Business Day (Johannesburg)
Tim Cohen
13 July 2009
opinion
Johannesburg — SA's business organisations have unwittingly got themselves into a awkward position. They are not unified enough to speak with authority and heft, yet they offer a form of unity sufficient to stop the emergence of a real unifying body.
It wouldn't matter so much except that with the ANC leftwards drift the need for a dynamic and progressive business voice has never been greater. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry SA (Chamsa) is nominally the voice of unified business, but as past president Patrice Motsepe was the husband of an ANC noble, and new president Mathews Phosa is an ANC grandee, the organisation has no independent voice.
It's also a shaky alliance of disparate branches of business with constituent members Nafcoc, Fabcos, Sacci and the AHI all getting something of a say. But this unity at the top is not reflected in real unity at membership level. Joint campaigns or undertakings are lacking.
Sacci (formerly Sacob) is theoretically the largest and most significant, but is drowned out by the voices of those who feel the correct way to approach the government is informally, through the back door, and lobbyists for particular issues.
The result is severe curtailment of the issues the organisation can fight for. Corruption and the rule of law ought to be a heavyweight issues for business organisations, but you wouldn't think it by their complete silence on such matters.
Business interests are being left behind in the ANC's new flirtation with comprehensively antibusiness policies such as nationalisation.
Business seems to think the best strategy is to keep its head down, and hope such issues go away.
This is really no way to conduct a fruitful relationship with the government. Business should spend more time thinking constructively about how it can help solve the government's problems. It needs to do more to produce research, and pool international experience.
For that it needs a credible and active voice, not a toy telephone.
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