Government policy and enablement have to align with what business needs to grow and investors need to know, only then will we be able to ‘assist’ each other.
The SUNDAY TIMES of 11 June the front page reads “Business and government smoke peace pipe” It reports “Ramaphosa stressed the business and government were ‘working together’ and that the needed to counter the assumption that business was ‘assisting government’ which implied the administration was incompetent.”Agreement was reached on the formation of a National Logistics Crisis committee and a Joint Initiative to fight Crime and Corruption built on the success of the National Energy Crisis Committee. Ramaphosa especially asked that “while we are expecting you not to be praise singers, do not bash the country on public platforms.” Martin Kingston of Rothchild SA concluded “we’ve been working with government behind-the-scenes for months now to see how we can partner with them in these respects, we have to be mindful of conflicts of interest, of how we are communicating so there is no scepticism or suspicion, so we can rebuild trust which is earned over time.”Ki