Classic Business

Mitch Slape, CEO

Bruce Strong, CEO

Suzanne Morel, country manager for Mastercard, South Africa

Joon Chong, Partner Webber Wentzel Tax Practice

Mia Kruger, director

Research & Fund Management

Kruger International Asset & Wealth Management

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Greg Katzenellenbogen, senior portfolio manager at Sanlam Private Wealth

In the last 12 months we’ve seen public sector balloon to 47% of government revenue, and in the recent budget the finance took the bold but necessary decision to stick to his guns on public sector wages. This week the public sector unions showed him and the country the middle finger with a proposal of CPI plus 4%, ahead of next week’s GDP which is expected to show a decline of 7% the largest drop in output since the second world war. And in all of this the vaccination strategy is paramount. Under the current rollout strategy, in which 6,000 people a day are currently receiving their vaccines, it would take 20 years to vaccinate the whole country.

Michael Avery spoke to Warwick Lucas Chief Investment Officer at Galileo Asset Managers, and Raymond Parsons, professor in the School of Business and Governance at North West University, about the impact the pandemic has had on markets and the fiscus over the last 12 months.

Allan Pullinger, CEO

There are a lot of things wrong with South Africa and our imperfect democracy. But one sometimes get the feeling in our haste to point them out we forget that other, far more advanced and established democracies, are stumbling more than we are through this Covid crisis.

We know the problems well because the doomsayers derive an almost nihilistic pleasure from repeatedly pointing them out, that is perhaps more a confirmation of their own confirmation biases.

Some say nthe politics is broken and riven with factionalism a broad church that won’t be able to self-correct because to do so would risk tearing the broad church apart. And that is why we cannot confront the difficult economic and social reform choices we have to make, like placing the right people in charge of delivering basic services at local government, rooting out corruption and cutting lose the vampire squid of the failing SOEs that drain the life out of the economy.

But the reality, if one bothers to cut through an often overly simplistic narrative, is far removed from that and one wonders how we all as leaders in business and in whatever role we find ourselves give enough thought to the constraints in the political economy.

Both the President’s and the Finance Minister’s statements have made it clear that the chosen path is structural reform – making changes in the economy to improve productivity and longer-term growth. Growth salvation will not come from the Budget, but from structural reforms in the real economy. Boring and not headline-catching, but real.

In fact, general criticism about the Recovery Plan was that it is nothing new. Precisely. No easy money, no new policies – just working to improve the basics. When parliamentarians denounced that the plan is a repeat of old ideas, the President conceded.

Michael Avery hosted a roundtable with Prof Nick Binedell, still doing work for the PPG

David Munro, CEO

Jeremy Sampson, MD of Brand Finance Africa