10 January 2023

BUSA RESPONSE TO ANC JANUARY 8th STATEMENT

We note the ANC January 8th Statement and appreciate that this reflects priority issues for the majority party as it goes into the new year. However, we will be concentrating substantively on the President’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) on the 9th of February 2023, which should reflect on the priorities for government, with the President addressing the nation as President of SA.

 

The theme of ANC statement is “year of decisive action to advance people’s interest.” We remain convinced the only way to advance people’s interest is through attraction of substantial investment, both local and global, and government taking the necessary decisions, and implementing them, to create a sustainable environment for inclusive growth. We urge the President to be absolutely clear in the SONA on this and to exhort government, under his leadership, to see this as the critical priority! We also urge the President to ensure his government implements critical decisions and holds those failing to implement to account. This is, in our view, “decisive action.”

 

The immediate priority actions tabulated in the ANC statement have already been identified by BUSA as critical interventions needed. We identified the following in January 2022, at a meeting with President Ramaphosa:

 

  • Infrastructure
  • Logistics
  • Law and Order
  • Water
  • Energy
  • Communications

 

We suggested to the President that we work bilaterally with government to bed down three critical decisions, and enable their implementation, on each of these resulting in significant positive outcome for investment and growth. We have since done a substantial amount of work on these, as BUSA, and will present the outcomes of work on some of these to the President during the first quarter of 2023. We urge government to bed down a real and meaningful bilateral partnership with us to ensure speedy progress on these, as agreed with the President in January 2022!

 

We have been participating in discussions on a Social Compact but remain convinced that progress on these priority interventions is the priority and could provide content to a Social Compact. The priority must be on agreeing interventions on the priority areas, implementing these, and then working on a Social Compact to rally society around these.

 

BUSA will continue devoting resources and capacity towards investment attraction and sustainable and inclusive growth! We remain convinced these are the critical issues for the country and all efforts must be focused on these. We will continue to engage the President and government on this.

 

 

ENDS

 

Cas Coovadia

Business Unity SA CEO

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For more information, please contact:

Sizwe Maswanganye

Tel: 011 784 8000/0766516444

Email: sizwe.maswanganye@busa.org.za

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