PREVIEW
Business leaders want the president's liberalisation drive locked into law before politics – and a shrinking economy – overtake it
Business Leadership South Africa's Busi Mavuso used a Bloomberg news interview in Johannesburg to press President Cyril Ramaphosa to legislate his energy and logistics reforms rather than rely on executive orders. ‘The reform project is the most important project that is happening in this country,’ said Mavuso.
Her call was given added urgency by data showing the economy contracted 0.2% in the second quarter and unemployment rose to 33.6%. Ramaphosa’s African National Congress is bracing for another precipitate fall in support in the municipal elections due on 4 November.
Credit-rating upgrades from Fitch and S&P have not translated into the growth business had hoped for, sharpening fears that political drift could unwind five years of parastatal reform. ‘Our country has been undermined by politics,’ Mavuso said, adding that the reform agenda was about ‘decoupling the functioning of the economy from politics.'
President Ramaphosa’s drive to liberalise South Africa’s energy, transport and logistics need to be quickly enshrined in law to make it near impossible for his successor to unpick it, argue Mavuso and other business leaders.
Five years after Ramaphosa began the process of breaking up parastatals Transnet and Eskom, business people have been lamenting the long time it takes to get things done in South Africa (AC Vol 62 No 13, The urgency of now).
Now the President’s Operation Vulindlela, a unit within his own office, claims to have forced through between 70% and 75% of the reforms in the energy and logistics sectors. But Ramaphosa is running out of road. A disastrous election result for the ANC in November could see a renewed push to oust him from the leadership.
Even without that, business worries about Ramaphosa’s declining influence (AC Vol 67 No 4, The Trump-Ramaphosa axis heads south). They cite the impeachment bid over the 2022 ‘cash-in-sofa' scandal, and poor results for the African National Congress in municipal elections between November and January. Those factors will make it harder for Ramaphosa to steer the selection of his successor toward a candidate committed to continue the liberalisation policies.
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