‘We need to stop scoring own goals’
Davos Debacle | Telkom chairman Jabu Mabuza says the SA delegation was ’on the back foot’ at WEF gathering
JABU Mabuza, the chairman of Telkom, has been to Davos with Team South Africa half a dozen times, and has experienced the highs and lows.
He’s been there when, “according to the world”, South Africa was just another “basket case of aid-seeking Africans”. He’s also been with Team SA “when we were the next best thing to the world, the only growing story”.
What a pig’s ear the government has managed to make out of that.
“We were really on the back foot this time,” he says.
And not just because of the poor macroeconomic environment for commodity-driven economies like South Africa.
Clearly, that was a factor. But what really hurt was President Jacob Zuma’s spectacular own goal just as Team SA were packing their bags and getting their visas in order. “Issues around the firing of the finance minister,” says Mabuza. And he doesn’t mean David van Rooyen.
Gauging from their questions and attitude, the summary and still unexplained dismissal of the internationally respected Nhlanhla Nene was uppermost in the minds of the diminished band of delegates wanting to engage with Team SA at the World Economic Forum.
Mabuza prefers not to think about it.
“I would rather think about how we’ll be able to dig ourselves out of the debris.”
This doesn’t seem to be occupying Zuma’s mind as much as he’d like.
As chairman of the World Economic Forum regional business council for Africa, Mabuza says he was “disappointed” at Zuma’s last-minute no-show on a panel discussing infrastructure and skills development on the continent.
What this says about Zuma’s priorities he can’t say, given that: “I do not know what he was attending making him unavailable for the panel discussion.”
Getting back to the bright side of life, however, “we’ve got the best of the ministers that we’ve ever had in the finance portfolio”, says Mabuza.
“And we’ve had a demonstration that, very uncharacteristic of politicians, when the president has made an appointment that causes a huge outcry, he reverses his decision. Very few politicians do that.”
How confident is he that Zuma won’t dump Pravin Gordhan when he feels it politically safe to do so?
“I’m not Zuma, I’m not the ANC, I can’t say they will never do it again. I can only hope they’ve learnt from the consequences of their actions. But presidents will always appoint and remove their ministers.”
Without giving the slightest hint to their cabinets?
“I’m not a member of cabinet, so I don’t know what happened in cabinet.”
We have Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe’s word for it that the cabinet was left completely out in the cold on this one.
“I’m surprised by that statement of Radebe’s, to be honest,” says Mabuza.
He finds it “very difficult” to accept that the CEO of a company could change the chief financial officer without talking to at least one of his senior colleagues about it.
“I don’t know how these things work but I found it [Radebe’s statement] quite strange, to say the least.”
While trying not to think too hard about the implications of this, Mabuza says he engaged with foreign investors who were interested in investing in South Africa. Are there any left? “I think so.” What were they asking? “They asked the president about the changing of finance ministers within four days.”
Zuma told them: “We don’t give reasons for this.”
All they needed to know, Zuma told them, was that “when faced with an outcry, I brought in the minister that you have next to me and who you know very well”.
Mabuza sounds remarkably unfazed, given the damage Zuma inflicted on the country’s currency, never mind its credibility, which he concedes is going to hit Telkom very badly, given that it buys most of its equipment from international markets. His CEO, Sipho Maseko, is frantically redoing the sums he did last year even as we speak, says Mabuza.
He says he is not unfazed, “but there is no point in dwelling on what happened in December”.
He’d rather look to the future and ask South Africans: “What is it we should do less of and do more of?”
He wants a restatement of the country’s fiscal policy and a recommitment to restraining government expenditure.
“We need to show the world that we will stick to the disciplined path.”
What we need less of are the own goals we seem hellbent on firing into the back of our overstretched net.
“Stop these own goals,” says Mabuza. “Whether they’re own goals by appointing and firing ministers, or own goals by protest action, or own goals by people saying: ‘I’m going to resign so that I can withdraw my pension.’ These are all own goals.”
The upheaval over racism is an own goal.
“This racism thing that is emerging, these are just disruptions that are not helping us get to where we should be.
“We need to condemn racism in the strongest terms, but we need to move on. We’re in a terrible space right now. We should be focusing on the things that are working in our society, and build on them.”
One of these is Telkom, thanks largely to Mabuza’s leadership. When he became chairman it had been brought to its knees by government meddling.
A fractious and dysfunctional board, the removal or resignation of independent directors, five CEOs in seven years . . . it was strongly reminiscent of SAA today.
The first thing Mabuza did was make it clear that he would not tolerate government interference even if it was the major shareholder. “You don’t get a dog and then do the barking yourself,” he says.
So what’s his advice to the government about failing stateowned enterprises like SAA?
“Get the best possible people on the board and let them appoint the best possible CEO, who in turn appoints the best people he can find.
“The shareholder must appoint the right people to the board, give them the space to do their jobs, hold them to account, and if they don’t deliver, fire them,” Mabuza says.
He is confident that Gordhan understands the situation at SAA, “and will do something about it. He has to do something about it. I am sure this is one of the things that is top of the minister’s mind.”
For the economy to grow, state-owned enterprises must deliver, he says. What else? South Africa must move away from its reliance on exporting raw commodities, but needs to be realistic about beneficiation.
“It is energy-intensive and it requires skills.” We don’t exactly have a surplus of either.
Invest in infrastructure, vocational education and on-thejob training, as they have done so well in Singapore.
“One of the highlights of Davos for me was sitting with the deputy prime minister of Singapore and listening to him on the importance of vocational education and skills.”
There needs to be lifelong learning and more emphasis on vocational than on university education, he says.
“We need fitters and turners, we need artisans to maintain our coal-fired power stations and sort out our leaking pipes, maintain our infrastructure.
“Parents must stop thinking all their children need to go to university,” he says. “And I speak as a university dropout.
“Labour needs to embrace onthe-job training, focus on training people in technical skills rather than on how to be shop stewards.”
None of this is going to happen overnight, though. What could happen overnight is tourism. This could, and should, be the real game-changer for South Africa, says Mabuza, former chairman of the South African Tourism Board. Given our currency, climate, natural assets and world-class hotels, it should be contributing close to 20% of GDP and even higher.
“I am battling to understand why our tourism has not picked up.” Well, not really. “It’s sentimental.” The “charm” South Africa used to hold for the world has been swamped by violence and crime.
“One of the things we really, really need to focus on is getting our country safe. We need to get our country safe,” he says.
Stop these own goals. Whether they’re own goals by appointing and firing ministers, or own goals by protest action