The following speech was delivered in Parliament today by DA Shadow Minister of Trade and Industry, Geordin Hill-Lewis MP, during the Budget Vote on Trade and Industry.
Chairperson,
Honourable Members,
Colleagues,
We meet at an uneasy time for our country.
There is a very real sense that our miraculous project of building one, united nation, with one, shared future is slowly coming apart at the seams.
Our crisis is impacting the daily life of our people. Life is getting materially harder for everyone.
Those who have work worry daily about the flagging economy and what it means for the security of their jobs and their family’s livelihoods.
Those 9 million South Africans without work know that as the economy gets worse, so do their chances of ever finding a job.
As a father of a young daughter myself, I can only imagine the pain and anxiety of not being able to support your own family.
The profound sadness of our current situation is: there is absolutely no good reason that we should be where we are today.
But in this truth lie also the seeds of hope: For just as quickly as we have been brought to our knees as a country, we can just as quickly rise to our feet again.
We must act quickly to restore the hope of our 1994 dream. Now is not the time to give up on South Africa. And we who truly love South Africa must prepare to work together to defend her.
The political tectonic plates are shifting beneath our feet.
And that means the DA are now preparing to be in government in 2019.
We will govern because we see South Africa for what it can be, and what it will be.
Our potential is vast, our human capital and talent is exceptional, our good-will towards one another as fellow South Africans is undiminished, and our natural endowments remain enormous.
In government, we will position the economy to compete on a global scale and not just compete, but win.
We are optimists about our economy.
We can grow much, much faster than we are now. We can create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
We can compete in the global tech and knowledge economy – our entrepreneurs and graduates are among the best in the world.
There is no reason why investors should be leaving South Africa, like General Motors did this week. Bottom line: No one leaves a growing, prosperous economy.
Under a DA-led government, investors will know that they will get a fair, predictable and open business environment. They will have certainty of policy and transparency of regulation.
They will have a tax system that will require them to pay their fair share to be a part of our incredible country, but that will also reward innovation and entrepreneurialism.
We want businesses investing and growing, because when business is healthy, jobs are being created. We understand that simple formula, and we understand how to make it happen.
We will give black South Africans a real stake in our miracle.
Redressing the economic injustice and inequity of the past is not just “nice to have”, it is a moral imperative.
Truly being one nation, with one future, requires that we all genuinely care about and work to truly empower black South Africans with access to capital and assets.
At the same time, Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) that simply enriches a small group of well-connected cronies is so harmful to this project – because it breeds resentment among black and white South Africans alike.
This Trade and Industry Minister has folded to the pressure of the powerful lobbyists in the Department and close to the President, led by Jimmy Manyi, that says that BEE must constantly be tweaked to make it more concentrated in the hands of a few, well-connected cronies.
This is evidenced by the bizarre move to limit the ability of companies to offer shares to the black employees that work in the business. If ever there was a perversion of BEE that was it.
You should never have given Manyi’s personal lobby group – the Black Business Council – R7 million of public money, Minister, for them to punt their divisive and regressive vision of BEE cronyism. You should never do that again. You should have the courage of your convictions and do what you know is right.
The DA-led government in 2019 will face down the corrupt elite that want to use BEE as a scheme for legalised corruption. We want BEE that creates jobs and gives workers a stake in the economy, not a BEE that turns a few friends of the President into instant billionaires.
And we will make this simple commitment to black South Africans: Workers, the people who actually make a business run, should be able to share in the profits and decision making of their business.
We will make BEE truly broad based, so that ordinary workers can become part owners and have a stake in our country’s shared success.
Thirdly, we will get all of government working together to achieve growth and job creation.
In truth, whatever the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) says these days is largely ignored by other departments.
The DTI has a renewable energy strategy which is completely undermined and killed by Eskom. The result is the closure or withdrawal of many renewables companies. The same with local procurement, and steel, and a raft of other designations, and leveraging the massive economic power of the state enterprises.
The DTI can’t work because government isn’t working together.
In a normal democracy, Cabinet and the President would bang heads and unite the government behind an overriding focus on growth and jobs. Not so under this government.
In a DA-led government, we will get government working in unison to grow the economy and create jobs.
We will work in complete partnership with labour and business, and we will deliver the hope of a job for the unemployed.
To the public servants of the Department of Trade and Industry: thank you for fighting for what is right and ethical despite the current toxic environment in government. Don’t give up! Your integrity and professionalism will always be welcome in a DA-led government.
Make no mistake, a new government is coming.
All of us must pull together now and save the dream of South Africa as One nation, with One future.