UNDICTATED: What Zuma must do to win back SA business (incl Reagan’s tips)

By Alec Hogg.Yesterday, it was precisely half a century since America's 40th President Ronald Reagan delivered "The Speech" – a powerful, long remembered televised address that has been watched more than a million times on Youtube. The video is embedded below. If you haven't seen it yet, please make an appointment with yourself to watch it..I was drawn to it by my belated reading of Friday's Business Day article reporting on a speech by Jacob Zuma where he called on South African business to bail out the struggling economy. A better way for Zuma to have spent that time would have been to watch "The Speech" and ponder its message. It was intended to support Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, but ended up making Reagan's political career. His words resonated because they are so clear, so obvious that anyone watching it will soon realise what Reagan suggested to Americans was to reject pretty much the same things we're being subjected to in South Africa today..Watching "The Speech" also got me doing some pondering of my own. What would Zuma have to do to soften hearts of local business executives now so hardened by his cohorts? What would it take for him to get companies to change their minds? And pour investment capital into this country, rather than take it pretty much anywhere else on earth?.Here's my list. Not exhaustive but sure to make a start in turning the tide:.* Fire the two cabinet ministers whose skewed economic thinking has played a major role in driving the economy onto its current no-to-low growth path. And that goes for every other member of the cabinet who subscribes to the warped economic thinking of the Sussex University Club. The outdated command-and-control philosophies of Rob Davies (T&I) and Ebrahim Patel (Economic Development) have proven totally inappropriate in a modern economy. Highly educated business leaders know as long as these two communists are running the economic show, any fresh investment in SA is throwing good money after bad..* Start listening to the IMF, WEF, World Bank, Ratings Agencies, local business leaders and any half-decent economist and implement urgent reforms to South Africa's inflexible labour legislation. Oh, and while he's at it, get rid of Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant, that misguided, over-promoted soul who defies logic in maintaining SA has "the best labour legislation in the world". SA came 144th out of 144 in labour flexibility. Maybe Oliphant thought the World Competitiveness table was inverted?.* Send the carpet-baggers packing by re-writing the new BBBEE legislation which are so obviously designed to effortlessly enrich friends of the politically influential (replace the ownership rules to introduce, say, educational trusts for PDIs). It will also remove the incentive for business people to break the law by fronting or outright lying – something they tend to do when the law is such an obvious ass..* Apologise for Nkandla and commit to bequeathing the homestead to the State when his term of office expires. It could be turned into a conference centre and save taxpayers millions in saved hotel expenses for Indabas, Lekgotlas and other public sector get-togethers. And while he's at it, double the Public Protector's Budget as reward for a job well done..* Veto all last minute changes to legislation (Oil and Gas a prime example) and insist that any change to the law is discussed in depth with those it is likely to impact. This will reflect a new breeze of humility is sweeping through the portals of power; a new appreciation that the Zuma Administration knows there is much that it does not know – and wants to avoid unintended consequences that always accompany poorly constructed legislative changes..* Use the famous Zuma charm on the business sector. Reach out to the only people who are able to address the unemployment crisis, but who right now feel unwelcome in their own country, aliens in the land of their birth. And are reacting rationally by shipping everything they hold dear – their money, their children, their future – out of the country..* Declare serious intent in the war against corruption by sweeping the Administration clean of everyone with a smell of scandal. And come down hard on anyone – Shaik, Gupta, extended Zuma family members, etc – who use the Presidential person or office to bully their way to favoured deals. Reversing the R43m Eskom breakfast "sponsorship" with The New Age would be a good start..* Rather than pushing its boundaries, assume the mantle of Champion of the Constitution, which is actually the most important role of any President in a Constitutional Democracy. Apart from freeing Mark Shuttleworth's R350m trust fund to be spent in a more constructive manner, it will set the tone for future SA Presidents. And elevate the name Zuma to alongside that of Mandela..It's a long list, but the nation and its President has drifted a long way. Some might think it impossible to reverse. Perhaps not. The Jacob Zuma who assumed office in 2009 struck me as someone who may well have adopted these suggestions. That Jacob Zuma was humble, the man I remember attending Davos six years ago committed to listen, to learn, much like Nelson Mandela did in 1992. That is the man who would watch "The Speech" and absorb Reagan's message. He exists. Is it too much to ask for him to show it?

UNDICTATED: What Zuma must do to win back SA business (incl Reagan’s tips)

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