Corporate arrogance in SA has become all too common
SOUTH Africa last week watched in utter disbelief as Tiger Brands chief executive Lawrence MacDougall distanced his company from the largest listeriosis outbreak in the history of mankind. MacDougall told an anxious nation with a straight face that there was no direct link between Tiger Foods’ Enterprise products and the outbreak. He said it would be unfair for the company to own up to the deaths as it had received no communication and test results from the Department of Health.
Never mind the fact that Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi had told us that the origin of the deadly listeria bacterium was linked to Tiger Foods’ Enterprise factory in Polokwane.
Forget about the panic the announcement caused throughout the country.
MacDougall stood firm in pronouncing his company’s stringent health standards. He said Tiger Brands employed tough quality controllers who would have captured and wrestled the bacteria to the ground.
His words were a cold comfort to families that had already lost more than 180 of their loved ones to the disease. Their quest for accountability quickly turned into anger as they failed to understand why the country’s biggest processed food maker failed to take them into its confidence.
A general regret for any loss of life would have gone a long way in soothing hearts that were bleeding with pain.
Small wonder then that many found comfort and readily accepted lawyer Richard Spoor’s pledge to bring a classaction lawsuit against the company.
But MacDougall is not alone in treating the locals with disregard.
Corporate arrogance in South Africa has become all too common. It is as prevalent sustained pain that those who swear in black and gold endured weekly under Steve Komphela.
When Mark Jooste embarked on a reckless auditing adventure that wiped off billions of rand on the stock market and left many people poor, the country raised a small murmur and quickly went back to its normal life.
Jooste has been left to enjoy the millions he made as Steinhoff ’s former chief execu- tive in the picturesque university town of Stellenbosch in peace.
When Cell C chief executive José Dos Santos made his bitch-switch comments on women we all laughed him off as a backward misogynist who was beyond rehabilitation. Not once did we raise the same rage as when Mosebenzi Zwane was facilitating the capture of our precious coal in Mpumalanga.
And when former Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) chief executive Serge Belamant said that the government might as well use pigeons to fly around and deliver social grants to millions of poor South Africans, not a single political or non-government organisation made a noise about it. It was left to the directors of the company to force him to resign, because the CPS contract was worth billions of rand.
But can we blame these wayward chief executives when there is no law that forces them to take personal responsibility for the collapse of corporate governance under their watch.
Hardly a week goes by without the Competition Commission and Competition Tribunal making findings against corporate corruption.
Tiger Brands is particularly not averse to controversy.
In the past 11 years alone, the company has had to explain itself to the country at least five times.
The Competition Commission fined the company R98.7 million for participating in bread and milling cartels. The commission found that Tiger Brands was involved in illegal price fixing in the bread and milling sector alongside Premier Foods and Pioneer Foods.
South Africans only raised an eyebrow and moved on with their lives.
And therein lies our collective culpability as a nation.
White collar crime in South Africa is as serious as misdemeanours in the public sector.
It affects the poorest of the poor more than it hits the privileged.
Tiger Brands’ processed meats are among the most consumed in South Africa across race and class divisions.
Just as MacDougall was busy with his denials, thousands of South Africans were queueing in front of Enterprise premises to return products associated with Tiger Brands.
Most of the people who made the company’s balance sheet look so attractive to investors were the very consumers MacDougall showed scant regard for.
They bought processed meats in bulk for their spaza shops in the township.
For them buying Enterprise products was a livelihood. It supported them and their families. It took children to school and made sure that there was bread on the table when they returned.
And with each return a subsistence family business was condemned to more poverty.
The fact that we now have to pay 15 percent in VAT to plug a budget shortfall that came as a result of a public-private-sector looting process that was spearheaded by the Guptas shows just how vulnerable South Africa is to abuse.
Corporate South Africa is very quick, rightly so, to point out deficiencies in the public sector. It has become a critical voice on how state-owned enterprises should be run and whether or not to privatise porous entities such as SAA and Eskom.
However, its silence on corporate malfeasance is deafening. It is like there is a gentlemen’s agreement not to say bad things about each other. Such a code is not good for ethical leadership.
Inasmuch as we have rightfully become angry at how the government has opened us to abuse by parasites such as the Guptas, we also need to show equal disdain for the ill-treatment that the private sector is subjecting us to. The government needs to introduce measures to make company executives and directors personally liable for negligences that give rise to outbreaks such as the listeria bacterium.
And organisations such as Business Leadership SA ostracised Telkom and Transnet for their involvement in corruption and state capture, they need to hold corporate South Africa just as accountable.
They need to ensure that Jooste is not left to retreat to Stellenbosch without answering for what the civilised world calls a criminal act in law.
That way we will know that companies, like all other citizens, are not above the law.
And that chauvinists such as Dos Santos are not the best poster boys for ethical leadership.