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Business must now ‘throw weight behind’ NDP to boost postelection prospects

North-West University Business School lecturer Professor Raymond Parsons discusses the role of business in the NDP post-elections.

12th May 2014

By: Natalie Greve
Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

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As South Africa enters its second five-year term with President Jacob Zuma firmly at the helm, Business Unity South Africa (Busa) has urged the private sector to widen and deepen its engagement with government over the National Development Plan (NDP), arguing that it is only with impetus from the private sector that the ambitions of the NDP – South Africa’s roadmap to 2030 – will be accomplished.

Speaking at a seminar hosted on Monday by Busa and North-West University (NWU) Business School, Professor Raymond Parsons described the May 7 election as one in which “bread and butter” issues, such as job creation, the economy and corruption, had featured strongly in political manifestos, signalling that the incoming dispensation would be more open to enhanced engagement with the private sector.

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“While the NDP is neither perfect nor complete, it is good enough for the business community to continue to throw its weight behind. The pragmatic plan acknowledges the decisive role of the private sector, especially in terms of job creation.

“Business has already begun to engage with government on aspects of the NDP, but this engagement needs to be widened and deepened in the period ahead, in view of the plan’s goals at national, provincial and local levels,” he noted.

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Parson’s comments came days after the incumbent African National Congress (ANC) mustered 62.15% of the national vote, shedding 3.75 percentage points since the 2009 national election, handing the controversial Zuma a second term in office.

Iterating the urgency of the NDP implementation and the critical role to be played by business, Parsons said there were “several red lights”, which warned that, unless key structural issues were “urgently” addressed, the economy could drift into the “low-growth trap” of between 2% and 3% a year, rather than the NDP-envisaged 5.4% a year predicted by 2030.

“We now need a fully fledged implementation plan for the NDP and government should hit the ground running postelection,” he maintained.

PRESSING BUTTONS

Noting that the business community had “several buttons to press” in terms of driving implementation and overhauling structural economic weaknesses, Parsons said the sector needed to work with government to implement coherent and coordinated policies within the NDP framework and encourage the development of a more “anticipatory” government through “genuine” consultation.

“By accepting the NDP, government has committed itself to increasingly aligning its policies and legislation with the NDP, as it is said to ‘trump all other plans’, and business must develop mechanisms to vigorously monitor this policy alignment,” he asserted, adding that there were already examples of “official decisions” and recent legislation in conflict with the NDP.

“We must remember that the plan is already a compromise document, it is not on a futile quest for ideological purity but rather a map to ensure policy coherence and boost investor confidence.”

Critical to the success of the NDP, Parsons noted, was the “closing of the gap” between the interests of government and that of business within the NDP framework.

Moreover, the implementation of the infrastructure development programme should be expedited, leveraging public–private partnerships on a “win-win” basis, he held.

For the implementation of the 2030 plan to gain traction, both government and the private sector needed to stay strongly “on message”.

REVAMPED PARTNERSHIP MODEL

Central to any engagement, Parsons underscored, was the development of a more constructive partnership model between government and the private sector, enabling the forging of a working relationship that made “more things possible” in terms of collaboration and delivery.

Parsons said the NDP had identified the lack of trust between business and government as a constraint to the achievement of its goals, it having stated that “long-term growth and investment requires trust and cooperation between business, labour and government and, in South Africa, levels of trust are low”.

Closing the gap of the “trust deficit” required a top-level initiative by the leaders of the relevant constituencies in the immediate aftermath of the elections to build trust, cement deeper partnerships and release the country’s productive capacity.

“At the multilateral social dialogue level, it is also necessary to seize this opportunity to make [negotiation body] the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) more effective and enhance its contribution to true consensus-building among the social partners,” Parsons said.

Elaborating on the political will underscoring the likelihood of near-term NDP implementation, he believed that Zuma’s second term in office would likely yield more tangible results with regard to actual execution.

“The coming years will be the President’s last opportunity to deliver a legacy and [I believe he realises that] the serious work starts now,” Parsons said.

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