More than a week after Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni accused the private sector of engineering the state’s collapse, President Cyril Ramaphosa said business’ current partnership with government illustrates how committed they are to the country.

Ramaphosa and business issued a joint statement on Wednesday after Cabinet met with business leaders as part of their initiative to deal with the country’s energy, transport, and logistics, as well as crime and corruption problems.

"Since we began, we have made significant progress in establishing structures and ways of working, mobilising resources and driving implementation of key actions. We see this partnership as evidence of the business community’s commitment to building our country and overcoming the challenges that we face," Ramaphosa said in a statement.

At a post-Cabinet briefing last week, Ntshavheni was asked about a long-standing probe into rand manipulation that involves 28 banks. She said that "the performance of the economy has been manipulated by [the] private sector, [which] has no interest in the development of this country", adding that the private sector continued to "engineer and do machinations to ensure the government collapses".

Business Unity SA (BUSA) said it hoped Ntshavheni would reconsider her comments and it would "raise it with government through the partnership".

BUSA president and Discovery CEO Adrian Gore said in Wednesday’s joint statement that there had been some movement on collaboration structures with government. Some of the highlighted successes include over 1 000MW of power generation capacity, establishing the Rail Infrastructure Manager for Transnet – which opens the doors to third-party train operators, and establishing a digital and financial Forensic Analysis Centre.

"Despite these initial successes… the pace of delivery across the initiative seems to be plateauing, mainly as a result of delays in regulatory and other approvals, as well as slippage on the implementation of strategic plans, and the alignment of these to workable funding solutions," Gore said. 

"We need to act with a greater sense of urgency and determination to confront these challenges, given their severe impact on the economy as a whole. We have made strides in implementing reforms that will set our economy on a higher growth trajectory going forward.”

On energy, the meeting agreed that:

• Bid Window 7 of the renewable energy programme be released
• That there are more requests for proposals for battery storage and gas
• Grid access rules and the wheeling framework need to be clarified urgently to ensure private producers have more certainty.

With transport on logistics, they discussed that:

• The network needed to be addressed as a matter of "extreme urgency". 
• The freight logistics roadmap has been finalised, and its alignment with the Transnet Recovery Plan would unlock public and private sector funding.
• It was important to have permanent appointments of executives at Transnet soon
• Early progress includes faster processing times at the Lebombo border post with Mozambique.
• The appointment of the National Ports Authority board has been finalised. 

Within the crime and corruption focal area, the establishment of the joint initiative had been slow, but there is a focus now on specific interventions, especially investigative and prosecutorial capabilities. The promulgation of the National Prosecuting Authority Amendment Bill will make the Investigating Directorate (ID) permanent. "Once the bill is passed, work will begin in earnest to set up a Digital Forensics Unit that will support the work of the ID."

"The meeting agreed that whilst progress has been made, urgent action is needed to ensure we sustain the momentum over the next 12 months. This is critical to bolster investor and public confidence in the reforms being implemented," the joint statement said.

"Success achieved within the focal areas could contribute around 3% gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the medium term and 5% GDP growth in the longer term. It is therefore essential that business and government continue to support the implementation of the Energy Action Plan, accelerate the freight logistics sector reform, and strengthen law enforcement."