The Editor’s Desk: The WEF, the Joburg riots, and the President

Alec Hogg spent the week in Cape Town attending the WEF Africa summit, which was disrupted by violent xenophobic riots in Johannesburg and anti-violence protests in Cape Town. In this episode, Alec and I discuss the WEF meeting and the impact that the social unrest in South Africa had on attendees. We look at what South Africa learned at the meeting and the prospects for the African continent. We also talk about Cyril Ramaphosa's leadership and his Cabinet – and what an economy-class flight can tell us about the quality of our leadership. – Felicity Duncan.Hello and welcome to this week's episode of The Editor's Desk here on Biznews Radio with me, Felicity Duncan, and with Biznews editor in chief Alec Hogg..___STEADY_PAYWALL___.This week was spent largely in Cape Town, Alec, where you were attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting on Africa. And I know you have written a lot about it, but we're just going to spend some time catching up on your thoughts and impressions. .And to kick us off, I really wanted to ask you – the beginning of the meeting was marred by the events in Johannesburg, well, largely in Johannesburg, where there were these anti-immigrant riots, there were some xenophobic violence and incidents, and there were, subsequent to that, some problems in Nigeria for South African businesses and just a lot of tensions among African nations as a result of this..Now, how did that impact the start of the meeting and did you see any repercussions or was that defused – what was the sentiment around it?.Well, it certainly subdued the mood on the first day. We got there on the Tuesday and the meeting ran from Wednesday to Friday. On the Wednesday, what really, I think, put things onto the back foot there, was the cancellation by a number of African leaders who were going to come and then didn't – presumably for political reasons. We're not absolutely sure and one never really knows in these in these circumstances, but there were a few that didn't come..Also read: 'As bad as apartheid SA': Xenophobia riots spark anti-SA backlash – NYT.Then what was perhaps more of an… had more of an impact was that on the Wednesday morning the local students in Cape Town, one of their friends, Uyinene Mrwetyana was, was brutally murdered by someone who should never have been out of jail..And it sparked a spontaneous bit of activism with literally thousands of students camping outside the WEF, where the WEF was being held, with placards and banners and saying enough is enough on the attacks on women and children in South Africa..And indeed that sparked Cyril Ramaphosa to, the next evening, record a message – and I know it was recorded because he was sitting in a plenary session with us when it was being broadcast to the nation – but to broadcast the message. It was actually quite a brilliant speech that he put together..Unfortunately, it's going to be remembered, that speech, or that message, for an unforgivable lapse by the SABC, who started recording Cyril, who began with saying, "My fellow South Africans it's a it's a bad day etc." and then he stumbled over his words, so he asked them to start again. And the SABC broadcast that, as well as his whole speech to come, which appears disrespectful to the nation..But we know, having been on the other side of the camera, that happens all the time, that people do pre-recorded speeches and don't always get it word perfect the first time. What I liked, by the way, on that was that he never… he was very humble in saying to the cameraman, please, you know, let's start it again kind of thing. So, for me that was quite a good thing..But on the other hand, I think, many people watching this were asking, "Why is he rehearsing it? Why is he putting it on?" Anyway, it is what it is. The students who were outside the World Economic Forum required the police to cordon off the whole area. So, on the Wednesday it was almost impossible to get out of the building, which also put a dampener on proceedings..But it perked up on Thursday and ended quite vigorously and vibrantly on Friday, as always happens in these things, because the only purpose of WEF meetings, really, is to get people together in a room and inform them on the latest developments and to get them talking to each other and communicating and listening more than talking. And the consequence of that is always extremely positive..So, I've got no doubt there'll be lots of good things coming out of the WEF Africa meeting as a consequence of just getting all these people together in one room. It was sad, though, that initially the xenophobic attacks did have an influence on some of the political leaders. I don't think it influenced too many people further down the totem pole..But then the very strong message that these students gave about violence against women and children, particularly women – that's had a positive impact, talking to people, the people within the WEF, said to me they'd like to actually be outside with the students protesting as well..So, all round maybe it was a watershed in a South African sense, but from a global sense from a continental sense, definitely more connections made, more learnings made. These are very positive events..You know, when we talked a bit about the WEF meeting last weekend, you said one of the things that you really hoped to see was South Africa being more humble or the representatives of South Africa, I should say, being more humble and willing to learn from their African peers. Because there's been, maybe, a history of South Africa being – as a more developed economy relative to some of the