Trevor Manuel, the Minister in the Presidency, was quite right. South Africa's business leaders, he told the World Economic Forum, have been acting like cowards in failing to provide an effective counter-weight to organized labour and that employers were giving in too readily to workers' wage demands.
Nor are BUSA and the SACCI speaking out loud and clear in support of free speech, individual enterprise, capitalism, market solutions and private ownership. Yet those bedrock principles of democratic society are now under attack every day by the SACP and Cosatu, members of the ANC Alliance, as they jockey for power. When BUSA and the SACCI do make public statements they behave like deer caught in the headlights.
Example: Public Enterprise Minister Barbara Hogan sensibly put under-performing parastatals (Escom, SAA, and SABC come to mind) on notice that they must shape up or be privatized and the proceeds employed more productively. That evoked howls of protest from unions and Alliance members.
ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe then gave Hogan a dressing down and pressed her to retract.
The SA Transport and Allied Workers Union said it was "extremely angered" that she had "exercised such poor political judgment.... She should have kept such thoughts to herself as an ANC deployee ...." !
As for Trevor Manuel, the SACP announced it was "deeply enraged" by his remarks finding them "deeply offensive, insensitive, and against the government's commitment to the creation of decent work as the core pillar of economic policy.... For Minister Manuel and others to try and use the post-Polokwane alliance relations to try and silence working class organization and mobilization is not acceptable. The working class is not for sale at the whims of capitalistic sentiments to try and please imperialism and will stand its ground...".
A Cosatu spokesman added that Manuel's comments were "... if anything, even more at variance with ANC policy" than Hogan's. And he urged Manuel and Hogan to "publicly withdraw their remarks and return to the job they were deployed to do".
Minister Hogan has every right --- indeed a duty --- to consider the policy options for failing public enterprises. Did BUSA stand up for her in public and defend her? No. BUSA's lame response: "BUSA welcomes the opening of this important debate on the role of public corporations".
Debate? What transpired wasn't the opening of a debate. It was a barely-disguised threat of political mayhem should a minister even mention the "P" word again. Or even dare to stray an inch from ANC dogma.
Example: With the SACP and Cosatu pushing the ANC hard to move economic policy leftwards you would expect BUSA to mount a robust case for open markets, making private capital investment attractive, and ensuring that confidence is not eroded by irresponsible ideological references to "building working class hegemony" as the over-riding goal of a "transformational economic policy". Not at all.
BUSA's CEO Jerry Vilakazi went on record that he was "surprised" at the Minister's use of the word "cowardly". "We've never shied away from a dialogue with labour. We have always found ways to express ourselves ... We don't take to the streets...but would rather engage privately [note that] and we will continue to work and engage the way we do...".
And speaking for SACCI Neren Rau, its CEO, came up with this lame rationale: "Business often acts to preserve the integrity of the business environment ... And is sometimes forced to make substantial compromises to safeguard positive investor perceptions...". No kidding!
What you have here is a business community with its head firmly in the sand. Let's pretend we don't hear what we don't like. Let's just ignore the insults (business equals "capitalist greed") and rather stick to economists' anodyne jargon and talk about GDP growth, inflation, and the balance of payments (while we engage privately). And as for the issue of loss-making state corporations let's be "pragmatic" and just put out a Press Release that endorses the "principle of contestability" (whatever that conveys to the average South African).
This is all too reminiscent of how organized business reacted years ago when Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd introduced his plans for dealing with what the Nats called die swart gevaar by imposing "grand apartheid" on South Africa and excluding Africans from South Africa's cities. (No job? No pass? Then back you go to starve in the homelands). Chambers of Commerce and Industry debated (behind closed doors of course) how they could oppose Verwoerd's crazy policy without appearing to oppose it? (Sub-text: Remember import permits are at risk so let's keep our mouths shut).
Explained Leslie Maasdorp, vice-chairman of ABSA Capital, at the WEF: "We come from an era when criticizing government was equivalent to being unpatriotic".
Weak-kneed leadership of Organized Business continues to this day. Ann Bernstein, chief executive of the Centre for Development & Enterprise, echoed Manuel's critique saying that business has been an ineffective public actor, going along with policies it hasn't believed in while moaning in private.
Bottom line: The opening salvoes in the battle over South Africa's future as a democratic free enterprise market-driven society are beginning in earnest. Within the upper ranks of the ANC there are those who are pragmatic enough to recognize the benefits of continuity and financial rectitude and who find SACP and Cosatu extremism distasteful if not outright alarming. They are looking for support from the private sector and hoping it will forcefully push back against the collectivist doctrine of the far left.
Trevor Manuel's outburst was in reality a cry for help. It's high time Organized Business stepped up to the plate and spoke truth to power.
George Palmer is a former editor of the Financial Mail
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