There's always been a certain cynicism to relations between business and the state; it's not something that suddenly emerged over the past decade of a bad presidency. Historians can possibly trace it back many decades, but I would like to trace it to when the most important of the country's empowerment charters, for the mining sector, was leaked in the early 2000s. The market reaction to the Mining Charter said everything about the apprehension with which business viewed the transformation agenda. While some of the deals that would follow to introduce black ownership of mines were done in the spirit of trying to achieve redress, many were embarrassingly insincere. And if there weren't terribly structured deals, there were deals done with political expedience in mind that were disastrous. I remember going to a press conference where Khulubuse Zuma, a nephew of the then incoming ANC president, and Nelson Mandela's grandson, Zondwa Mandela, were being introduced as the new owners of a ...
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