Nedbank boss warns of SA’s ‘kleptocracy’
Bank chairman who got into trouble with the ruling party once before sharpens his warning
NEDBANK chairman Reuel Khoza says that when the country’s leaders begin to steal in a manner that is difficult to unravel, there is a kleptocracy at work, not a democracy.
In an interview with the Sunday Times this week, Khoza also said black business organisations were failing the people they claimed to be working for.
His criticism of the government focused on South Africa’s leadership, which he said was not as it should be.
Referencing governance guru Bob Garratt’s bestseller, The Fish Rots from the Head, Khoza said: “The head is not as sound as it can be.”
He continued: “Don’t ask me who the head is, it’s a collective head. Essentially, it is plagued, corroded and eroded by failing to understand that when all is said and done, the best . . . leadership is predicated on moral authority.”
Khoza, a member of the King committee on corporate governance, said when leaders began to steal in a manner that was difficult to unravel, “we have a kleptocracy at work as opposed to a democracy, and that serves to corrode and erode whatever value you should be creating as a nation”.
He argued that if people led without the necessary moral authority, chances were they would soon “mislead effectively”, as had Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe.
The Nedbank chairman said that while people had previously voted to pay homage to a liberator, that liberator had evolved and was no longer the liberating force it once was.
“In terms of citizenship, no one at Luthuli [House, the ANC headquarters] is superior to
We should be articulating our thoughts . . . tabling alternative routes of running the economy
anybody outside of Luthuli. We are all just citizens. They happen to be in leadership,” he said.
Turning to black business leadership, he said organisations — including the Black Management Forum, the Association of Black Securities and Investment Professionals and Business Unity South Africa — were “not delivering what they should be delivering”.
Khoza said it did not help for these organisations to meet, talk about how to deal with the government and stop there.
“I believe they could do a lot more,” Khoza said.
His comments come at a time when these organisations have been vocal about the slow pace of transformation in South Africa.
Speaking specifically of the Black Management Forum, which until recently was headed by government spokesman Jimmy Manyi, Khoza said some people “chose to politicise the professional body of the black intelligentsia”.
This led to “a good number of those that cared to think and write about business to take flight” and become armchair critics, rather than people involved in improving the county.
“I believe that we should be articulating our thoughts ... tabling alternative routes of running the economy,” he said.
Khoza himself can attest to what happens when you articulate your thoughts — and it is not pretty.
In his 2011 chairman’s report for Nedbank, Khoza bemoaned the quality of South Africa’s political leaders, branding them a “strange breed” determined to undermine the rule of law and override the constitution.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe hit back at the time, saying Khoza’s “bad mouthing” of the country affected South Africa’s competitiveness, calling it “economic suicide of the worst sort”.
The tussle did not dim Khoza’s spirit.
And, he said, South Africa had a young crop of future leaders with “quality thoughts”. These people, he warned, would not remain quiet for long.