Classic Business

Sibani Mngadi, chairperson of the SA Liquor Brandowners Association;

Wendy Alberts, CEO of the Restaurants Association of SA

Lucky Ntimane, Convenor of the National Liquor Traders Council

If winners never quit and quitters never win, then which bright spark came up with 'quit while you're ahead'? The president has had a tough time getting ahead as he cut a sombre figure on Sunday acknowledging the depth of the crisis facing the country, promising to hold, you guessed it, another economic summit to assess the damage caused by the pandemic as well as to speed up structural reforms, many of which have long been in the pipeline. In his closing remarks to the ANC national executive lekgotla — a biannual meeting to discuss the governing party’s priorities — Ramaphosa said this was the most important lekgotla the ANC has held in recent times. But it was his comments on NHI, the ANC government's marquee policy that really caught Michael Avery’s attention:

"While the pandemic has underscored the need for the National Healthcare Insurance (NHI), we must look at what impact it has had on our ability — whether from a capacity or fiscal position — to proceed with the implementation of the NHI," Johann Serfontein of Healthmann, discusses alternative universal health coverage models now that the penny has finally dropped that South Africa cannot afford NHI.

Steven Brown, CEO of Fortress REIT

Dr Lee Howell, Managing Director, World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland

Daryl Dingley, partner at Webber Wentzel

Makwe Masilela, CIO of Makwe Fund Managers & Greg Katzenellenbogen, senior portfolio manager at Sanlam Private Wealth

If we run into such debts that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, that our people must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, and give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; And the sixteen being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they do now, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; But be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains around the necks of our fellow sufferers; And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on 'til the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering...and the forehorse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. Worth recalling the words of one of the founding fathers of the US Thomas Jefferson, in a week where we’ve had calls for increased taxes to fund the vaccine rollout, revelations that we’ll be paying over the top for the Serum Institute stock due to government lethargy, further evidence of the tyranny of incompetence taxpayers are saddled with juxtaposed against the impressive inaugural address by US President Joe Biden and his team hitting the ground running. Michael Avery reviews the week with Warwick Lucas, chief investment officer at Galileo Asset Managers, & Raymond Parsons, professor in the School of Business and Governance at North West University

Derrick Msibi, CEO Stanlib

Yovka Raytcheva-Schaap, associate, ESD consulting & project management at Zutari

Ashutosh Sharma, head of India Investments, Prosus Ventures