The government was doing everything it could to improve the ease of doing business but sometimes came up against the resistance of civil servants stuck in old ways of doing things, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday.
When answering questions by the media during an event organised by the Cape Town Press Club soon after he delivered his response to the debate on the state of the nation address in the Cape Town City Hall, Ramaphosa also said he was committed to a second term as president.
He was confident the ANC would beat all its opponents in the elections despite what the polls and commentators said, including the Umkhonto we Sizwe party formed by former president Jacob Zuma — about which he said he was not particularly concerned.
Ramaphosa said he was in the process of finalising an appointment to replace former Reserve Bank governor Kuben Naidoo. This would be concluded shortly.
He also gave details of the behind-the-scenes role that SA had played as mediator between Russia and Ukraine, including getting involved in prisoner of war exchanges. He said he had spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a few days ago on how SA could be involved in the peace process.
He would soon sign the controversial National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill — which is likely to face constitutional challenges — into law. “It is a matter of time,” he said.
The bill had to be examined very carefully, the president said, including the process it had undergone in parliament.
On ease of doing business, Business Leadership SA (BLSA) CEO Busi Mavuso said earlier this week that doing business in SA had become more difficult and slammed the government for the lack of political will to improve it.
But Ramaphosa said government was “doing everything in our ability” to create a conducive climate for business, including through Vulindlela, the unit in the presidency tasked with unlocking constraints to economic growth. He gave as an example the fact that whereas previously it took about three years to get a water licence, this now took between 60 and 75 days. This was an important reform.
Permit systems were also being revamped. “Sometimes one finds that these are hidden protocols, practices, traditions, regulations and rules that are completely outdated, particularly for conducting business in the modern times where someone has to get 100 permissions before they can do anything of an economic nature.
“We are whittling those down. We are ensuring that those are either simplified or removed. That is process, it’s a process that does take quite a bit of time but it is a process that forms part of the reform processes that we have embarked upon.
“As and when business have raised challenges we have addressed them and sometimes it is challenging because you find civil servants are trapped in the old ways of doing things.”
On his second term Ramaphosa said he had been nominated by the ANC after an extensive two-hour interview by an electoral committee, which also addressed his financial situation.
Ramaphosa was questioned by the media about SA’s involvement in the military operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and said this was its national and regional duty towards the Southern African Development Community (Sadc).
Ramaphosa opened his remarks at the club by noting the profound change that the media had undergone since the repressive apartheid regime and the constitutional provision for freedom of expression and the freedom of the media. He said now everyone was free to articulate their opinions without any form of action being taken against them.
SA scored high in the international measure of press freedom in the world.
“A robust media is more crucial now than ever,” Ramaphosa said. If the media was to fulfil its responsibility to support democracy, journalists should continue to report without fear, favour or prejudice, including on the ills prevalent in society. They had to report both the good and bad news, both progress and the challenges that persisted.
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