“For whatever reason, we have forgotten the hunger that got us here, and we are now arguing over things that are just unimportant.”

This was one of the opinions aired by Vusi Thembekwayo, CEO of MyGrowthFund Venture Partners, at the University of Pretoria’s (UP) first UP Alumni Business Breakfast. The event was held at UP’s business school, the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), in Illovo, Johannesburg, on 22 June 2023. The panel of business experts debated the topic ‘Skirting the edge: How South African businesses can survive our failing economy’.

The three-person expert panel included Thembekwayo alongside Ben Kruger, Independent Non-Executive Director of the Standard Bank Group and Standard Back South Africa, and Busi Mavuso, CEO of Business Leadership South Africa. The debate was moderated by UP alumnus and radio and TV broadcaster Clement Manyathela in front of a 200-person audience comprising UP and GIBS alumni and other businesspeople and UP stakeholders. It was also broadcast live to a global audience and can be viewed here.

“This is an important moment for South Africans to wake up and realise that: we are in a race we are not guaranteed the win, and everything that we call and think of it as our own is for the rest of the world’s taking,” Thembekwayo said. “So, every day when we wake up, we must be completely focused and obsessed with the idea of preserving and protecting the gains, and building on those gains.”

He sought to remind government leaders that they need to recognise the importance and urgency of this moment, because the country is in pole position for a 100-metre race but, for whatever reason, it seems intent on slowing down. He was referring to what he described as a lack of vision and will to stop focussing on ideologies and start executing tasks that make South Africa competitive in the global economy. He said one of the most effective ways to do this was to just copy a winner like China, whose leaders had a vision and did whatever needed to be done, and as a result they raised many people out of poverty.

“The government of Rwanda builds the Kigali International Financial Centre, and off the back of that they say, ‘We want to be the Singapore of Africa, we want to domicile all fintech [finance technology) in Rwanda.’ They do not have the infrastructure, but they have got the will,” Thembekwayo said. “We are busy arguing over whose responsibility is it to make sure that the water that is coming out of your taps is safe to drink. It is not dissimilar to watching American news and going, ‘What are they talking about?’ That is how the rest of the continent sees us.”

He added that in South Africa, at a provincial level, there are institutions that are provided capital by the National Treasury, with the mandate to find and provide capital to entrepreneurs – but almost none of them meet their quota. When questioned about that, they say there are no entrepreneurs, but entrepreneurs are all over the internet and in need of financial assistance.

Mavuso said the country’s financial woes can be attributed to a serious capacity issue in leadership. She said this is partly due to problems  like cadre deployment – which resulted in politicians looking to enrich themselves – and corruption – which [leaves the country not knowing] who to look to for intervention, because when leaders like the president of the country to ministers are facing their own alleged corruption scandals, it becomes hard to expect  them to have the moral ground to seriously call out corruption – resulting in the normalisation of corruption, as leaders implicated in serious corruption cases walk freely with no serious consequences.

“We are not getting it right from the top. We just need to put the right people in power and everything else will fall into place,” she continued. “That is a serious fundamental and gap that we have in the country. If you are going to have a City of Johannesburg Mayor who has a Grade 10 [highest level of formal education], what do you think is going to happen in the City of Johannesburg? What strategic thinking and direction is going to happen in as far as that is concerned? If you have cadre deployment – Chief Financial Officers who do not understand the difference between income and cash in municipalities – why are you surprised that you have failing and dysfunctional municipalities? From where I stand everything rises and falls on the strengths of leadership. There is absolutely no way you are going to expect the City of Johannesburg Mayor to be able to do wonderful, innovative things. It is unfortunate, because you are putting him in a position where he is destined to fail. He has lost the race before he has even begun running.”

Mavuso said cadre deployment was the fundamental mistake made by South Africa because it pushed out the people who knew what they were doing in the public service – with their skills, expertise, and experience – and replaced them with “a cadre lot”.

“Right now, I would say [South Africa has] a challenged economy, but if we are not careful, it will be a failed economy,” Kruger said. He directed the audience’s attention to countries like Germany, home to 18 of the world’s top tech companies, including Siemens and BMW. He added that Germany had created an environment that helped businesses thrive, by seeing them as catalysts for economic growth. “If you do not create the right environment for big business to flourish and to invest, it is harder for smaller businesses to be suppliers and operate in that value chain.”

Kruger added that the right people are required at the top because leaders like President Cyril Ramaphosa are “not ill-intended but ill-directed”.

Watch the full UP Alumni Business Breakfast by clicking here