The startling intervention in last week’s summit of the Black Business Council (BBC) by Sipho Pityana, president of Business Unity SA (Busa) did have some effect, but not nearly enough. Pityana, who wrote to BBC president Sandile Zungu (in his personal capacity) accusing him and his organisation of complicity in the state capture project, wanted to make many in black business rethink their association and cast doubt on our odious political culture, in which the misdemeanours of the corrupt are quickly forgotten and they are greeted with warm hugs and handshakes. To that extent, his intervention may have been effective. When President Cyril Ramaphosa later addressed guests at the BBC gala dinner he emphasised the need to examine the role business may have played in “collaborating, and in facilitating the theft of billions of rands from the public purse”. Pityana’s letter to Zungu also raised the fate of the previous BBC president Danisa Baloyi, who last year was named in a forensic r...
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