Johannesburg – Prolific businessman Reuel Khoza has called on the ruling class to avoid “irrational” deployment of cadres into positions of responsibility.
Khoza, who was presenting the Sam Motsuenyane Fourth Annual Lecture hosted by the University of Pretoria on Friday, said South Africa needed visionary leadership.
“We perceive national misleadership immersed in politics of patronage, which is cancerous to our republic’s moral fibre.
“We as a nation don’t have an appreciation for globalisation, the workings on international markets and the decision-making processes of asset managers,” he said.
“This informs some of our leader’s dismal ignorance of the consequences of and implications of a credit downgrade to junk status.
“We were aghast not so long ago when a minister claimed that the rand can drop in value at whim and that it can be picked back up at will.”
Khoza was referring to utterances made by former minister of water and sanitation Nomvula Mokonyane in April 2017.
“Let the rand fall, we will pick it up,” Mokonyane famously said after Fitch and S&P downgraded South Africa to junk status.
Motsuenyane, 94, is the doyen of black business and has founded and chaired many black businesses and organisations such as the African Bank and the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Khoza recently stepped down as the interim chairman of Africa’s largest asset manager, the Public Investment Corporation, after a two-year tenure.
He was replaced by Deputy Finance Minister David Masondo as the chair of the entity that manages more than R2-trillion in assets.
Khoza was previously the chairman of the Nedbank board and is now the chairman of Discovery Bank.
The outspoken Khoza is no stranger to publicly calling out bad political leadership.
In 2012, he angered then ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe after calling the country’s leadership a “strange breed”.
He doubled down in 2015 when he co-authored an open letter to former president Jacob Zuma after the dismissal of Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister.
“The damage this is causing to the credibility of the country may take years or even decades to reverse.
“We are gravely concerned about the manner in which you are governing us,” part of the letter read.
Khoza also told the audience that the country needs to do better in executing its numerous plans.
“We tend to craft plan after plan without a rigorous plan of implementation, with no clear timelines, no milestones and no explicit moments of reflection.”
Kennedy Bungane, the CEO of African Bank, also paid tribute to Motsuenyane, who was in attendance with his wife Jocelyn.
“In the sunset of your days, ntate Motsuenyane, I can stand here and declare on behalf of thousands of African bankers that your bank shall return to our people,” Bungane said.
Motsuenyane was the founding chairman of African Bank. Bungane was appointed at the helm of the bank following the controversial departure of Basani Maluleke in January.
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