The Stark Choices Facing the Black Management Forum (Bmf)

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THE STARK CHOICES FACING THE BLACK MANAGEMENT FORUM (BMF)

By

Dr Don D.B Mkhwanazi

Past President-BMF

Entrepreneur

Transformation Activist

Director &

Chairman of Companies

At

BMF 40th Anniversary Breakfast

Celebration- Elangeni Hotel Durban

22 March 2016

First and foremost allow me to congratulate the BMF on its 40th anniversary. It has been a long and hard journey with its unique challenges; sweat, toil and limited victory. Programme Director the theme of today’s breakfast is noted. ‘’IMPROVING LOCAL CONDITIONS TO ACHIEVE ACCELERATED ECONOMIC GROWTH IN KZN’’ We must commend the Acting Chief Executive of Transnet Mr Siyabonga Gama for his well thought out views on how we could navigate the future. Thank you, Mlangeni.

This breakfast is however taking place under gloom and doom, a very undesirable sentimental climate. We are under siege and the negative sentiment is gripping the nation. Some of the headlines in the media are not helping.

“Rating cut looms as Moodys’ flags risks”

“Two months until SA’s rating D day”

“Political Risk again weights down Rand”

“Red letter week ahead for the economy”

“Beset Gordhan fight to avert downgrading”

“State Capture”

“Trust needs to be restored”

“Wishful Thinking: Black owned Barclays Africa is likely to remain a pipedream” etc. etc. etc.

South Africa is under siege. Rating Agencies such as Moody’s, Fitch, Standard and Spoor’s etc. are upon us. Who are they? What is their agenda? Who owns them? Are these the same who were under intense scrutiny since the global financial crisis following their favourable pre-crisis rating of insolvent financial institutions like Lehman Brothers and risky mortgage related securities that contributed to the collapse of the US housing market? These are the same big 3 rating agencies that the USA Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) report called “the essential cogs in the wheel of financial destruction.”

Allow me to make further observations. Since the advent of democracy in 1994, the South African state has tried by all means to please the so called western powers in terms of our overall economic thrust and dispensation. Unfortunately, most of the designs have failed to meet head on our own unique economic challenges .

We have changed and chopped our economic policies from Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) to the weak National Development Plan (NDP). This has resulted in unintended economic consequences including being held at ransom by the rating agencies. Closely linked to this is the real official opposition of the current government. We are talking about the media here and not the DA, the perpetual litigants. When you control the media, you can dictate the discourse and agenda for opinion makers as attested by Molefi Kete Asante, one of our eminent African Scholars.

The media is dictating the agenda by continuously rubbishing our government. What the media says becomes the agenda. Remember, a lie often repeated soon becomes fact as Goebels said at the height of Hitler’s rule. The most unfortunate part of this is that thought leaders such as individual BMF members base their arguments, articulation and positions on what they read from the media. There is no original thought, no independent painstaking analysis and absolutey no profundity anymore.

Rubbishing of State Owned Companies (SOCs) or State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) has gained currency. State Owned Enterprises have all been painted with red paint, it’s unfair. It’s all one size fits all. The media is at it again. I have personally served in some of them as a Non- Executive Director including this includes Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and Transnet. I still have to find finest brains and outstanding individuals better than leadership and management I have come to witness at some of these institutions. One rotten egg does not render all of them inedible. The hidden agenda by stealth is to ensure that priceless assets owned and controlled by the state must fall in private hands. Unfortunately, even in the governing party there are those who are beginning to fall into this big silent trap. (“SOEs must fall campaign is in vogue’’).

Today there is a big debate on how to measure Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Leading economists such as Nobel Laurette Prof Joseph Stiglits are even beginning to question what should be included in determining the gross domestic product of a country. The Black Management Forum (BMF) prides itself in being a thought leadership organisation with its main purpose of influencing socio-economic justice, fairness and equity in our society.

Where is the voice of the BMF on these crucial matters of national importance and interest? Why has the BMF not defended its members deployed in state owned companies? Why has the BMF not pronounced on the GDP debate or give it the prominence it deserves? Why has the BMF not conducted studies on foreign direct investment (FDI) that has found its way into our shores since 1994? How does that compare with FDI attracted by the brutal apartheid state, the most atrocious before 1994?

How does this stack up with what PW Botha said to his cabinet in 1985.

Lest we forget, here is an excerpt from that speech; “Intellectually, we are superior to the Blacks; that has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt over the years”. He went on to say, “it is comforting to know that behind the scenes, Europe, America, Canada, Australia and all others are behind us in spite of what they say. To prove my point, Comrades, does anyone of you know a White country without an investment or interest in South Africa? Who buys our gold? Who buys our diamond? Who trades with us? Who is helping us develop our nuclear weapon? The very truth is that we are their people and they are our people. It's a big secret.”

