There were many businessmen, politicians and even journalists who disengaged emotionally and some even geographically from South Africa during the Zuma years as it seemed impossible to stop corruption threatening to engulf South Africa. One of them was former National Party cabinet minister and negotiator for South Africa’s new Constitution, Roelf Meyer. Following the successful diffusion of conflict in South Africa, Meyer has spent his intermittent years advising other strife torn areas in the world on conflict resolution. He is currently advising Myanmar. When Cyril Ramaphosa was elected as President, he however decided to re-engage and has offered to spearhead a channel between the business community and the Presidency to accelerate growth in the country. He is a firm believer that Ramaphosa can turn the country around. – Linda van Tilburg
There were two chief negotiators on either side of the Codesa talks at Kempton Park during negotiations for South Africa’s new future in the 90s that made history as they lay the foundations for the country’s post-apartheid constitution. They were Cyril Ramaphosa, chosen by Nelson Mandela to lead the negotiations for the ANC and its alliance members, and Roelf Meyer chosen by FW de Klerk who negotiated for the National Party. When things got rough, when talks broke down after acrimonious exchanges between De Klerk and Mandela, the two negotiators who had struck up an unlikely friendship kept a channel open and managed to get negotiations back on track. Now Ramaphosa is president and has in many respects a much tougher task than Mandela had. After almost a decade of corruption and looting under Zuma rule, his old negotiation partner and friend Roelf Meyer has come out in support of Ramaphosa. He told the Cape Town Press Club that he firmly backs Ramaphosa, because Ramaphosa won’t let South Africa follow the example of Venezuela and Zimbabwe. So I’m so chuffed today to have Roelf Meyer talking to Biznews. So Roelf, tell us why are you backing Ramaphosa now?
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Well it’s not difficult. You know, I think he is the most competent leader that we have in the country and I simply trust his leadership. I know him well enough. Well, Linda we’ve been on opposing sides for some time but you know, I’ve always shared the view that if he could become President he can take South Africa back on the high road and I think that is exactly where he finds himself now. And for that reason, I’m trying whatever I can to be supportive of his endeavours. And I think we can certainly make a difference. He is going to make a difference and we can help to make that difference.
I see at the Press Club you mentioned that he is what you called a modelist and a constitutionalist. So what model is he following if he’s not following the Venezuela- Zimbabwe model?
Well I was suggesting that, you know, I think he’s the kind of person that would look at what happened in Japan after World War Two, in Germany after unification and more recently what happened in China during the last few decades. And I think he would model himself and his leadership on how to get the South African economy going and grow the economy on the basis of those models and examples.
You know, during the election campaign last month when the elections took place in South Africa. In the build-up to the election, he chose growth as his election platform. And that is why the ANC as the ruling party elected and him as the leader will, I believe, now do everything that he can, to execute that mandate. That is to grow the country and to ensure that we address the other problems relating to unemployment, job creation etc. on the basis of solid growth of the economy. And that is where this project that I am involved with came in because a year ago, after Cyril took office as president the first time and after he made his first speech in February last year; he invited South Africans to come forward with ideas and with their support. We then started to organise and mobilise from the private sector side, was to say, we can organise a campaign to grow the country on a sectoral basis, each sector by itself, by making commitments and say what can be achieved over the next five years in growing the economy and creating jobs. But at the same time, also addressing the inhibitors that prevent growth. In other words, things that the government need to attend to, to smooth the situation and to enable growth. And on that basis, this project came about; we had the opportunity to address the president with the idea of this public-private growth initiative. He agreed to it and mandated us to go ahead. So, we are finding ourselves now in a position where we have 19 sectors that have committed themselves to particular growth targets and that represent more than 40 projects in all these areas. At the same time, the inhibitors that have to be addressed, were identified and you know, it’s over to the government to address those inhibitors and make it possible for the different sectors to grow as we have identified.
So, it seems you have engaged the business sector. How do you plan to get a closer link between business and government because as you said he has to put the right measures in place for growth to happen?
