Finally we have some radical economic transformation — even if it’s in the form of a Covid-19-induced blowout — and where are the horsemen of the radical economic transformation (RET) movement? Nowhere to be seen, as luck would have it.
Instead, who do we see riding to the rescue, saddlebags weighed down by weighty cheques: the supposed agents of white monopoly capital (WMC).
First there’s the Oppenheimer family, whose patriarch Ernest created Anglo American in 1917. It has donated R1bn to SA’s efforts to defy Covid-19. Then there’s Johann Rupert, the scion of Anton Rupert’s Rembrandt tobacco empire, who was painted by slippery PR company Bell Pottinger as the face of WMC. His companies have set aside R2bn. Others to have sunk their wealth into tackling Covid-19 have been equally vilified: African Rainbow Minerals founder Patrice Motsepe (R1bn) and tech giant Naspers (R1.5bn).
Odd, isn’t it? I’m sure it’s just the "WMC media" purposely suppressing the stories of all those RET businessmen who’ve also donated to the cause.
After all, the way the original tendercrats, the Gupta family and their apparatchiks, used The New Age and ANN7 to lobby to get various rules changed, supposedly to help all small businesses, you’d think they’d have donated billions by now. Maybe right now, Atul Gupta is wedged up on a pillow stuffed with R200 notes from Eskom in Dubai’s Saxonwold Shebeen, trying to get the Bank of Baroda’s online banking system to make a forex payment to SA’s solidarity fund.
But where are the donations from the founders of Regiments Capital and Trillian or the R1bn cheques from other state-capture beneficiaries, like McKinsey, Hogan Lovells or British American Tobacco? Where is Eric Wood’s or Edward Zuma’s donation? Surely, Carl Niehaus has one or other inheritance to tithe?
Here, there’s a real risk that if we pull over to change the tyre and stop the engine, we might not be able to start it again
Just last week, Niehaus wrote that the Guptas "were never the real state capturers". Rather, he said, "we continue to be captured by the likes of the Ruperts, the Oppenheimers, the Christo Wieses, the Stephen Koseffs, the Brian Joffes, the Koos Bekkers, the Stellenbosch mafia, and their companies".
Yet here are the evil extractionists, donating cash. Sure, it’s not everything they have, by a long stretch. But it’s more than we can expect from Atul or Eric.
Speaking to the FM this week, Rupert said that while his donation was billed as R1bn, it has actually been leveraged up to R2bn. "Two weeks ago, I called the president and offered him the help of Business Partners, as a delivery system to help small business, which is something they’ve been doing for 38 years. And I told him I’d make a donation too," he says.
The way it’s broken down, R500m is donated by Rupert directly, R500m from his company Remgro, and another R1bn from Business Partners (in which Remgro owns 45%) as "subsidised finance". "In this way, we’re able to gear it up to R2bn," he says.
Rupert says his donation was made on the condition that it goes directly to ease the cash-flow crunch for small businesses — not so they can pay rent to property companies, or repay banks. Landlords and banks must come to the party too, he says.
"You see economists going on about how we must cut the interest rate. My father started a small business, and I can tell you, they don’t go under because of interest rates. They go under because of cash flow. And Covid-19 has hit their cash flow," he says.
Jonathan Oppenheimer, who spoke to the FM this week, said the same thing. "It’s a national crisis, and our family is deeply connected to SA, so there was no question of not doing this."
Unlike many other parts of SA’s social fabric, small businesses have no safety net. "Think of SA as a car that’s driving down the road and then suddenly gets a puncture," he says. "Here, there’s a real risk that if we pull over to change the tyre and stop the engine, we might not be able to start it again. We must make sure that while we’re changing the tyre, the engine can idle. Small businesses are the gubbins in the engine: if they break, we won’t be able to start the car again."
The Oppenheimers’ fix has been to start the SA Future Trust, which was set up in just 10 days, funded by R1bn from the family. The way it’ll work is, small businesses can approach the trust and apply for a "loan" of R750 a week for every person they employ. The companies will have to pay it back, but it’ll be interest-free for five years.
Oppenheimer says this will buy small businesses "the time to idle on the side of the road until they can press the accelerator and drive away".
The thing is, partly thanks to the Guptas and those fine gentlemen mentioned earlier, SA’s economy is so weak that many small businesses might not be able to drive away once Covid-19 is gone. Nonetheless, with little other support out there, these donations give them a better chance than they otherwise would have had. Once Atul’s billions land (any day now, surely), I’m sure it’ll be much easier still.
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