While going through the recording of last week’s annual investment roadshow ahead of posting it in Biznews Premium, an obvious thought struck me. The most interesting part of any presentation always happens when the formalities are done. It’s when the presenter goes off-script and, better still, fields unrehearsed questions that we learn the most.
That was certainly the case yesterday as SA president Cyril Ramaphosa opened the FT’s sixth annual Africa Summit in London. His 38 minute speech was OK. But it was when CR was joined on stage by a probing FT editor Lionel Barber that the real value flowed. Including Ramaphosa’s bombshell disclosure that State Capture cost SA double the rumoured R500bn.
Something about the unconstrained foreign air frees tongues of the usually circumspect. It was in Davos that Ramaphosa first referred to the “nine lost years” of Zuma rule, returning home to a storm of criticism from his own party. And after yesterday laying into multinationals which facilitated plunder, he’ll have few friends at KPMG, Bain, McKinsey, SAP, Hogan Lovells et al.
That’s just dandy. Indeed, I say let’s get Cyril onto even more foreign platforms. Although insist his world class digital communications team goes along. Yesterday they gave us the action live without expensive camera equipment or satellite links. Using modern technology – a mobile phone and Periscope. It’s not just the boss who has changed at the Presidency.
