On the one side of the parking lot white and red buses have fallen silent. On the other a BMW, Mercedes-Benz and a couple of 4x4s wait.
Their occupants, especially the bus passengers, are in the Sun City Conference Centre debating the future of black business — one that means being united with other race-based business organisations.
Inside the hall a tall man with white hair, wearing a faded Blue Ribbon Bakery T-shirt and unpolished, side-buckled shoes, is trying to appease members of his delegation, who are unhappy about some logistical problems.
He speaks in Sesotho uncontaminated by a sprinkling of English words. A few minutes later Patrice Motsepe arrives, surrounded by bodyguards. Motsepe is tall, urbane, articulate and relatively young. One does not need to see the label on his shiny, black suit to tell that it is from the top drawer.
Later that evening President Thabo Mbeki, in a celebratory mood, tells the gathering at a gala dinner to launch the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of South Africa (Chamsa) and Business Unity South Africa (Busa) that the night deserves something stronger than the red wine on the menu.
The president could not have known that some journalists had complained on hearing that a half-litre of bottled water cost R15 and that the wine, the kind I gather is relatively cheap, would set one back R95. One doubts whether the man in a bakery T-shirt and those who have been sleeping in their minibuses would have been able to afford the water, let alone the wine.
This is the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce (Nafcoc) 39 years after David Pooe, Enos Mabuza and Richard Maponya founded it in Orlando.
It is still a black organisation trying to find its feet in a white-dominated economy. But the chasm within it and other organised business bodies is no longer as much about colour as it is about the bottom line.
Its merging with the Federated African Business and Consumer Services, the white South African Chamber of Business and Afrikaans Handelsinstituut to form Chamsa nailed that point home.
Thanks to the unity process, white business is now closer than ever to having the political credibility it historically lacks.
Mbeki and his senior Cabinet ministers have given their blessings to the new organisations.
None of the top four leaders in the chamber movement are white. The top four at Chamsa are Motsepe, Mac Mia, Franklin Sonn and Simon Buthelezi.
This left no room for Busa head Attie du Plessis, whom Motsepe addressed as ”my broer” when he paid homage (in suiwer Afrikaans nogal) to Du Plessis’s part in the unification process. Du Plessis was elected deputy president of Busa behind his ”broer” Motsepe.
The black middle class, with its sophistication and finesse (opposed to the rugged features epitomised by the man in a bakery T-shirt) is set to grow, as it will benefit from the deals that will inevitably follow from the merger.
The much-loved Motsepe will become the Nelson Mandela of business if the white-haired man and his constituency see the benefits of black economic empowerment (BEE) trickling down to them.
Motsepe himself acknowledged as much when he said at the end of the two-day conference: ”We would fail and create divisions among ourselves if we do not assist emerging and small business.”
As matters stand, the main labour grouping, the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the workers’ vanguard party, the South African Communist Party (SACP), had very little to say about the issues at hand, choosing to comment on the largely uncontested ideas terrain.
”Unless we create jobs and a sustainable momentum towards poverty eradication, our progress as a country will be severely retarded. That is the challenge [for] us all, and this should be the fundamental point of departure and the main content of BEE,” said SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande.
Motsepe will not disagree with that. It will take a bit more than his personal charm and the obvious warmth he displayed when he told delegates who could not make it to the gala dinner that Nafcoc will do ”everything in its power” to ensure that they are fed.
It has taken about six years for business unity to prevail. But the ”misguided” skeptics, whom Minister of Public Enterprises Jeff Radebe lambasted for pronouncing Nafcoc’s demise, have not gone away.
True, Nafcoc went on a roadshow selling the idea of a united business front to its members.
Also true, there remain pockets of dissent among some members, who believe they were not properly consulted on or invited to the Sun City process.
Nafcoc will have to deal with that, too, and not simply dismiss it as the rantings of a discredited and disgruntled minority.
The new business leaders are black. It is a fact that will not be lost to the business sector that has taken almost a decade longer than the political one to speak in one voice, and whose patriotism to the new order is still suspect.
Organised business representative at Nedlac Professor Raymond Parsons says time and practice will tell whether the new business model works.
”Some critics will look at the new models Busa and Chamsa [as they would] motor cars from the pavement and point out all sorts of features they think are less than ideal. But they may lack the courage to get into them and drive away. If they do so, they will not want to return to the old models,” says Parsons.
Organised business has hopped into the new car. It is still in first gear and it will have to prove itself when it gets to the gravel and bumpy road leading to the spaza shop in Thembisa or the general dealer in Pofadder.