Business Unity South Africa (Busa) urges President Cyril Ramaphosa to prioritise business and investor confidence at Thursday’s State of the Nation Address – and to steer clear of empty promises and electioneering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Busa CEO, Cas Coovadia, told eNCA<\/a> that the president should not make promises during his address that the country cannot afford – and should acknowledge the partnerships between the government and private businesses in dealing with the country’s energy, logistics, and crime and corruption issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I appreciate that it is an election year, but the President’s State of the Nation Address is as the President of South Africa, not the President of the ANC,” said Coovadia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “As the President of South Africa, he has got to conduct himself and make announcements that the country [and] fiscus can afford, within the context of what Treasury has already said: that we don’t have the money for many of these projects that [government] would want to put in place.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We have to send out a message that says that we have problems, we have crises, but we are working together to address those in a sustainable way,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He added that the president should also promise to continue doing so and not try to “ram through parliament projects and legislation that seem good and ultimately have a good aim,” but the country’s fiscus cannot afford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Should the president fail to stay on message, the business lead said potential investors would remain sceptical about South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Busa urged the president to reassure investors of a cohesive operating environment by highlighting the partnerships in place that are slowly yielding results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “One of the reasons for the partnership is to instil confidence in the country and instil confidence among investors.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n “If the President… acknowledges the partnership, I think that sends out a message to investors and the country that despite… the myriad of crises we have, the public and private sector are working together to try to address the problems,” said Coovadia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We are raising money from the private sector to build capacity… to help us do this work; [So the acknowledgement] gives the private sector the confidence that their contribution is being recognised,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coovadia refuted claims that these partnerships are about the “privatisation” of ailing entities, but rather framed them as mutually beneficial relationships for both the private and public sectors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “I don’t think we as the private sector want to own Eskom or Transnet – what we are saying is that the private sector has the capacity and resources to operate some of the critical infrastructure that [they] have.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using energy as an example, Busa highlighted that the private sector has secured upwards of 4,000 MW<\/a> since the president lifted the ceiling. This is expected to be connected to the grid over the next year, taking weight off some of the country’s energy woes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, in Transnet and logistics, “private sector companies can build, operate, and maintain major logistic arterials across the country – owned by Transnet,” said Coovadia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The private sector has “an efficient, well-operated logistics system [and] the state can utilise that to transport whatever [they] need to transport,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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