SA is not an island

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