Johannesburg — WHILE business, the unions and government fiddle at Nedlac, the economy burns. Figures released by Statistics SA yesterday showed that business failures were up by about 21% in the year so far, even though they dipped in August. This was an improvement from the previous month but frightening nonetheless.

Yet, for all the frequent citing of the grand plan to help protect SA from the worst of the recession, many of its proposals, particularly regarding small businesses, risk being stillborn because of a lack of urgency on the part of union negotiators in the discussions at Nedlac.

That may be because, from a union perspective, it is the larger employers that matter. That is where union members are mainly to be found. But tens of thousands of workers in smaller companies have lost their jobs and there is no one out there batting for them.

Yesterday's numbers add to this already grim picture and what is doubly sad is the effect the recession will have on real black entrepreneurs. Our columnist Thami Mazwai wrote movingly last Friday about a washerwoman he assists. She was bought a washing machine and now has two people working for her. She and people like her, Mazwai wrote, do not spend their lives chasing government tenders, "They just want a place to stand so they can move mountains."

But not without much more help, we fear. The Industrial Development Corporation has promised to make R6bn available to distressed companies over the next two years. But it is too well-run an outfit to simply dish out money to all and sundry.

SA's response to the global economic crisis was crafted under the leadership of (the now) Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel and, not surprisingly, it is heavily loaded towards the Cosatu agenda.

That would be fine but for the fact that very little seems to be emerging from the plan. It would not be the first time an ANC government has confused drawing up a plan with actually implementing it.