The country’s National Planning Commission (NPC) has “no whip to crack” to get South African society and business to implement the National Development Plan (NDP) aimed at transforming the country’s economic landscape.

One of the key messages emerging out of the second yearly Vision 2030 Summit, on Thursday, was that the NDP was the responsibility of all; however, there seemed to be a widening rift between business and government, leading to waning trust that now needed to be reversed.

With a continuing battle between the public and private sectors over the progression of the widely accepted document that was tabled in 2012, NPC commissioner responsible for economic policy and analysis Elias Masilela told delegates: “We need to remind ourselves what the NDP is about [and] who is responsible for it [and the implementation of it].”

As the NDP headed into its “second season” with the September 2015 appointment of the second group of NPC members, dubbed the implementing committee, there was no “incentive” to persuade all stakeholders to get involved and accelerate implementation.

All the NPC could do was rely on South African’s moral compass.

“The implementation of the NDP cannot be dealt with by government alone,” he commented, adding that everyone, including individual citizens, needed to be on board to deal with South Africa’s three key challenges – poverty, unemployment and inequality.

Masilela warned delegates at the summit that inequality was the biggest threat to social stability, meaning that it would be critical for – and in the interest of – those with capital to also get involved to avoid social unrest.

South Africa’s most significant weaknesses – poor education and skills, which emerged out of poor investments and poor infrastructure – needed to be tackled urgently.

Productivity South Africa CEO Mothunye Mothiba added that an unstable society posed a risk to business and society and encouraged business to get more involved.

“We [business] have a wider responsibility to support South Africa,” Siemens South Africa CEO Sabine Dall’Omo said, adding that there was always a “great call” for government to provide services, but the private sector had a significant role to play in stimulating economic growth.

To get South Africa “moving”, it needed more “agents of change”, citing examples where Siemens combined the needs of the company with the requirements of the country into a single, aligned strategy.

To this end, Siemens selected key elements of the NDP to match with that of Siemens’s strategy, including driving the economy forward, environmental impacts, job creation and skills development, improving quality of life and transformation.

She pointed out that, in addition to ensuring profit and sustainability, Siemens contributed some R6.8-billion, or 2%, to South Africa’s gross domestic profit, enabled 50% of the country’s mining companies through technology, sustained 1 500 direct jobs, created 15 000 indirect jobs and injected some R100-million into establishing an Eastern Cape-based science and technology school that supported some 700 learners.

Liberty Holdings had also narrowed its anchor NDP areas, focusing on health, education and job creation.

“Business is doing a lot [to assist in achieving the ambitions of the NDP], working with government to bring the NDP to life,” said Liberty Group arrangements CEO Sandile Hlophe.

Further, over 200 graduates were absorbed into the group, with several entrepreneurship programmes undertaken each year.

It was the responsibility of all in South Africa to drive growth and the national agenda forward.

“The NDP belongs to all of us,” agreed Mega Water CEO Rudy Roberts, noting that, while business could provide the necessary capital required, there was a need to become “part owners” of the document.

However, at the core of the NDP, the need for a fundamental macroeconomic analysis had emerged.

Speaking at the summit, he noted that the country needed to dig deeper into macroeconomic policy, having been focused only on microeconomics to date.