LETTER: Investors don’t want to stick their money here

What a lot of PR smoke and mirrors these SA investment conferences have turned out to be. Most of the businesses paraded around would have made those investments anyway. MTN has been talking about a 5G investment for a year, just to be competitive. In fact, it announced a R40bn investment in 5G over a year ago.

Similarly, Transnet’s infrastructure is in serious need of repair. A R22.6bn investment is small change for the transport parastatal and won’t fix the Spanish locomotives that are too large for SA, or the Prasa debacle, or the harbours that can’t cope with present volumes.

Companies invest when there is a strong likelihood of a decent return on that investment. Our stagnant economy is not very attractive to any investor, local or foreign, big or small. A declining currency makes the investment all the more risky as the rate of return would have to be so much higher to offset the currency decline.

A local investor and entrepreneur like me sits on the sides, reads Business Day and shudders in disbelief. What is the colour of the Kool-Aid your reporters were served at last week’s conference? On the same website page as your coverage appeared were two articles on emigrating to Portugal or Cyprus. They at least were clearly labelled as “sponsored”. Your report should have been labelled “sponsored by government”.

Robert Breyer
Llandudno