LETTER: Government pays no heed to useless business organisations
Despite good intentions and proximity to power, SA’s Busa, BLSA, BBC, B4SA and NBI have never delivered anything to alleviate poverty and unemployment
The SA public is fatigued by all the papers and documents that have emerged from Busa, BLSA, BBC, B4SA, NBI and the rest. These organisations, with the best of intentions, have engaged with organs of government at various levels. They are essentially lobby groups that produce alternative policy documents.
The sad news is that they spend months churning these out with no guarantee that anyone is listening. Business Leadership SA (BLSA) CEO Busi Mavuso’s weekly column in Business Day laments the shortcomings of some government policy decisions, and from time to time she suggests constructive alternatives. But who listens to her?
Government bureaucrats don’t give a hoot what she says. At best she is an irritant to the status quo. Trying to get dyed-in-the-wool communists like Ebrahim Patel and Gwede Mantashe to move away from a command-type economy is an insurmountable problem. They are stuck in the communist past.
My irritation with these organisations is that they are content to have dinner with the president of the country on odd occasions, where they have an opportunity to sit with him at the main table and take selfies. What is it that they are doing on the ground to change the lives of the 10-million unemployed South Africans?
They seem to revel in their esoteric philosophical differences. They are essentially think-tanks and never seem to deliver anything on the ground to alleviate poverty and unemployment. I wish they would get their hands a dirty and stop taking selfies with the president.
Douglas Ramaphosa, Chair, IRCA Global southern hemisphere
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