others on the continent – being a bit of a know-it-all, maybe, or just not really coming with a humble attitude of listening. And so I was curious to see, did you see that happening in the sessions that you were in, did you see South Africans listening and learning?.You know I did. I really did. I was in quite a few sessions, in fact, where I was probably the only South African there and there was so much to learn and two things struck me. One was a session with the publication Quartz Africa, where they focused on the best innovators of the continent, and there were four of them who were incredibly impressive people, but all four were from West Africa, which I found very interesting. None in South Africa and East Africa – although East Africa is also known as an innovation hub..We do know that in West Africa, entrepreneurship almost comes through need and the finely-honed entrepreneurship skills that come out of that part of the world. That was really good..The other thing that struck me was, I was facilitating a session – the WEF asks, from time to time, for journalists to help in moderating various sessions – and I was an off-the-record session, which I thoroughly enjoyed because it was something that was practical..The WEF has got a relationship with the World Trade Organisation, where they are trying to fund more research which they can give the WTO which will help the World Trade Organisation to implement strategies and policies that basically helps the world and helps trade to flow more easily. Which, with what's going on in the West, is not that easy right now..But at this this session – it was by invitation only – and there was very vibrant and strong discussion amongst the participants. There were three tables of I think 15 people each on how to promote investment into Africa. In other words don't go out there and give a story that isn't accurate. You need to find ways that investors feel comfortable coming into the country and the point that was made there that has stuck with me was from the chief executive of the Ghanian investment agency, a very interesting man called Ufe Grant, in some way related, he was telling me, to Ulysses S. Grant through history..But he was saying that the big thing in Africa, to him, is what he called asymmetric information. And when I thought about it, the more I thought about this, the more sense it made. Because the story from Africa, the media story that goes out of Africa, is very rarely focusing on those great entrepreneurs that I was exposed to in one of the sessions. It's much more doom and gloom, corruption, negative, can't get their governance right, and so on. Rather than on where the takkie really hits the tar, and that is, where are the businesses focusing? What kind of returns on investment are they making? Is it safe to invest in those countries?.A lot of that narrative has changed dramatically, or that the reality has changed dramatically over the last 20, 30, 40 years – with democracy taking hold in the continent and governance improving dramatically from where it was. But the narrative hasn't changed. So, if you are sitting in London and you come home and you tell your spouse, my firm has just made an investment of $50m in Rwanda, your spouse is almost certain going to say, are you nuts? That's because of the narrative that they have been given..Now, you would like for people who aren't that closely related to the African country to start saying hang on. This is the continent of young people, of bright eyes, of enthusiasm, of entrepreneurship, of higher investment returns than you get elsewhere. And all of those are true. But that truth is not getting through. So, I really got what he was saying about this asymmetry of information coming out of the continent..Once you can break that… It's inevitable that will change eventually. But it's almost like you need some catalyst to break through on that score to get the real African story into the mainstream, not the one that the McKinsey's and these guys like to propagate for fees..You know, I think it's really important what you said there about the young people. I really thought about that this week. You know, we saw Robert Mugabe dying at the age of 95, and he was really one of the last representatives of a previous generation of African leadership and just a different Africa. .But seeing the news of his passing really made me think about – Africa is the only region in the world with a young population, a growing population, where the youth still really outweigh the older people, where the dependency ratio is skewed towards the young, and that means that it's going to be a vibrant place going into the future. Because a younger population is associated with more growth, more innovation, and more advancements in productivity. .And I think that's such an important part of the story that doesn't get told. So, I'm really happy to hear you picking up on that and saying that, was that a sense that you've got at the WEF meeting, that this was something people know about the continent and are excited about..If you want to do better in future, you cannot continue with the status quo. This is a rapidly transforming world. It was very interesting – going back to those four innovators, who as you can hear really impressed me – a couple of them said, What we need to do… And they were all young people, I guess the eldest would have been mid-30s – they were all saying, well, not all, but two of the four said they need to almost sweep away the older generation of politicians and business people, because they are too heavily invested in a way of doing things that isn't fit for purpose in the modern world. And