Published in Business Day 28/9/12
Your Editorial, “ An Appalling and Hypocritical Call”, BD
26/9/12, refers. You rightly highlight the growing tendency of the DTI under
Minister Rob Davies, to let multilateral agreements with other countries lapse. This is a trend which I have been watching
for some time, and to the list of culprits I would add Minister of Economic
Development Ebrahim Patel. Just as the latter has seen fit to ride roughshod
over the independence of our Competition authorities ( see Jack Lewis’s book on
the topic),so too the one of the key purposes of these two gentlemen in to gain
a hand over the nature and content of foreign direct investment . The
DTI's policy statement on the topic last year is to reconcile FDI “with the
sovereign right of the South African Government to pursue developmental public
policy objectives”. Now “ developmental” can mean whatever you want it to mean,
but in today’s utterly leaderless South Africa, in Cabinet its one man, one
economic policy.
South Africa is not an island in the global economy. Just
because their behind the scenes manoeuvring will remove the restrictions
on meddling with signed and sealed business deals, which Patel and Davies no
doubt hope will protect them from international retribution does not mean it
will in fact be so. This will severely damage South Africa’s already damaged
South Africa’s post- Marikana, post Malema, investment prospects. It’s a
sort of Socialism In One Country idea, which assumes everyone else is stupid
and that the Berlin Wall did not fall. It operates on the
assumption that that Messrs Patel and Davies feel foreign investors should
know their place, and if not, who needs FDI anyway. This arrogance is
misplaced, and it is a luxury we cannot afford. It will end in tears, but as
usual, it is ordinary South Africans who will play the price. You have been
warned
Dr Gavin
Lewis
DA MPL
Gauteng Legislature
