Just as business forced former president Jacob Zuma to dump "weekend special" Des van Rooyen to save the country from disaster, so it must force President Cyril Ramaphosa to accelerate desperately needed reforms, says Bonang Mohale, the new president of Business Unity SA.
The first thing he did after being elected to lead organised business was to request a bilateral meeting with Ramaphosa.
"We will say to him: Mr President, if you think the rioting and looting we saw in July was traumatic, it is going to happen again unless you address the underlying, fundamental root causes: inequality, poverty, unemployment."
Ramaphosa needs to know that without the rapid implementation of structural reforms there won't be enough investment or economic growth to prevent an even more calamitous explosion, says Mohale. As the CEO of Business Leadership SA, he was part of the delegation that read Zuma the riot act in 2015 after he fired finance minister Nhlanhla Nene and appointed the unknown Van Rooyen.
"We will tell him there is a clear and imminent danger that the elements that were present in the Arab Spring are here now as we speak. Until and unless we act decisively and collaboratively this is another tinder that is waiting not to be ignited but to explode.
"When you have youth unemployment of 74.9% and general unemployment of 44.4% you are not just asking for trouble, you are inviting trouble."
We’ll tell him he is the president of the country, not just the ANC … he must not put the interests of the party before those of the country
— Bonang Mohale, New president of Business Unity SA
He says he believes Ramaphosa knows exactly what must happen, but is pandering to factional and vested interests within the ANC that are opposed to the fundamental structural reforms that are required.
The recent rioting "demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that factions in the ANC are quite prepared to burn the entire country" to protect their interests, he says. Ramaphosa must cut them loose.
"We will tell him he is the president of the country, not just the ANC. Therefore he must not put the interests of the party before those of the country. We will remind him that he took an oath of office to put the country first. Not the ANC. We're going to be very explicit about that."
Putting the ANC first is the only thing that can explain why Ramaphosa is not implementing with more urgency the reforms he has acknowledged are necessary, says Mohale.
One clear indication of his continuing to put the interests of the ANC above those of the country is his refusal to dump cadre deployment.
"He needs to stop with this cadre deployment because it perpetuates incompetence and corruption.
"In appointing the resources he needs for the country, the crucible cannot only be the ANC, he must look outside of the ANC. Especially to business."
Business has made this point previously in multi-stakeholder forums and is going to make it "sharply" when it meets with Ramaphosa in the bilateral Mohale has asked for, he says.
There's a direct line between cadre deployment and state capture.
"The biggest leaking bucket is state capture, therefore he must root out state capture."
He has begun moving against some of the perpetrators "but it's too slow, too little. As a country we need to be more impatient."
In case Ramaphosa still doesn't get it, "we are experiencing the lowest levels of confidence, hope and trust in government since the Second World War", says Mohale.
Only he can change that. And only with the help of business.
"This government struggles with execution and implementation. It needs business."
A glaring illustration of this has been the country's tragically slow vaccine rollout, he says.
"It started very late and it's been woefully slow."
He blames this on the refusal of the government to act on the advice of business to allow businesses like mines and Discovery Health to handle the rollout.
"We're better at project management. We could have had a major impact on the rollout of vaccines. Business could have been leveraged much, much more. They would have done a 10 times better job."
SA could have vaccinated many millions in three months. Instead, it is way behind the 40-million or 67% herd immunity target set by Ramaphosa as it faces the real prospect of a fourth wave in November.
Mohale says business was not as insistent about this as it should have been "because we didn't know government was going to mess it up in the manner that it did".
The rollout accelerated dramatically when the government allowed business to play a bigger role, and he hopes this hasn't been lost on Ramaphosa.
"Our partnership with government must be extended much, much further than the vaccine rollout."
The fact that the government has never yet engaged with business on a bilateral basis, and that there is still no formal and structured business and government forum, is an indication of where the relationship is at.
A more productive relationship between business and the government is top of his agenda, says Mohale.
"Business needs to demonstrate more results."
It has leverage, he says. "There are only two ways government gets money into the fiscus. One is through corporate taxes, which stand at 28%. Two is through PAYE from the employees of business, which employs 10 times more than government."
The one thing he does not want to do is threaten to withhold taxes, he quickly adds. But it's not the only leverage business has.
The level of unemployment in SA in the second quarter, according to the expanded definition
— 44.4%
"We'll tell President Ramaphosa that we can help to bring investment. But we need regulatory stability, we need policy certainty. We need him to implement the structural reforms we've been talking about for the last 10 years."
Ramaphosa keeps telling everyone at his investment summits that SA is open for business. It's time for him to demonstrate this with action, says Mohale.
He says he's disappointed that Operation Vulindlela, which sits in the presidency and National Treasury and whose purpose is to drive the implementation of structural reform, has not done more. But not surprised.
"We're going to work with the Vulindlela delivery unit to make sure they deliver, rather than fold our arms and hope they deliver."
There is scope for business to do much more than it is being allowed to, he says.
"There's still reluctance from government to involve business more, to let go of stuff and put it in the hands of business without necessarily privatising it. Just implementation, execution, delivery."
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.