On one of my morning runs this week I had a chance to listen to rapper K.O's new album SR2, which has a song called SA Rising, featuring one of our best exports in Black Coffee, and it reminded me of the big job at hand for South Africa's political and business leaders in 2018.
The song kicks off with the words: "Tell me where we going, tell me where we going. I think we losing it, we need some direction moving forward. This ain't the same rainbow nation ka Mandela as we know it. The citizens are really getting fed up if you noticing. You see the country depreciating at a rapid pace. Some folks are immigrating tryna get away. We need to continue praying for a better day. Hope this message can go all the way up to the head of state.
"Dear Mr President, with everything happening in the country. Hope you understand why some of your residents are panickin'. Can be challenging to be patriotic emzansi sometimes. When you look at the shenanigans in the cabinet. Pretty evident how political egos have a negative element. In economic development of the nation. Before exiting as the president. I believe you still have power to swing the pendulum for the better."
I found the song quite prophetic given the context of our country right now. I also found it quite a bold statement from two very talented and popular artists who could easily have chosen to stay quiet. They didn't. They spoke up and used their influence to send out a strong message to the powers that be. Things have to change for the better - now!
The year did start on a much more positive note given the outcomes of the December ANC conference. It is clear that business got their man in Cyril Ramaphosa and even though the score line was 3-3, many are confident that the political landscape has changed for the better.
We have already felt the positive impact in the way the rand has performed since December. During the week we also learned business confidence had improved among South Africans in December 2017 by 1.3 index points. Hopefully this means the rating agencies can give us a bit of a breather, at least until Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba's maiden budget speech next month.
So, bar the bets going around on when exactly Jacob Zuma is likely to quit being the president, things on the political front are a little calmer these days.
Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth in the private sector. We started the year still reeling from the Steinhoff shenanigans, with its share price continuing its tumble in early January.
Then Viceroy Research struck again. Rumours started making rounds in the market that Aspen would be the next South African company they would release a dossier on. This led to the share price of the pharmaceutical giant also tumbling, forcing the company to issue an announcement that it hadn't been contacted by Viceroy and was not aware of anything improper in its numbers or operations.
Sadly, I had taken an equity position on Aspen literally a day before the rumour started. I could not understand what was going on when the price just kept tumbling. So please excuse my obvious interest (or pain) in the matter, but I must agree with CEO Stephen Saad on this one.
1.3 index points is the rise to 96.4 in the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry's business confidence index in December 2017
— in numbers
"I think the right thing here is to have an inquiry. I think people who have made money out of this chaos need to be investigated - is it legal what they're doing? That's all I'd like to know, because lots of people have lost money," Saad was quoted as saying in a telephone interview with Business Day.
Surely something is wrong with someone intentionally spreading rumours about something that is untrue, so that they can take a short position and profit from the share price tumbling.
To be fair, Viceroy did not spread rumours about Steinhoff. They issued their research after the resignation of Markus Jooste.
However, in the Aspen matter someone seems to have fed the market a lie, and it has cost many investors lots of money and presumably made the same people lots of money. That cannot be right.
Perhaps K.O's song could as easily have applied to our business leaders as it did to our political leaders.
Welcome to 2018.
• Khumalo is chief operating officer of MSG Afrika and presents 'Power Business' on Power98.7 at 6pm, Monday to Thursday
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