that the younger people coming through will then have the opportunity to not just perform in line with the hopes, but actually to leapfrog from where Africa is right now into a leadership position in the future..Which it can very well be. The talent is here, the minerals are here, resources, everything's here – just the governance has been pretty bad and the governance is now also getting fixed..So, you know, we living in South Africa, we get caught up in the noise too often, in the day-to-day issues, and we don't really sense what dramatic changes happened in this country since December 2017. But those dramatic changes have been playing out in other parts of the continent now for decades. And the reality of where the continent is going, with or without the help of foreign investors, is something that… it's kind of a story that needs to be told and maybe as a media company, we should be trying to tell it more..You know, you just said that leadership is changing and as I understand it, you had a real, visceral experience of the change in leadership on your flight on the way home. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your meeting with our finance minister?.It was extraordinary. Now, we go back a long way. So, when I first met Tito Mboweni, when he in 1992 – ironically also the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos – where he was in the economics department of the ANC. Things were changing in South Africa pre-democracy. I was the economics editor at the SABC, and I remember him helping me one day to do a presentation out in the snow. We stood out in the snow for ages while the cameraman got the lighting – we had a crew from Slovenia, would you believe – got the lighting and everything right. And we got our guests lined up and he helped me to co-present as we fed back to South Africa. So, it was fun..We are of a similar age, though I wouldn't say we were close, but we were very friendly and then post-1994, when he was Labour Minister, he was clearly in government and being a business journalist, you don't really talk that often to a Labour Minister. And in 1998, he was appointed Reserve Bank governor. And in my naivety, I suggested that no politician should actually be heading any central bank, because that was the story of the time..Of course, South Africa's always there to break the rules, and as the head of the central bank, he was impeccable. But because of my criticism, which was pretty personal back then, our relationship was completely strained and in fact we didn't talk to each other for some years until eventually, through his generosity of spirit, I went over to his office and he said let bygones be bygones, let's carry on..That was probably 15 years ago. Anyway we've engaged with each other since then and I'm one of his big fans. But after my flight home yesterday, an even bigger fan..We bumped into to each other in the airport, waiting in the queue. And we stood in the queue, there's a long queue, chatting, which was great for me because I could listen to what our finance minister was thinking of the world. Not that he really shared anything price sensitive but just the way things were going and how he was doing and everything else..But it was quite extraordinary that you have the man who's in charge of the country's national treasury, of the budget, standing in a queue like every other citizen waiting to go onto the plane. Not using the priority line or anything. So, that was interesting..And then, when we went and got onto the plane, what was most notable was that, as we headed off towards row 15 or whatever it was, he came along with us. He went through the business class area into the economy area and indeed, sat down in an economy row seat next to the window on a full plane, with everybody else around him, just like we did, just like every other citizen would..He was flying back from Cape Town to Johannesburg. And I contrast this with a trip that I had, a memorable trip, when I was flying around the country and doing a lot of business. I flew home business class from Cape Town and the whole business class was full of South African cabinet ministers of the old administration. And when we arrived in Johannesburg there were a number of vehicles that came to the aeroplane to come and pick up these cabinet ministers..In other words, you wouldn't have expected them or you wouldn't have seen them in economy class, like we see the Minister of Finance, and all the special treatment that was given to them was just standard in the past..And this example that Tito Mboweni, South Africa's finance minister, gave by going on as an ordinary person and sitting in the plane, I think, speaks such volumes about the watershed that South Africa had in 2017 at the ANC elective conference, where you got a different approach towards the country – one of realism, one of humility..And we saw that at the WEF as well, this ability, this listening – the president was hugely impressive to me, not because of any eloquence in what he said, but because Cyril Ramaphosa was there, you could see, to listen and to learn and to share and to accept the failings of the country in certain areas..So, you know, Felicity, I'm optimistic about South Africa for many reasons but probably the biggest one underlying it all is that, if you have governance by people who take it seriously, people of integrity, and people with humility who are prepared to listen and learn, then you really are on a different trajectory to much of the direction we've been following in the past.

The Editor’s Desk: The WEF, the Joburg riots, and the President

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