{"id":837541,"date":"2025-09-15T10:23:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T08:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=837541"},"modified":"2025-09-15T10:23:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T08:23:27","slug":"andre-de-ruyter-sends-a-warning-to-ramaphosa-and-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business-opinion\/837541\/andre-de-ruyter-sends-a-warning-to-ramaphosa-and-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Andre de Ruyter sends a warning to Ramaphosa and South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former Eskom CEO Andr\u00e9 de Ruyter has warned that South Africa will face a collapse if the government doesn’t make decisions to restore confidence and to take action against the country’s decline.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Ruyter conveyed his message at the second BizNews Investment Conference<\/a> held in Hermanus, where he said it is now up to President Cyril Ramaphosa to show bold leadership and choice growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSouth Africa is in crisis. Our economy shows no sign of meaningful growth, investor confidence is shrinking, our currency is beleaguered, government debt is ballooning to unsustainable levels,\u201d de Ruyter warned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCivil unrest is destabilising our cities and towns, crime is pervasive and increasingly violent, and political murders are an all too frequent event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He painted a picture of a country in deep trouble, where inequality remains the worst in the world, corruption is entrenched, and young people are leaving in search of better prospects abroad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSadly, our talented young people see little chance of making their future in this country. An ever greater number head for more stable and lucrative destinations, depriving South Africa of much-needed talent for growing our economy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Ruyter argued that the crisis of today mirrors the one South Africa faced in the late 1980s, just before the fall of apartheid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, if you think that I\u2019m talking about 2025, you\u2019re sadly mistaken. I\u2019m talking about 1989. The picture I\u2019ve painted was the one that immediately preceded the end of apartheid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pointed out that FW de Klerk, faced with economic collapse and global isolation, chose a bold new path that transformed the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInstead of doubling down, he opted for the only course of action open to him. Not only did he do the necessary thing, but he also did the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawing a parallel with the present, de Ruyter urged Ramaphosa to make a similar choice. With five months to act, he explained that Ramaphosa has to choose between quiet failure or a legacy-defining pivot to growth and prosperity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramaphosa has five months<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Former Eskom CEO Andr\u00e9 de Ruyter <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

De Ruyter outlined what he called his \u201cfantasy SONA\u201d, which included the kind of reforms Ramaphosa could announce to restore confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He called for a new, means-tested empowerment system targeted at the poorest South Africans, rather than politically connected elites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInstead of the largesse doled out in BEE deals, let\u2019s address inequality through economic empowerment of those who need it most. The vast majority of beneficiaries will be black anyway, but without racialising the policy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He urged the creation of a new anti-corruption body to replace the Scorpions, a moratorium on equity deal requirements for new investments, and firm commitments to fiscal prudence, zero-based budgeting, and an independent Reserve Bank. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCut the size of the cabinet, and deregulate and stop state-owned enterprises from crowding out the private sector with government-guaranteed funds. State entrepreneurship has reached the end of the road,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On foreign policy, he said South Africa needed to distance itself from America\u2019s adversaries and recommit to property rights and due process in land reform. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t praise Zimbabwean land grabs as ambitious reforms, denounce \u2018Kill the Boer\u2019, and commit to protecting property rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most importantly, de Ruyter insisted, the country\u2019s focus must be growth. \u201cGrow, grow, grow, because that solves almost all of our problems,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe answer is not more regulation, racial quotas, or forced ideological interventions in the economy. We\u2019ve got to remove every impediment imaginable to enable the economy to perform to its potential.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He warned that the world has grown tired of South Africa\u2019s empty promises. \u201cYear after year, team South Africa goes to Davos saying it\u2019s business unusual,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, like those scarves, that story is becoming threadbare. People don\u2019t believe us anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For de Ruyter, the 2026 State of the Nation Address will be the president\u2019s last chance to change course. \u201cSona 2026 really is the last opportunity for business unusual,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe country cannot afford more prevarication, procrastination and commissions. We now need to deliver; we now need to perform. Unleash the economy, unleash private enterprise to prevent us from tumbling over the edge.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe president has five months to write a speech that will change the course of our nation. If he follows this outline, he can secure his legacy as a leader who finally stepped up to lead when South Africa needed it last.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Eskom CEO Andr\u00e9 de Ruyter warns of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s last chance to change course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":837546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[20304,23603,853],"class_list":["post-837541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-opinion","tag-andre-de-ruyter","tag-biznews-investment-conference","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837541"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837556,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837541\/revisions\/837556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}