South Africa remains broken by a lack of urgency, failure of governance and rampant greed and corruption, says Bonang Mohale, former CEO and president of the country’s two apex business organisations, chair of ArcelorMittal and Bidvest, chancellor of the University of the Free State and professor of practice at the Johannesburg Business School.
“We are still the most unequal society in the world. We still have the highest unemployment rate, the highest SME failure, and the highest gender-based violence rate in the world,” he says in a scathing assessment of the country’s performance in 32 years of democracy.
At the heart of this “crisis” he puts the ANC, which he calls “an organised crime syndicate”.
“The Madlanga commission demonstrates this beyond any shadow of doubt. The Zondo commission into state capture demonstrated this beyond any shadow of doubt.”
Given the endemic corruption in law enforcement, showcased by the number of top leaders on suspension, from the minister and national commissioner of police down, Mohale doesn’t see this changing any time soon.
This poses a constitutional crisis, he says. “If those who are charged with protecting us are themselves thieves and hooligans, then who is guarding the guards? Because the police are involved in gun-smuggling syndicates. They are central to the drug-smuggling syndicates. They are central in the gangs. So we have an SAPS that is rotten to the core.”
The Zondo commission showed how law enforcement was deliberately emasculated to further the agenda of organised crime, and the Madlanga commission leaves him in no doubt that this is still happening.
Broad-based BEE (BBBEE), which Mohale vociferously champions, has become part of this organised crime agenda, he says. “There is absolutely no doubt that the implementation of BBBEE has many challenges and has been hijacked by thieves.”
But the only hope for black people to reach their potential and participate in the economy as owners and senior executives is BBBEE as it was intended, he says. “Because the intent is that it is a planned and positive process and strategy aimed at transforming the socioeconomic environment that has excluded individuals of previously disadvantaged groups in order for them to gain access to opportunities based on their suitability.”
The reality, he says, is that big business is still largely white, untransformed and anti-black. “Not only are they leaving black people to suffer on their own, but they’re spending time, energy and effort to make sure that even the few companies started by black people fail and that black people remain poor and confined to the scrap heap of being only domestic workers and gardeners.”
Thirty-two years into democracy, 67% of the ownership of JSE-listed companies is in the hands of 8.3% of the population, he says, and more than 70% of senior executives are white men.
We’re not a poor country. We are poor by choice, not because we don’t have enough money but because we lack the leadership to put this money to good use
“The people who have made obscene amounts of money in our 32 years of democracy are not black people, on whose behalf democracy was obtained, but Jewish people, Afrikaner people and Muslim people. That’s a fact.”
Another fact, however, is that for several years he himself led Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) and Business Unity South Africa, the two biggest representative organisations of big business in the country.
So if, as he says, big business has not transformed, how responsible for this is he? “I absolutely take full responsibility. I should have done more,” he says.
But when he was the CEO of BLSA he drove the strategy, approved by the board, “that said we must have inclusive socioeconomic growth and transformation. And that we must position business as a national asset. And in the 24 months I was there we achieved exactly that.”
What really breaks his heart, he says, is that South Africa is blessed with an abundance of resources. The government has more than 730 state-owned companies and enterprises. The South African Revenue Service has just collected more than R2-trillion in the 2025 financial year. The Public Investment Corp manages over R3-trillion, which is more than Gauteng’s nominal GDP and bigger than the economy of Namibia.
The City of Joburg (CoJ) has a nominal GDP of $135bn, larger than the economies of Kenya and Tanzania. Sandton is the wealthiest square mile on the continent.
“We’re not a poor country. We are poor by choice, not because we don’t have enough money but because we lack the leadership to put this money to good use.”
He cites the collapse of local government as one of the root causes of the country’s economic and employment crisis and the bankrupt CoJ as an example of why local government has collapsed. “When you steal money, eventually it gets finished.”
After corruption, the next biggest reason for the collapse of local government is “getting rid of people who know what they’re doing and replacing them with people whose only claim to fame is that they are cadres. We’re not looking for competence; we’re looking for loyalty.”
So what is the answer? The local government elections this year and national elections in 2029, he says.
“We need leaders who can root out corruption. Who can bring about ethical leadership. Who can complete the unfinished work of transformation so that this economy looks like us, so that black people, who are in the majority, also have something to lose.
“Lastly, we need leaders who will restore law and order and safety and security, because people are not safe in this country.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.