The irascible, smart and tough-minded Bobby Godsell, chairmen of Business Leadership SA, a couple of weeks ago called upon the business community to get behind the National Development Plan. Godsell, of course, was a member of the planning commission. He followed this statement with an excellent summary of the plan in Business Day yesterday (14 March 2013). The article is available online here.

As Insight readers will know, we were one of the first to come out strongly in support of the NDP and we naturally support Godsell’s challenge to the business community. In fact, since the ANC’s elective conference, and the adoption of the NDP, we have identified certain positive developments which we believe can be ascribed to the dynamisms around the plan.

So, for example:

Minister of public works Thulas Nxesi, blew the whistle on suspected irregularities in the R100 million renovation of ministerial houses in Cape Town and central government office buildings in Pretoria, where the price tag has climbed by an astonishing R266 million. The minister announced this when he embarked on a turnaround strategy in his department where, he said, “collusion and corruption are endemic”.

Engineering companies – especially civil engineers – have been justifiably complaining that money that has been set aside for infrastructure projects has not become available because no tenders have been issued. Pleasing therefore is that the state on the 18th February, moved to speed up “strategic projects”.

Shortly after this, Public Service and Administration Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, and Minister Trevor Manuel announced that a dramatic shake up of the public services had started, including the removal of unqualified managers , the dismissal of accounting officers who don’t achieve clean audit reports and  new minimum standards for top appointments.

Trevor Manuel, whom we have suggested has been much too silent over the past 12 months, really hit the headlines two days ago with a statement that, ” The public service – the engine room- had to be improved if South Africa was going to grow”. He did so, obviously while promoting the National Development Plan (NDP) for which he is responsible. As he put it, the plan and all other economic policies would no help South Africa if the public service continued to miss-fire. “If we don’t fix the public service everything else will not work. If we don’t get teachers to teach our children – we don’t get the skill-set right. We will fail as a nation. The clarion call from the planning commission is, “Fix the engine up and (Manuel continued), as we fix the engine and know that it is working, a lot of other issues will fall into place”.

What this points to is that the government is beginning to face up to reality. We also believe the government has a new-found awareness of the strains business is under.  Finance minister Pravin Gordhan alluded to a change in policy tone when he said that it would be necessary for the economy to adopt a different trajectory if South Africa is to address the challenges ahead.

Of course, all this is positive and to be welcomed, but it starts from a low base - as is illustrated, by auditor general, Terence Nomtembe. In his annual statement issued in the last couple of days, the alarming state of affairs in local, provincial and national government is highlighted by the fact that only 117 of the 536 entities required to report had clear audits for their 2011 & 2012 results. This, incidentally, is one of reason which Moody gave for its sovereign downgrading last year. Nombembe, described the current situation as one of “stagnation and regression”, and he blamed this on” leadership which did not set the right tone in leading change in their respective portfolios” .He also highlighted “the conflict of interest when public servants and at times their relatives do business with government”. Some idea of how serious the South African situation is will be drawn from the fact that two highly-respected experts in their field - David Welsh, former head of political science at the University of Cape Town and the ubiquitous Paul Hoffman- recently publically debated how close South Africa is to being a failed state.

In his article referred to earlier, Godsell acknowledges the skill scarcity and highlights the necessity of education. But as business involves itself in promoting the NDP, it should press for two things in particular. The first is that the public service must be opened to all communities. The virtual exclusion of white South Africans is obviously extremely damaging to the country because, by virtue of historical circumstances and (it has to be admitted) apartheid, they have a large measure of the skills, the training and the experience a modern state needs. Secondly, business should press the ANC to aim at establishing a "government of excellence" by including in the governing process top people from the private sector. After all, if Presidents PW Botha and De Klerk could select key people in the private sector and involve them in government, there’s no reason why President Zuma can’t do the same.

Those R1-million breakfasts

Referring to the million rand New Age newspaper sponsored breakfasts, Donwald Pressley, political editor of Business Report, last Friday wrote under the heading, “Gordhan’s bill for New Age event is paid by tax-payers”. His main point: “A whole battery of state- operated enterprises have sponsored the breakfasts. These state-owned or semi-state-owned entities like Eskom can get away with murder as the mechanisms that keep them accountable to the electorate are weak”. We can confirm Pressley’s point from personal experience.

Two weeks ago Omega held (obviously after many months of planning) an international conference on agribusiness, food security and the challenges to Africa. The conference was held in Cape Town and was supported (morally and through a presentation) by the Department of International Relations and International Cooperation, Sasol, several Dutch food organizations and Nedbank. We approached Eskom, with whom we have had a long-term relationship in the organization of such initiatives, with a request that they sponsor the event to the extent of R50 000 or R70 000. Eskom’s website, incidentally, boasts its contribution to agriculture. 

We received a turnaround response: “Eskom is not able to support your initiative as it does not meet our organization’s requirements and objectives”. This puzzled us and we went back to Eskom immediately and asked how it was that a conference on agribusiness and food security did not qualify in terms of their requirements, when an unaudited newspaper supporting the ANC qualified for several amounts of R1million for political breakfasts? We have since made more than two dozen approaches to Eskom via its Chief Executive’s office asking to see their “requirements and objectives”. We have done so as a tax-payer and a well-established professional event organizer wanting to know what in future we could assume Eskom might or not support. We know that all our queries were received, but we have not got the answer we want. The only thing we know is that Eskom rates lavish R1 million political breakfasts above the support- and by comparison at minimal cost to the company - for agribusiness and food security.