The recent announcement by Bonang Mohale, President of the Black Management Forum, that he and the BMF intended to lead a new push for business unity is to be welcomed.  It is a courageous move in the light of the troubled history of organised (disorganised!) business in South Africa. A plethora of vested and special interests overlaid on the historic racial divide undermined the goal of a united umbrella business organisation, one that can speak for national business interests in a way that aligns with the broad national interest of a rapidly growing and more prosperous democracy.

The need for transcendent leadership in South Africa is as clear then in business as it is in politics. Business leaders will have to define at the outset what such unity is for, a task that will require considerable self-reflection on the part of established and emerging business, big business and small business, manufacturers and miners, the finance and service sector, importers and exporters and so on.

I have deliberately avoided the use of racial denominators as I strongly believe that such terms not only perpetuate racial views and interests but also belie the significant though incomplete process of change in business.

In this process of self-reflection important questions to be answered include: is business unity there to support the current ruling system of corporatism? This entails big business, big labour and big government reaching agreements through Nedlac and bilateral discussion that suit their interests, or at least with which they can live, at the expense of the rest of the economy, particularly small and medium business and the unemployed. It should be noted that with honourable exceptions organised businesses’ role in the prevailing system is reactive and appeasing, driven by a spirit of not rocking the boat and going along to get along.

Secondly, is business unity there to support a definition of transformation that is based on the redistribution of ownership and control of existing businesses in the interests of the politically connected few, or is it there to promote a growth agenda that creates more wealth for a broader national constituency? The latter course would lay emphasis on quality education, post-school skilling, employee share ownership and entrepreneurship.

Thirdly, and relatedly, what is business unity’s attitude to the promotion of the small and medium business sector? Should government be required to be more serious about deregulation and transcend and approach that focuses excessively on survivalist enterprises and users institutions staffed by business unfriendly bureaucrats and academics? So too should big business reconsider its corporatist ways with an emphasis on supporting in their procurement and enterprise creation programmes businesses that employ more than 20 employees as those most likely to fuel enterprise-driven  employment and creation.

Fourthly and finally, is business unity’s purpose to drive a vision of an economy that is productive and competitive and in which the private sector is the engine of wealth and employment creation or is it there to secure the vested interests of special pleading sectors who advanced arguments for protection and subsidy whilst not also rocking the boat with organised labour and government when it comes to hard policy choices in the interests of long term competiveness?

Some of these dilemmas are universal and challenge business leaders in all countries, and some are particular to South Africa with its history of apartheid and racially driven economic exclusion. But defining a vision and building a united business institution that can help resolve them remains a very significant challenge.

There is the additional practical challenge that current business organisations are split between those that have businesses as the unit of membership, and those that have individual professionals and managers as the membership category. This makes for very different types of organisation and very different interests. Additionally, the ability to fund an umbrella body lies overwhelmingly with the employer based organisations.

Government has an important role to play in the promotion of business unity, a goal which it has frequently professed to support. Unfortunately, it is not clear whether government would really welcome a genuinely independent and forceful united business organisation or whether it would prefer a co-opted organisation populated by politically reliable business leaders.

If all these dilemmas and challenges are to be confronted successfully it is clear that there would have to be more Bonang Mohales from both established and emerging business, and that they will have to display similar courage in going beyond the constituencies’ vested interests.

Editor’s Note:

Michael Spicer is a director of companies and has extensive experience of organized business, including as CEO of Business Leadership SA and Vice President of BUSA . The views contained in this article are his own but are obviously very relevant in the present situation, as talks on business unity proceed.

Denis Worrall

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