,â Ramaphosa said. (Some of those people might have even been in the audience, such as Mantashe.)
But Ramaphosa said this partnership has done much to bridge that gap. âWeâve been taking all these steps, crossing the river, and perhaps a number of rivers, by feeling our way on the stones as weâre crossing,â he said.
At the very least, collaboration may have bred a degree of familiarity, even if full trust has yet to manifest.
It was notable that proceedings were kicked off by Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, minister in the presidency, who last year famously ranted that the private sector was trying to âengineerâ the implosion of the government, adding at the time that âthere is a collapsing economy because thatâs what they wish [for]â.
Ramaphosaâs victory lap this week illustrates the opposite: had the private sector not reached deep into its wallet, and dedicated more than 9,000 hours in the past year to fixing Eskom, the economy might very well have tipped over the edge.
Letâs hope Ntshavheni, and others in the ANC, were paying attention.
Image: Cyril Ramaphosa, Photo by Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images
