Chris Ball, who resigned as managing director of First National Bank on Tuesday to take up a job "somewhere in Europe", has never been one for standing on soapboxes. He is not in the habit of making political speeches. His public statements on politics have more often than not been couched in economic terms – he has tended to stress the "opportunity cost of the apartheid system" in terms of lost economic growth. Ball also has little time for what he calls "ideological zealots". He prefers to see himself as a political pragmatist.
In his view, useful debate only starts when people explore the socio economic consequences of their ideas. His political profile was probably highest in 1985 when he appeared on a BBC radio programme with African National Congress representatives and was part of a delegation, led by Anglo American's Gavin Relly, which met the ANC in Lusaka. But the "Ball Affair" in 1986, as it came to be known, guaranteed him the role of South Africa's highest profile business ''radical". Many may see his departure, following that of former Premier Milling chief Tony Bloom last year, as a low point for business liberalism.
The Ball Affair itself played a major part in the decline of the high-profile business opposition to apartheid which characterised 1985 and 1986. The Munnik Commission, set up after PW Botha's veiled innuendos about Ball in parliament, found Ball could not have been unaware that a R100 000 overdraft facility he approved for Johannesburg businessman Yusuf Surtee was to be used to finance an advert marking the ANC's 75th birthday. Certainly Ball himself was silenced, apparently by his own board of directors. In the past two years, about the only issue on which he has spoken to the press is soccer.
So when he announced his resignation this week, it was inevitable that old rumours would surface that the Anglo American-controlled bank would wait for a time and then ask him to leave. Some press reports this week have implied he was pressurised to resign because of his politics. Others have speculated that his departure was linked to First National's poor financial results for 1988.
In an interview with the Weekly Mail this week, Ball dismissed both kinds of speculation. "There is no story," he said. He reiterated that there were no problems between him and First National. He is clearly excited about his new job, which he starts on April 1. He received what he describes as a "fantastic offer" – made to him as a banker rather than as a South African; The job is in banking, and is not with UK-based Barclays Bank. Even his children don't know the identity of his new employer. And he hasn’t yet told some of the bank’s senior executives where he is going. The Munnik Commission and its repercussions were not an issue in his decision, he said.
According to Ball, the affair did not in fact result in a loss for the bank. It lost accounts worth about R8-million, but gained over R9-million worth of smaller account plus a R15-million in corporate accounts. Ball also hit back at suggestions that the bank, South Africa's largest in terms of assets, was in bad shape financially. It has experienced problems with its computer system which have made life difficult for customers and may have contributed to adverse stock market sentiment. First National decided in 1984 to change its entire system, hardware and software, from an ICL to an IBM system, because the existing system could not continue to serve the bank's needs. The mammoth changeover, which has been implemented in stages since early last year, is likely to be complete within the next couple of months.
The cost of development has added R25-million to R30-million a year to operating costs, although these should be justified in the longer term. The bank's earnings growth for the 1988 financial year compared badly with those of its competitors. Ball's counter, however, is that First National has not engaged in tax saving devices such "round tripping" of funds and preference shares, which have earned some of its competitors millions of rands, and against which Finance Minister Barend du Plessis warned just before Christmas last year.
Questions have also been asked about whether Ball has proved able to carry his own organisation with him. According to him, his stance on equal opportunity was not accepted at first but it is now. The bank has set a target of 400 black managers by 1990. The figure is currently 300, up from 120 in 1983. Ball talks of the "frantic" activity in the bank in his five years at its helm. He took over Barclays following the Aldworth affair, and the "bank war" broke out shortly after his arrival. During his time as MD, Barclays' disinvested and the name of the bank changed to First National; Citibank was acquired following the American bank's disinvestment; there have been two rights issues; the bank's management and financial systems have been restructured; a new information system has been installed and more.
Ball's tone this week was not that of a man who has just been forced to resign. But he appears to see himself as constrained and isolated. He says he does not believe he could be "apolitical", but does not appear to see an appropriate or effective political role for himself. He makes it clear that while his move was a career decision, it was one influenced by "environmental factors". He refuses to speak out on socio-economic issues because he does not feel this would be constructive. He has however expressed frustration, particularly with the "waste and inefficiency" of South Africa's political system. All he would offer in the way of political analysis was that he was not too depressed about South Africa's future. But he deplored "the opportunity cost of the system – not only its lack of humanity, but also the gap between what economic performance has been and what it is capable of being". But, he added, history had shown that things could change suddenly.
South Africa was possibly at a low point, and much depended on how people handled the process, he said. While Ball's high-profile role ended after the Munnik Commission, he did not end his political activities. He was largely responsible for initiating the series of discussions between business leaders and UDFCosatu representatives which resulted in the formation of the Consultative Business Movement last year. The "Broederstroom Encounter", the meeting from which the CBM emerged, is one Ball sees as an example of what can be done when different interest groups get away from "ideological zealotry" and discuss issues pragmatically. He points out it took only 12 hours for the Broederstroom delegates to reach agreement on seven fundamental principles. "Exercises such as the CBM are of critical relevance because there can be no productive solutions except those based on that kind of openness of communication and freedom to establish relationships and ideas," he said.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.