South African business leaders are in harmony on what the country needs after this week elections.
Reinvigorating the economy leads the agenda of what Cyril Ramaphosa, the favourite to retain the presidency, must tackle once taking office. To get there, he will have to prosecute those accused of plundering the government, fix state-owned companies and cut debt, among others.
The Chief Executive Officer of Business Leadership of South Africa and a former chairman for Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s South African unit, Bonang Mohale wants a focus on raising up more black managers to better represent the country’s demographics.
“Number one is to root out and defeat state capture. Number two is to drive transformation aggressively. Number three is to ensure that we retain the few jobs that we have in order to create more jobs. Lastly, it’s about economic growth.
“For the investment community, economic growth is number one. What are ratings agencies looking for? Only four things: economic, fiscal and institutional strength; stability and continuance.
“In the government’s locus of control is to reduce government debt. They can do this by reducing the size of the cabinet, which will cut the size of the overall government. It can also reduce by a third the 700-odd state-owned enterprises. Eskom has 48 000 employees. It used to have only 32,000 employees – that’s the easiest.”