OPINION: Good Business Basics – Concerted efforts to arrest mayhem non-existent

I have written previously about the ‘cost/value’ concept in business.

To recap briefly, business will only incur additional costs if there is the opportunity at some point to extract value from the costs incurred.

The current widespread outages in water and electricity are simply burdening business owners with significant costs, with zero prospect of value addition.

Simply put, they are being asked to incur costs merely to stay in business.

This against the backdrop of sharply accelerating inflationary pressures most notably fuel costs is a recipe for disaster.

Businesses, particularly SMMEs, are being urged to invest to create employment, but could there be a more ‘disenabling’ environment, created in the main by the state, in which to do so?

Where is the ‘enabling’ environment the State bangs on about as its role in promoting employment and growth?

Quoted in the Business Times this past weekend, Kganki Matabane, CEO of the Black Business Council decries the impact of load shedding on SMMEs, and in particular, their ability to meet the National Development Plans 2030 goal of creating 11 million new jobs.

The lack of urgency in, firstly, arresting the decline and, then, restoring delivery of essential services is astonishing.

For example, there were widespread reports of striking Eskom workers blocking roads, intimidating non-strikers, and sabotaging plants in the last few weeks.

Given the load-shedding crisis, which for all intents and purposes is a national emergency, one would have expected the army to have been deployed to protect vital infrastructure, keep roads open for critical coal deliveries and provide security to those willing to work.

But the normal limp-wristed response in the face of union belligerency was on show.

Locally, much the same applies, in that we have been hearing for months now that disgruntled employees have been sabotaging Ugu infrastructure to pursue their own
nefarious aims and objectives, or at the behest of others who stand to gain from the collapse of the Ugu reticulation systems.

Here again, concerted efforts to arrest this mayhem is non-existent.

On a broader level, Cas Coovadia, CEO of Business Unity SA (BUSA), quoted in Business Times as well, calls out the government on ‘…the lack of decisive action to make the necessary interventions to attract investment and put the country on a sustainable and inclusive growth path’.

Whatever green shoots that were evident from businesses recovering from nearly two years of Covid-induced hell are all but crushed in the face of a government unwilling, or unable, to address the essential service challenges we face, and to make the hard, but vitally needed interventions Coovadia refers to above.

Vijay Naidoo is the CEO of the Port Shepstone Business Forum. He writes in his personal capacity. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.

HAVE YOUR SAY

Like the South Coast Herald’s Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and Instagram