Business ethics slammed
November 11, 2009
By Anel Lewis
The elite have "pick-pocketed" state resources "through corruption, crony empowerment and by milking the state through charging exorbitant prices", says Deputy Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene.
And the business community has lost its sense of ethics, using economic practices that hit the poor and the vulnerable hardest.
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Nene said yesterday that economic crises ensued when the lifestyles of the elites, "even in government", became unrecognisable to the electorate.
"The fracas around the expenses of politicians is a clear example of the widening distance between public office bearers and the electorate."
He said many senior government and business leaders lived in different areas and used different modes of transport and schools to most of the people.
"Such distance must have negative implications for governance, accountability and democracy."
Nene was speaking at last night's Cape Times/KPMG Business Personality of the Year 2009 awards, where the main award was won by Allen Ambor, the founder and chief executive of Spur Corporation.
The judges' award was won by Pieter-Dirk Uys in recognition of the work he has done in schools around the country to promote awareness of HIV and Aids, and of his decades-long commitment to building democracy, in partnership with his celebrated alter ego, Tannie Evita Bezuidenhout.
Sibongile Mahlangu of Ntsikelelo Management and Accounting Services won the Editor's Award in recognition of her creativity and hard work in providing key services and mentorship to small businesses, and of her contribution to providing a livelihood for many who would otherwise have been unemployed.
Nene told guests at the Cape Town International Convention Centre that a sense of ethics was missing from business.
"A business community that condones their own when they fix the price of bread or rig a tender contract is a community that has lost its moral compass and therefore cannot be relied on to build a successful country," he said.
Without honesty and integrity, free markets would run amok.
"Let me ask the question: who is a greater threat to free markets in South Africa, the so-called Left who call for nationalisation, or the business leaders who fix prices in anti-competitive ways and don't play by the rules?"
Nene said South Africa's "massive challenges" would not be addressed unless jobs were provided. The country's future growth had to be more labour-absorbing and inclusive.
"While government has a key role to play in increasing employment, only through a partnership with the business community can we succeed in creating millions of jobs."
He said almost a million South Africans had lost their jobs in the past nine months because of the global recession.
"That's a million households in pain, where food would be scarce, stress in abundance, where families struggle to make ends meet."
But even before the economic crisis, more than four million South Africans were unemployed.
The government had an obligation to support business, providing the environment for entrepreneurs to succeed.
"At the same time, we expect honesty and integrity from business. As I have said repeatedly in the past few weeks, we seek entrepreneurs and not entrepreneurs. We seek people and businesses who are going to create jobs and add value to public services without milking the state, even if this is in the name of black economic empowerment."
South Africa's scale of inequality was "not sustainable in the long run", he warned.
"Even as we search for a new growth paradigm and as the world searches for a new economic paradigm, let us recognise that no system in the world is sustainable if it is not underpinned by a sense of morals, ethics and values. No system can succeed if it is not people-centred. We must put people first, and we are unashamed that we will put the poor and vulnerable first."
anel.lewis@inl.co.za
- This article was originally published on page 1 of The Cape Times on November 11, 2009
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