Where were the rating agencies then? Why did the apartheid state attract such investments? What are we missing? Why all of a sudden rating agencies are so vocal since BRICS became a reality?

Why is the BMF not exposing this sinister agenda of the rating agencies? They are hell bent to dictate to us what is good for us. Why this love all of a sudden? Today I would like to make one or two humble submissions. First, if we do not wake up and follow economic policies that are in the best interest of our citizens, we will continue to be harassed, blackmailed and badgered until we implement policies in the best interest of the western world and those they are its cahoots with. We need to do away with orthodoxy.

Let me make a simple example. These rating agencies will continue to examine how wide and small the budget deficit IS. For some of us, the issue is not the budget deficit.

Secondly, how many countries have been able to maintain a balanced budget? What is the issue then? Is it about what the deficit is financing? What are the odds of providing free education, skills revolution, entrepreneurship, enterprise development via the deficit and producing highly skilled young people, a thriving small and medium enterprise sector. Flourishing entrepreneurs juxtaposed against a balanced budget with unskilled populace, high unemployment, poverty and inequality. Which one will take us to where we really need to be when a savings culture becomes second nature? In short, we must begin to look beyond adopted sophisticated economic policies and mechanism that do not suit us or meet our minimum expectations. We must be pragmatic in our approach - an approach that is meaningful to our nation.

For South Africa to realise her full potential an economic revolution must take place. Economic revolution means fundamental change in economic power relations. It means redefinition of these economic power relations between the haves and have nots. It means race, religion, status and where you were born must not determine your ultimate station in life. It means equal and equitable chance of success in any endeavour of your choice in life. Economic function or success must not correspond to race. It means fundamental deracialisation of the economy. Simply put, it does not mean the rearrangement of chairs in the Titanic ship, but rebuilding of the ship that is the South African economy. In the ANC we call it Radical Economic Transformation.

The BMF must be in the forefront of this onslaught-driving the economic revolution. Our humble view is that if this economic revolution becomes a reality, the evaluation and assessments of the rating agencies would be irrelevant. Our liberated South Africa will attract offshore and inshore investments in abundance. Local conditions to achieve accelerated economic growth not only in the KwaZulu-Natal but in the republic will be most evident.

There are certain prerequisites for the economic revolution to manifest. South Africans of goodwill must stand together as one to ensure the following:

·  National unity

·  Common Vision

·  New National Identity

·  National pride and national psyche.

·  New patriotism that will underpin a new patriotic front of all positive forces and stakeholder groups.

·  New mind set

·  New Partnerships

·  New Patriotic front

·  Listening and learning from the future is to predict and invent it. Critically important is learning from the past.

We want to believe that in addressing these critical issues a compelling vision that binds us all together as one nation should be espoused by the leadership formations. The BMF must be central to this reawakening - A shared and inspiring vision that gives all South Africans the confidence for the future. It should hold us together like glue and must be unifying.

We are calling for vision 2044 for the third time now. Vision 2044 because in year 2044, this country would be celebrating 50 years of political freedom. This vision 2044 will be the embodiment of the aspirations of all South Africans defining also the “Business we are in as one South African nation”.

A binding vision will underpin the national unity that is so critical for sustainable and inclusive economic growth and development. Today national unity is an elusive concept in South Africa. Let us be blunt and frank.

As we talk today we cannot help it but borrow the words of Lucky Mazibuko in his Sowetan column titled- “Just call me Lucky.”

“What happened to the overrated and superficial rainbow nation? it is always overplayed and grossly exaggerated. In fact I have warned many times before that our beautiful country and its people have never been given an opportunity and privilege to shape their own destiny.”

The economic revolution - total economic liberation that we all yearn for will remain a pipe dream as there is no national unity, no compelling vision, no clear unifying national identity nor national pride. We must forge new patriotism. Great leaders from all formations should make these their highest priority. The BMF must be in the forefront.

At this critical stage in the history and development journey of our country, the BMF cannot be in the shadows given the intellectual capital it possesses. It must define and describe the future. It must dream the impossible. As Ariel Dorfman said last year at the Madiba lecture “It is right to dream the impossible. History might happen to be just listening” Thank you for inviting me, but the stark choices are clear for the BMF. It must reinvent itself and occupy the centre stage or remain quiet, say nothing and become nothing. Our grandchildren and future generations will then dance and spit on our graves if we become nothing.