Koseff lashes govt for fighting political wars

As SA faces ratings downgrades, Investec Group’s CEO lashed government for “fighting political wars and not concentrating on building the country”.

Stephen Koseff said interacting with government on issues of national importance has become more difficult in the run up to the ANC’s elective conference. “You’re not dealing with people you can talk to at the moment because they’re all running around politicking for the election coming up in December.”

Koseff is one of a number of business leaders who, with labour and government (under the CEO Initiative), committed in 2016 to work together to address SA’s key challenges.

Now, Koseff and Goldman Sachs’ Colin Coleman are leading the Youth Employment Services (YES) Programme geared at providing 1 million youth with internships over a three-year period. He said their team was working “day and night” to get the programme ready but needs government support to get traction.

“When you’re trying to create that many jobs for people who have never had a job and have very little chance of getting a job unless there’s an intervention, you’d think government would embrace it and supply what is needed to get there.

“But there’s politics that you just have to navigate and say ‘this is very important for SA’.”

Ratings agencies have consistently warned that governance issues and contingent liabilities at state-owned enterprises (SOEs) pose a serious threat to SA’s credit rating. S&P and Moody’s are due to review SA’s foreign and local currency ratings on November 24.

“At the end of the day, you need a government that is willing and able to start delivering,” Koseff said, referring to Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s mini budget. According to Koseff, people are worried as Gigaba laid out the budget and budget deficit but didn’t provide a strategy/solution to address SA’s economic woes.

“I would start selling some of these SOEs. I would strip out Eskom and start getting private sector partners – just like they did with Telkom years ago – to come in with capital and start running the different pieces.

“I would get people to come in and invest in them and then it would no longer be a burden on the state.”