Matisonn: The Leon "scandal" has it backwards. SA needs more business lobbying, not less.

The DA's internal row over John Steenhuisen's criticism of Tony Leon and Resolve Communications has reignited claims of "state capture" - including over Elon Musk's Starlink, whose local rollout remains tangled in South Africa's ownership laws. Veteran journalist John Matisonn argues the real scandal isn't that ministers meet business people, but that they don't listen to them enough. He points to decades of mining decline and broadband policy failures as proof, arguing Communications Minister Solly Malatsi's engagement with Starlink could help rural connectivity, provided such meetings stay transparent, not that they happen at all..By John Matisonn.Two weeks after former DA leader John Steenhuisen’s explosive criticism of both predecessor Tony Leon and his successor, current Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, the ongoing damage to the party is vividly apparent.After Steenhuisen’s insider claims about Leon’s Resolve Communications appeared to lend legitimacy to the criticism, on Monday the Daily Maverick published new allegations that a DA MP who had worked for Resolve asked numerous parliamentary questions and wrote in the media supporting one of its client’s lobbying efforts.There are no allegations that the company acted illegally, but it has created a platform for DA critics to keep the issue in the news with inappropriate comparisons to “state capture” despite a lack of substantiating facts.The controversy has also cast a shadow on the importance of legitimate business-government communication, which is essential to improving the government's dire policy-making record. The kneejerk response to the Steenhuisen-Leon conflict has been to assume that it’s somehow corrupt for ministers to meet business people. Reading the criticism, you would think South Africa’s problems for the last decades have been that the government met too many businesspeople.Accusations were made that Elon Musk’s Starlink was a client of former DA leader Tony Leon’s firm, Resolve Communications, so this was just like “state capture.” DA Communications Minister Solly Malatsi met a Starlink representative, but it turns out that Leon’s firm had nothing to do with the meeting. But so what if it had?In reality, the government has presided over decades of continuous deindustrialisation and decline in mining output by volume, while taking little account of what business tells them the problems are. Reviving the economy and returning to significant growth rates requires a more serious interaction between government and business in making policy.South Africa’s mining output by volume has declined steadily for decades because companies see too many government-created obstacles to exploration and new mining, but the government acts as if business must just be told to invest. Last week Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe pointed to a new era in exploration, but the reality is that mining houses have been fleeing South Africa. Researchers and sector experts explain why, but ministers don’t seem to notice. The same is true of the government's sorry record of mismanaging telecommunications and broadband policy, which is why South African broadband is slower and more expensive than many of its peers, even in Africa.These two sectors alone could have created or preserved more jobs than anything the government has achieved by investment conferences or jobs summits.If ministers were listening – really listening – to business they would change not only policy but much of how they make policy. That’s completely ethical provided the policy is made in the national interest with a level playing field for all players and not to suit any one company. Whether meetings are arranged by firms like Leon’s Resolve Communications is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the minister does not meet them alone, takes no gifts from the visitor, and that all lobbying and meetings are transparent. New DA or other ministers need outside input to understand why things have gone so far wrong. They won’t learn that from the officials they inherit, who were in charge all along.What should be asked is whether the new DA ministers are getting things done faster and better than their predecessors. Malatsi inherited a sorry record of delays in digital migration, which would go a long way to getting cheaper, faster internet access that has put us behind almost every other African country..Solly Moeng: Weaponised PR - Why Tony Leon's Resolve scandal exposes the whole industry.Starlink – or one of its competitors – would help initially mostly in rural areas, where its higher cost does not prohibit its use for rural police, hospitals, schools, farmers and other essential services.Time will tell if Malatsi’s term will make the necessary difference. Meanwhile, DA leaders should signal that this kind of public criticism by senior office-bearers is over..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.

Matisonn: The Leon "scandal" has it backwards. SA needs more business lobbying, not less.

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