Tackling our challenges
SA requires a partnership between the public and private sectors to unlock its potential
TWO significant events have occurred recently. First, South Africa won the World Rugby Cup in a well-deserved match and the heroic Springboks brought home the prized gold cup as the best rugby team in the world.
Rugby as a sport united the nation perhaps as never before, taking into account that economically we are experiencing “our darkest hour”.
Second, at the international and domestic finance conference held this week, the nation was informed that an amount of R363billion has been pledged in investment by investors.
Both these events should boost public confidence in the nation and lead to a renewed sense of optimism at a time that we have been experiencing an unprecedented mood of pessimism and negativity.
Although the government, led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, is making a very real effort to address a legion of problems inherited from the disastrous Zuma era of state capture, corruption and maladministration, very much more needs to be done to boost public morale and financial confidence in both the South African economy, the country and its people.
This requires an almost superhuman effort to effect competent and efficient administration in the three spheres of government.
President Ramaphosa must take the people into his confidence and must be seen in both word and deed to be manifestly addressing all the maladies the country is at present encountering.
This is by no means easy because it will, inter alia, require a strong measure of fiscal discipline to bring about the change required to make us once again a winning nation.
In this regard he is likely to face considerable opposition from within and without the ANC, particularly from the trade unions that have strong ideological reservations about a resource-driven economy, which is essential for further investment, both international and domestic.
Domestic and international investors need policy certainty, particularly regarding mining and related industry.
The government needs to be seen to be committed to the principles of the National Development Plan (NDP), rather than the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). The latter involves nationalisation and is in essence socialistic in character.
In this regard, policy certainty and a resource-driven economy are essential to unlock both domestic and foreign investment.
This requires an unequivocal choice and commitment to social democracy rather than socialism, favoured by the trade unions.
The government cannot be ideologically all things to all people. Some measure of privatisation is, it is submitted, essential for the NDP to be put into action and to bring about sustained economic growth.
Although South Africa is a country of infinite potential, it requires a partnership between the public and private sectors to unlock its vast potential. The public also have a vital role to play in this regard by displaying a confidence in the country and its leadership.
Far too much pessimism prevails in the private sector and the population. A new and invigorated sense of confidence is essential in both the private sector and civil society. We need to return to the principles of the Mandela legacy.
Civil society and its leadership has an indispensable role to play in promoting a positive sentiment in word and deed.
In general there is far too much grumbling about existing problems, rather than an involvement to resolving them, be they crime, unemployment or lack of opportunity.
Civil society and faith-based organisations need to be promoting a powerful moral regeneration and thereby bringing about greater social cohesion and a renewed attitude of care and compassion for the poor and the homeless.
Moral regeneration in both the private and public sectors is also essential to stem the tide of endemic corruption and fraud that prevailed during the Zuma era.
In this regard we need a moral crusade initiated by faith-based organisations requiring that those in the government and the private sector be manifestly persons of honesty and moral integrity.
Last, the vast economic inequality that exists in South Africa has to be addressed, essentially by the government in partnership with the private sector to bring about a more equal society where social and economic justice prevail.
These are the inordinate challenges we face as a nation, which need to be urgently addressed at this juncture of our history and pilgrimage as a fledgling democratic nation.
We need the confidence and optimism to embark on this immediately. We dare not delay.
In the immortal words of the bard, William Shakespeare: There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, omitted all voyage of their life, is bound in shallows and miseries (Julius Caesar).