Last Tuesday's Business Day carried a short but vivid leading article from the Financial Times on South Africa's twenty years of democracy under the headline "SA's dream not yet fulfilled". It contained the sentence "The ANC is a coalition held together by little more than jobbery." Jobbery is not a word we see often in South African writing. The Google definition is "the practice of using a public office or position of trust for one's own gain or advantage". Nothing could demonstrate the truth of this better than the ANC manifesto "Endorsement" shindig at the Sandton Convention Centre which I attended that evening.
This was billed as Jacob Zuma endorsing the Gauteng Provincial ANC's manifesto. Zuma famously said at a gathering of business leaders in Durban last year that businesses who supported the ANC and gave generously to the party would be rewarded. He was scorned and derided in Parliament by DA Parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko. Zuma has always ducked the charge he is inviting, neh encouraging, corruption and cronyism.
It was easy to see why, looking around the room at this gathering of the new black middle class - actually the rich - and a handful of whites, many of whom owe their new-found wealth to the largess of ANC officials dishing out handsome government contracts. In such a world Chancellor House is not just justifiable but necessary: institutionalised, and legal, predation on fat, tasty investments that in turn feed party coffers.
Gauteng ANC Chairman Paul Mashatile, in a polished and relaxed speech, boasted that Gauteng is the fourth largest economy in Africa, that along with its three metros the provincial government has a budget of R250 billion per annum. Not chump change by any means, and offering ample opportunities for graft.
Then came the endorsements. First, Jimmy Manyi representing the Black Business Council, urging the ANC to set up a new Ministry for Small Business and tightening up Affirmative Action and BEE legislation to further advantage blacks. "We are not racist" he boldly claimed. "We just want 51%. Whites can have the rest." Oh, thanks old chap, I thought, that's jolly decent of you. So if a white person sets up a business, he has to give more than half of it away before he can derive benefit from the discriminatory legislation governing doing business with the state. Black entrepreneurs can keep all 100%, or course. Is this likely to be a spur to entrepreneurship? Will whites risk their time, effort and cash in such an environment?
The purpose of this legislation, of course, is to gouge more of the economy away from whites and put it in the hands of blacks. Is this actually the way enterprise works? I'm not sure it is. Manyi was particularly scornful of fronting, which admittedly is unethical, but in giving 51% of your business away who's to say the new majority owner shares your vision for the business and can contribute meaningfully to its success? It's easier to get a pliable black face. No wonder many white owned businesses try and find loopholes.