The problem with bad leadership is that you don’t only lose the respect of those that report to you but also that of your peers. South Africa is already teetering on an edge as the country grapples with power supply concerns, lack of policy certainty, unrealistic wage demands and the list goes on. What is needed is decision-making with the sole purpose of improving the economic conditions of the citizens of the country – and not those of one’s pocket. In this piece Herman Mashaba tells the current leadership to get a reality check as the country’s future is reliant on their actions. – Stuart Lowman
By *Herman Mashaba
In South Africa today, we have to focus on political leadership because that is the area where decisions are being taken that are impacting most negatively on the country. We read daily about decisions that appear to be purposely designed to cause harm instead of improve economic conditions for our people.
A reality check should be telling the government that decisions they are taking are causing harm; that they need to change direction but that is not what is happening. They seem to be determined to keep going in the wrong direction. There are all sorts of international comparisons that can help in making the right decisions to improve South Africa’s economic growth but our policy makers seem to be determined to do the opposite of what works in the rest of the world.
You would think that if policymakers wanted to learn something from elsewhere they would choose to look at what the governments of Mauritius or Singapore are doing, not Cuba. As far as healthcare and economic prosperity are concerned there is a great deal to learn from the policies being followed in Singapore. And when it comes to relationships between government, business and the population in general, Mauritius seems to have found a way to utilise the talents of all its people to the best advantage of everyone. Their decisions were based on reality.
In my own business life I made a bad decision in 1997 when I sold a majority share in Black Like Me to a multinational company. My motivation was for our company to benefit from their well-established distribution network and marketing resources. Unfortunately, we did not achieve the synergies I expected and the business was sliding backwards. Alien systems and controls were being instituted that added to costs but not to sales. Having done a reality check I decided to negotiate a termination of the “marriage” and ended up buying back the business two years later. Reality, not wishful thinking had to be my guide.
Can our politicians not similarly see where they have made mistakes, do a reality check, and change direction? Do they not realise, for instance, that the talents of all the country’s people must be fully utilised to make South Africa a prosperous and peaceful country?
If you look around the world for good leadership of a country you will have difficulty in finding a better example than the late Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew became Prime Minister of a poor underdeveloped island of Singapore and turned it into the economic powerhouse it is today. Singapore has an excellent private/public healthcare system and the life expectancy of Singaporeans at birth is 82 years compared to the 53 years of South Africans. Singapore has a GDP per capita of $60,000 compared to South Africa’s $11,000, and an unemployment rate of 2% compared to our 36.1%. So what kind of leadership gives you such results?
South Africa’s Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) walked out of gold wage talks; 3 unions remain committed to talks
— Aisha Dabo™ (@mashanubian) July 9, 2015
Would Lee Kuan Yew have introduced a national minimum wage at a time of massive unemployment? Never! Would he have told struggling employers to pay more than the wage they were already paying, which would make them employ less workers? No, he based his policies on reality! Does the government really believe the International Labour Organisation (ILO) representatives who are telling us that establishing a national minimum wage will be good for the economy? Or do they actually know that the ILO is talking rubbish and that if the price of labour increases the buyers will buy less of it and not more and our mass unemployment will increase.
As it is, we have 8.7 million unemployed people (36.1% of the potential workforce) unemployed in this country. Is the government seriously going to implement a policy that increases that number? Does a reality check not tell them that if you implement the same minimum wage in urban and rural areas, where there is already a low demand for labour, people will definitely lose their jobs? Do they want to cause an “Arab Spring”? Is that the only kind of realty check that will cause them to change direction? Why consult the ILO? Why not find out from our small and poor employers how many people they will have to fire to stop from going bankrupt themselves?
South Africa’s political leaders need to start basing their decisions on reality, and stop basing them on wishful thinking. The survival of the country depends on it!
*Herman Mashaba is the executive chairman at Lephatsi Investments
