Peace as the foundation for business and sustainable economic growth was the focus of the Financial Mail Private Lounge, held in Johannesburg recently in association with JM Busha Investment Group.
In his welcome address, JM Busha Investment Group CEO Joseph Busha called on the leaders and citizens of Africa to understand it is their collective responsibility to ensure peace and a better future for Africa and unlock its potential.
Economies thrive during times of peace, said Transcend Talent Management MD Zanele Luvuno. She cited Rwanda as an example of a country that has experienced a remarkable economic turnaround since ensuring peace.
A little more than two decades ago Rwanda was on its knees economically following the genocide that killed almost a million people. Today it is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and it has made significant strides in gender equality and in creating better economic conditions for all its citizens, she said.
If you can put a stop to conflict and corruption, it opens the door to a much brighter future
— Stewart Bailey, senior vice-president of investor relations and group communications at AngloGold Ashanti
Africa stands at the threshold of greatness, said Stewart Bailey, senior vice-president of investor relations and group communications at AngloGold Ashanti. However, corruption and conflict are major impediments to economic growth.
“If you can put a stop to conflict and corruption, it opens the door to a much brighter future,” he said. “In South Africa, while we have different pasts, we share a common goal for a prosperous future.”
Africa gives too much prominence to politics, said Innocent Dutiro, CEO for Africa and Asia at MMI Holdings. Wealth in Africa needs to be distributed more equitably, he added, and the continent needs to address its issues to ensure sustainable peace. Each African country needs to put its citizens first and start a deliberate process to ensure economic prosperity and lasting peace.
Democracy, Dutiro said, works when one has a well-developed economy. Providing the youth with quality education is key to ensuring a prosperous future.
One of the biggest impediments to growth is poor education infrastructure, said Bailey, and South Africa has not addressed this sufficiently. He agreed with Busha that citizens need to be more politically aware and active. “We need regional solutions to our problems. You can be a bastion of prosperity but if your neighbouring countries have free-falling economies, it will ultimately affect you.”
Citizens need to act before it’s too late, said Busha. “If we want peace and a prosperous future, we have to participate and be accountable for our own future.”
If we want peace and a prosperous future, we have to participate and be accountable for our own future
— JM Busha Investment Group CEO Joseph Busha
He said it was time for South Africans to take responsibility for their own future and no longer rely on the political leadership to dictate their future.
Busha questioned whether business in South Africa had not left it too late to engage government leadership on social and economic development. Following decisions that hurt business and the economy, business focused on President Jacob Zuma.
“In Zimbabwe,” he said, “business focused on making money and some [on] pleasing the government. Business did not engage on good public governance, policies and President [Robert] Mugabe until the collapse of many businesses and the economy. By the time Zimbabwean business tried to engage the Zimbabwean government, it was too late. It’s always a disaster whenever there is collusion between business and government.”
State capture, he added, has negative implications for South Africa.
While Peter Bruce, editor-in-chief of BDFM Publishers, said he was in favour of active citizenry, he added there was much the state could do to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. He said the South African economy needed a long-term strategy and suggested that the government introduce tax incentives to encourage people to hold onto their shares for longer.
He also called for a more inclusive style of capitalism to redesign the way South Africans create and distribute wealth and to change the way the economy reacts. Business, too, he said, could do much to ensure it acted in the long term. “The style of capitalism we practise in Africa is too Victorian,” said Bruce. “It’s a destructive mechanism which needs to change.”
There was some debate on whether legislation needed to force change, with Luvuno arguing that businesses that merely ticked the compliance box were not contributing to a meaningful transfer of wealth. Bailey said South Africa needs a more imaginative approach to broaden the pool of equity, while balancing this with the need to attract investment and capital.
The JM Busha 54 Races for Peace & Unity in Africa, said Busha, is about engaging the youth of Africa amid calls for the continent’s citizens to participate in its economic development and political governance. It encourages citizens to hold leaders to account and asks individuals, organisations and governments to enrol as signatories to a peace pledge.
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