Change SA’s ‘draconian’ labour laws

It is not people with good hearts who create employment, it is entrepreneurs — people who start small businesses

HERMAN Mashaba says he intends using his first-hand knowledge of what it takes to build and run a successful business against all odds to influence DA policy wherever he can.

He says he has no doubt that the most urgent challenge is to create an environment for small businesses to flourish.

He believes if the government gets this right, the country will succeed. If it does not, then over the cliff we will go.

Mashaba says if the new Small Business Development Ministry is serious about addressing unemployment, it will try to get South Africa’s “draconian” labour legislation changed.

Unionists and communists in government won’t allow this, and as far as he is concerned the ministry will be “another political ploy to fool our people”.

What small businesses need is less bureaucracy, but “this department will just add more bureaucracy”.

The new minister, Lindiwe Zulu, may have her heart in the right place, but “it is not people with good hearts who create employment, it is entrepreneurs — people who start small businesses”.

Mashaba is a great talker, but he walks the talk. Last year, he launched a largely self-funded constitutional challenge to a clause in the Labour Relations Act that allows wage decisions reached by big business and unions in central bargaining councils to be imposed on non-parties.

This is “destroying” small businesses, he says. —