Well, we started off by working very closely with the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation in the Presidency and we will continue doing so, that is the department responsible for the National Development Plan and its implementation, and also obviously the department that reports directly to the President in that regard. As a result of this collaboration between us as private sector representatives and the government; we have had a number of meetings with the different DG cluster, or cluster meetings with the different DGs in the economic cluster and those meetings were specifically designed to address the inhibitors, to close the loop and also to get a working relationship going. It’s not all ironed out yet, but I think best we can say there is enormous progress already being made in the relationship between private sector and government, and we are looking forward to cement that and make it more concrete. One of the things that we envisage doing is to have an opportunity to report back to the President at least on an annual basis, if not more regularly than that, where we can measure the progress both on the side of private sector targets but also on the side of removing the inhibitors. So, it’s a tangible project in that sense and what is good about it is that it involves the different sectors of the economy through their CEOs. In other words, it’s not a lobby group in a broader sense of the word; it’s very targeted with regard to specific sectors.
Can you give us an idea of who is involved in it, do you have names of CEOs or companies that support your initiative?
Well, it might be better to look at the sectors we’re talking about. We started off with the automotive sector, simply because Johan van Zyl as the CEO of the Toyota: Europe Africa and Middle East started to initiate the idea that I was describing and for that reason it was easy to identify the automotive sector but also, we started with agriculture as a sector which has a huge growth potential from the South African perspective. And also, we looked at tourism where there were, or still are certain inhibitors that had to be addressed; by removing those inhibitors we can actually triple the numbers of visitors to South Africa from abroad. So, those three we started off as easily identifiable sectors but in the meantime it does grow and like I said, there are now 19 sectors that have all have come forward with specific projects and we are very happy that, you know, this almost happened on a voluntary basis because once the different sectors became aware of what our intentions are, they almost naturally came forward and said here we are we would like to play in the game. Those included mining, the construction industry, the financial sector and the whole spectrum of South African private sector activity.
One thing I want to ask you, what about the rogue elements in the ANC like Ace Magashule, recently his comments on the Reserve Bank. How do you think Ramaphosa should deal with them?
Well, we are dealing with the government not with a political party specifically. It’s therefore not our concern, or for us to say how political party matters have to be dealt with. The government has made it clear what its intentions are, I refer to the mandate that the president sought prior to the elections and if there are any obstacles that he has removed within his own party ranks, I’m sure he will do that. We are moving forward on the assumption that he has the party base under control because that is what he sought in the elections through the mandate that he declared he was looking for. If there are any people that are not toeing the line, then the party has to take responsibility for handling that.
And you said he had five years to save South Africa. Can you clarify that?
Well, he’s been elected for five years. That’s the next term. What I was actually saying is that I know and I think he knows, if he doesn’t perform according to the mandate that he’s received and according to his undertakings prior to the election, the voters of South Africa are not going to give the ANC another chance. I think the fact that the ANC has won this election can’t be taken taken for granted as an unlimited mandate for the future. Whereas the ANC in the past elections prior to this one, might have won on the basis of being a liberation, that successful liberation movement, I think in future elections that qualification will not count.
What do you say to businessmen, because I meet them, I’m sure you meet them as well, who say well, I don’t think Cyril Ramaphosa can turn the country around and we are quite despondent about what’s going on in the country at the moment?
They are despondent about what they have experienced, or on the basis of what they’ve experienced over the last 10 years which you know it was pure destruction of the country and of the economy. We all know that it doesn’t have to help me now to try and describe it again. And everybody knows that and that is what makes the economy pretty flat at the moment. And what makes people despondent; at the same time we have to look at how we can reach and energise the economy. And I think we are in a sort of a position where we were at the end of the apartheid years. The economy was terrible at that time. South Africa had huge international debt, very much the same as we have now. And that was turned around after the coming of democracy and it was done on the basis of cleaning up the problems that there were prior to the transition to democracy. I think we find ourselves very much in a similar position now. People must just look at the facts and that is inter alia, cleaning up to the state of corruption, ending corruption in the country, improving the quality of service of government and getting some private sector to create confidence from within again. Things can actually be changed around and I think we are very much in that position that we can change things around. That is why I’m saying the next five years is very important from a South African perspective.
So you have been at that stage where people were thinking, oh how we can save this and you actually managed to do it and South Africa always has a way of turning it around, you believe it can happen again?
I absolutely believe that’s possible. Under Zuma it was not possible for very clear reasons. I did not even engage during that period but now it’s evident and and there’s a different mood in the country and we are all part of it. I’m just now, as I speak coming from a big farmers’ meeting in Mpumalanga province where there were probably 150 to 200 practising productive farmers present. And the mood there is, we’re going to show the world that we can do it. You know, so it’s a completely different mood that prevails right now.
Well, Roelf Meyer thank you so much for speaking to us.
Thank you very much. Let’s talk from time to time and I can update you on what the experience shows us.
