That Singaporean wealth fund Temasek has invested $100 million into a South African platinum mining company must surely encourage local investors and calm some of those rattled by the ideological and leadership contestation battles that dominate the current body politic. Clearly the Singaporeans are able to take a longer view than many South Africans, and are reassured by the efforts government is making to build a stable and competitive economy.
The signing last week of contracts worth 2.3 billion with Chinese companies last week to provide products such as mohair, bulk wine, wool, frozen fish, copper, manganese, granite blocks, ferro chrome and lobsters from South Africa is also good news for the South African economy. Deals like these are the lifeblood of our developing economy.
But while we celebrate the inflow of funds and the commitment in the Chinese case as expressed by Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Jia Qinglin. “to encourage businesses with strong capacity and good credit to expand investment in South Africa’s manufacturing so as to transfer technology, train staff and spur employment”, government needs to keep its focus on the path to industrial development.
Investments in extractive exploitation of our non- sustainable resources, gratifying as they may be, can lull us into complacency while achieving little, if any broad-based benefit. What must happen is that the space that such investments allow us to turn our focus to making the expressed policy of industrial development a dynamic reality. We saw have seen how our resource based growth of the past economic cycle has done little to alleviate poverty and build better lives. Now we must get real and put in place the building blocks for a competitive developmental economy which holds hope for the millions who live in poverty and near poverty.
We could see quick wins through
• effective trade facilitation offices in foreign missions that encourage rather than obstruct foreign investors (as would seem sometimes to be the case, currently)
• reducing red tape and bureaucracy to facilitate investment
• responsible strong political leadership that places a premium of incisive discourse rather than populism so that contesting ideology and theory (whether social, political or economic) can be debated creatively and fruitfully while inculcating a culture of patriotism, commitment and service to society as well as to customer
• lowering telecom costs
• coordinated and effective government communication that provides accurate and useful information and clear indication of government policy and intent.
Longer term outcomes but needing immediate and effective action require
• sorting out the education system at all levels, but most importantly getting early childhood education right so that our students are not already disadvantaged by the time they start grade one
• getting our public service right – better skills though an effective training and system, effective implementation of human resource policies, such appointment, performance monitoring and regulation compliance
• reducing corruption
• putting in place transparent, equitable, and efficent tender processes.
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