One of the key aspects President Cyril Ramaphosa has identified as a precursor to placing the country on a path of renewal and economic growth is the reinvigoration of the social compact between the key sectors of society, namely government, labour, business and civil society.
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This is a mammoth task, but one which if not addressed will surely undermine the efforts of individual stakeholders. The task is made all the more difficult since each stakeholder group has its own reasons for the breakdown in the social compact. One common theme though, is a significant trust deficit that exists between government and all other parties.
‘Policy schizophrenia’
The business sector is suffering from the lack of policy certainty on a range of issues such as land redistribution and the independence of the Reserve Bank, a situation that commentator Onkgopotse JJ Tabane ,writing in the Sunday Times this weekend, refers to as ‘policy schizophrenia’ on the part of the ruling party.
Evidence of this are the conflicting public statements made by senior government representatives, including the minister of finance and the ruling party secretary-general, over the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank.
Labour on the other hand feels threatened by the lack of clarity on the plans of government to downsize the civil service and staff count at SOEs, but more generally they do not feel that the government has done enough to advance the cause of workers and the unemployment crisis.
Civil society as a whole is of the view that any only mass protests coupled with violent actions is getting them some response to their issues.
So what is needed to begin to rebuild the social compact?
A concerted effort to ensure policy consistency and certainty
More transparent and robust deliberations with labour over the possible rationalisation of government employees and the plans to mitigate possible job losses
Reinvigoration and depolitisation of social structures such as SANCO to enhance engagement with civil society and counter the propensity to violence.
After matriculating, Vijay Naidoo studied Economics in the UK. Upon his return, hejoined the family construction business as MD for 10 years.
He subsequently joined his sister in their furniture manufacturing business as director for quality assurance and operations. He was responsible for all quality aspects of their products, and led the project to the business achieving an ISO 9000 quality accreditation. As an export focused business, this was important for our international competitiveness.
Mr Naidoo has an abiding interest in quality management and productivity improvement, particularly in manufacturing.
More recently, he has focused a lot of his time on giving back to the community by way of mentorship of small businesses and sitting on the executive of the South Coast Chamber of Commerce. He also sits on the Board of the Ugu South Coast Development Agency.
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