iLembe Chamber celebrates business community
Riaz Haffejee calls on government to 'wake up' and ease the process of doing business in SA, while putting the renewal of ethical behaviour at the forefront of all government engagements.
The function room at The Capital Zimbali overflowed with glamorously dressed men and women for The iLembe Chamber’s gala dinner, presented by Nedbank, last week.
The evening’s theme was built around the African proverb “a tree’s beauty lies in its branches, but its strength lies in its roots,” celebrating local businesses as the roots of communities – the roots for growth, innovation, talent, diversity and pride.
Guest speaker, Metair Investments Limited CEO Riaz Haffejee, emphasised that the evening’s theme befit the resilient, agile, and responsive nature of KZN-based businesses to the many blows suffered over the last three years.
“All this resilience that we pose against a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) business environment, as defined by the US Army in 1987, has proven to be a reality for us in KZN.
We are now certified resilient professionals who run our daily lives proving our resilience at every opportunity we get,” said Haffejee.
While resilience remains important, Haffejee challenged the business community to redefine VUCA as ‘vuka’, the Zulu word for ‘wake up’ to avoid becoming the classic frog in boiling water.
He said South Africans tended to be consumed by external factors both local and global, allowing these to determine our spheres of influence, and deterring us from solving problems that were right in front of us.
“We need to rise and not succumb to the norms that force resilience upon us. Change is inevitable and we need to keep this as our constant, we need to wake up.”
In the same vein, Haffejee called on government to ‘wake up’ and ease the process of doing business in SA, while putting the renewal of ethical behaviour at the forefront of all government engagements to promote good governance.
The iLembe region hosts Metair’s largest manufacturing facility in the country, Hesto Harnesses, which is also the group’s largest employer with 7 800 employees of 11 600 people employed across all SA-based Metair subsidiaries.
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