06 Jul.
Busa must find the courage to lead.
Has the job of Business Unity SA (Busa) just become harder or easier?
Losing one member — when it is the noisy and polarising Black Management Forum (BMF) – is surely a boost. Many have questioned the interest of the BMF under president Jimmy Manyi in standing up for the issues that concern business, given its apparent role as a political lobby group.
Busa, which is charged with representing business at the highest levels in its interaction with the government, now has one fewer internal battle to fight before it faces the outside world.
Still, for Busa to lose more members — if other black lobby groups walk out — could be a disaster. It could see its claim to represent SA’s private sector weakened, and it become susceptible to contest from a rival grouping — such as a reorganised BMF. After all, in its divorce papers this week, the BMF claimed to be standing up for small businesses it said had been overlooked by the white-manipulated, big-business-run Busa.
This is surely a question that potential candidates for the vacant post of Busa CEO will be asking themselves. What sort of organisation will the eventual appointee inherit when they assume their new role in September, the deadline Busa has set itself?
The new head will be acutely aware of the fight under way. After all, the fight over the process of choosing a new CEO was the catalyst for the BMF’s departure. The BMF, from whose ranks the past two CEOs have come — or have been “deployed,” to use its preferred terminology — told Busa in April it wanted to choose candidates for the top job. To do this, the BMF said, “would be a major step by Busa to embrace transformation”. To not do it would be a “deal breaker that would determine further participation of BMF in Busa”.
Early last month, Busa said “no” to the BMF’s demand to appoint a CEO, and this week, the BMF decided to pack its bags.
The departure frees Busa to focus on issues that concern business in SA. Whether black- or white-owned, business wants the same things: a government that does more to curb the reckless talk of nationalisation that sends investors to Canada, Zambia or Lesotho; regulation that will let them hire people without fear of never being able to get rid of them; and the ability to perform services that the public sector is unwilling or unable to provide.
SA has too few businesses. The economy is too small. Sustainable transformation — of the sort that makes inroads into unemployment, gives parents money to school their kids and deflates the growing anger and restlessness at a democracy dividend that has been paid out to too few people — will only come through growth. Growth by itself is, of course, not sufficient. It has to be guided by a recognition of the country’s needs and failings to date.
But from this newspaper’s point of view, that growth needs a strong business lobby group to fight for it. SA will only have balanced development when there is a balance of voices arguing in the room over what needs to happen. If the powerful Congress of South African Trade Unions can renew its resolution to ban labour brokers — as it did at last week’s congress — the voice of business needs to be able to argue loudly for the benefits a flexible labour force brings.
Busa needs to be that voice. It may have the luxury of one less fight within its ranks now that the BMF — over 60% of whose individual members are employed as public servants or in parastatal organisations — is outside. But in its post-BMF state, Busa will need to show an adeptness and agility that has eluded it so far. Like business in general in SA, it has shown a clunky, slow character; timid and unwilling to rock the political boat.
If the organisation — and, crucially, its new CEO — does not take the helm and set a course, it risks going around in ever-widening circles while others race to the lead.
Source: Business Day Editorial
Discussion
Comments are closed.