It's a very sensational heading but Zungu does make a little bit of sense.
Sandile Zungu, Executive Chairman of Zungu Investments Company and member of President Zuma's newly established BBBEE Council, says that SA's corporates are unpatriotic because they are not prepared to implement BEE in a meaningful way. This, he cautions, will have dire consequences for the country in the longer term.
I don't know why he chooses to use such a strong and unwarranted word. Agreed if BEE is not properly implemented then we'll have a problem - but why the hell can't people like Zungu stop criticising what's not being done and talk about what is being done.
I'll tell you why he does this - it's because the overwhelming message from our esteemed government is one of criticism. He's just following the trend. Take a look at this
The government certainly seemed suitably welcoming last week when Volkswagen SA opened a new distribution centre in Centurion and announced that it would make further investments in its Uitenhage plant (R500m).
Not only will the plant be making many more VW Polos for export, it will also create a few thousand more jobs. And with VWSA planning to increase the local content of its Polos from 40% to 70%, there should be some new jobs, too, at the component manufacturers and other local suppliers.
The trade and industry minister was there last week to welcome it all. So too was Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe .
But the disturbing thing last week about Motlanthe, in particular, was that he gave VW such a qualified welcome. He wasted no time laying into the company, and its industry, for failing to do their bit for black economic empowerment. After a cursory remark or two about how nice VWSA’s investment was, and how wonderful was SA’s new (but as yet unimplemented) industrial policy action plan, the deputy president moved straight along to the findings of a Wits University study of the metals, engineering and automotive industries. The study, he said, showed a “less than rosy picture” of broad-based empowerment in these industries. Only 1% of the businesses were black-owned. The race and gender mix wasn’t right at all. Skills training was no good either.
The Business Day then poses the very relevant question
You have to ask, does the government want jobs or doesn’t it? Does it care whether private companies invest? Does it understand the risks companies take to invest?
And comes to the conclusion that
When governments invest, they do so with other people’s money: for companies it’s different, but it’s not clear how well politicians appreciate that.
Hence Zungu using the word unpatriotic. In fact Mr Zungu suggests that the government is the dog's bollocks
"It is in the long-term interests of business and the country that we should embrace socio-economic transformation that has been promoted by a caring South African government," he said
Yeah right Sandile, this is the same "caring" government that passes an act that is binding on itself and yet does not actually come up with a vehicle that it is able to implement.
And as a passing observation - this is taken from the big fours' annual reports. The figures are in millions. In other words the banking sector invested about 867.9million rand in enterprise development. You can't tell me that is unpatriotic Sandile.
|
Institution |
NPAT 2009 |
SED spend |
ED spend |
|
ABSA |
7,502 |
75.02 |
225.06 |
|
First Rand |
7,838 |
78.38 |
235.14 |
|
Nedbank |
5,412 |
54.12 |
162.36 |
|
Standard Bank |
8,180 |
81.80 |
245.4 |
|
TOTAL |
28,932 |
289.32 |
867.96 |
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