Koseff pulls no punches after cocktails

● It was meant to be a polite questionand-answer session after public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan’s address at a corporate cocktail function, but veteran banker and former Investec CEO Stephen Koseff pulled no punches.

SA needs to make some tough choices or remain “stuck”, Koseff told Gordhan this week in Sandton, at an event hosted by life insurer Sanlam.

The government needed to reduce the size of the civil service, privatise some state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and adopt business-friendly policies, he said.

And it needed to do things that might be unpopular with the trade unions.

“Until unions change their philosophy from job protection to job creation, we are going to be stuck,” said Koseff.

His comments made some guests shuffle uncomfortably.

Gordhan had struck a conciliatory note, even quipping that, with about a dozen CEOs and chairs of listed companies present, it was a good room in which to raise funds for SOEs. But he was adamant that the government could not be seen to be letting people go.

“It is easier for some of the institutions represented here to farm out 200, 400, 500 people and say ‘go and do something else’ or train them to do something else. In the public sector it is a lot more difficult,” said Gordhan.

Koseff said SA was still dealing with the hangover from state capture that had cost the country about R1.4-trillion in lost economic growth and left the state with billions less to collect in taxes.

He also had a go at the government for making it tough for skilled foreigners to get visas to work in a country short of about 800,000 skilled workers. “They are not going to replace jobs, you can’t find people to fill those jobs,” said Koseff.

Gordhan replied that “there are changes taking place” and that the visa regime under home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi was very different from that under former minister Malusi Gigaba.

Koseff left soon after speaking his mind.