What is it about Namibia and Namibians? They are so different to us. They just want to get on with their lives and business and are willing to talk to each other in a constructive way to do this. I was invited to present a paper at a NEEEF conference in Windhoek a few weeks' ago, as it turns out I ended up chairing it (they told me when I arrived I was the man to do this). They asked me to speak about a localisation strategy but I chose to speak about what Namibia could learn from South Africa - I'll save the cynicism for a later post.
Namibia is about 15 years behind South Africa when it comes to a national empowerment policy. Established business is nervous about the policy and the policy is vague and in draft format. What I found interesting was how white business was nervous and government saw the need for the policy (like we were fifteen years ago), but they want to talk to each other. This conference was apparently a political hot potato. The organisers had been trying to arrange it for the last year and had come across major hurdles. The public wanted the conference because they wanted some information and so they got it. The speakers were extraordinary (I thought I was pretty good too), I don't know if I have been to a conference where speakers managed to hold the attention of the entire hall for the whole day.
Each speaker put their case strongly from the objective Ngoni Bopoto, the Namibian economist who painted a solid picture on Namibia's current economy through to Phillip Ellis, who made no bones about his capitalist slant. On the way we were given an overview of the Employment Equity Commissioner's thoughts on the necessity for redress. The commissioner, Vilbard Usiku, is one of those rare policy makers who comes across as objective (like Thuli was when she was public protector). I learned more about South Africa's apartheid legislation from Vilbard than I will from any of the current anc politicians. He has given me a copy of his speech which I would be more than happy to disseminate to anyone who requires it. We heard from the lawyers tasked with getting the draft bill promulgated. Again there was no "like or lump it" attitude here, I got the distinct impression that they want the process to be accepted by those who need to implement it. The highlight of the conference for me was Phillip Ellis. Phillip was concerned about NEEEF (pronounced NeeYIF) because it had been a mooted policy for years. It started off its life as TESEF, and slowly migrated across to NEEEF. A draft of the NEEEF bill has been available for comment for the last few years. Phillip is a very respected businessman and adviser to many businesses (both local and foreign) and he reckons that this uncertainty is hampering investment in the country. He told an interesting anecdote how a certain large South African company wanted to uproot to Namibia after zuma's Nene firing but refused to come because of the existence of the policy in draft format. Phillip quipped that people would prefer to have the finalised policy than the sword of Damocles. This is about policy certainty, Namibia has known about this for years and it gets delayed and reformatted.
This is the second NEEEF conference that I have chaired and spoken at (I'll speak at every other one too) and in each case I have put a strong argument for the procurement element. BEE as a policy exists and can measure its success because of the private sector. Without procurement as the glue these policies will fail. If BEE was left to the government to implement it would have fallen by the wayside years ago. This is the issue that I have not been able to understand, how is this supposed to succeed if a NEEEF scorecard is only required for licenses and state procurement. All the companies will just create a company for this purpose and so fronting will continue.
My two presentations are attached. I managed to present the one on lessons from South Africa, but couldn't tear Phillip away from the audience to present my why diets fail presentation.
Thanks to the organisers for arranging a conference that everyone enjoyed - me especially.
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