After years of abortive attempts to get black and white business into nuptial embrace, the banns were finally read last month.
The fact that it took so long to get here shows that racial divisions remain deepest where it really counts: in the sharing of economic spoils.
Two non-racial umbrella bodies have been created: the Chamber of Commerce and Industry South Africa (Chamsa) and Business Unity South Africa (Busa).
Chamsa is an amalgam of the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob), the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut, the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce (Nafcoc) and the Foundation for African Business and Consumer Services.
Busa is a merger of two employer bodies, the predominantly white Business South Africa and the Black Business Council, and will speak on behalf of business at the National Economic Development and Labour Council and other forums.
President Thabo Mbeki officiated as black and white business signed the nuptials in October. He has long campaigned for a unified voice in business.
One key aim of unification is to allow black business to share in the formidable infrastructure built up by white business organisations over the years. Chambers of commerce, apart from lobbying the government on behalf of their members, provide a variety of services such as trade and investment facilitation, procurement information, networking and deal facilitation and market research.
Traditionally white business organisations have extensive branch networks, libraries and research teams to keep members abreast of new developments. These facilities extend to many towns and rural areas through local chambers, so opening them to small and emerging black businesses should ensure a more equitable sharing of the economic spoils.
To say that black and white business now speaks with one voice is to stretch the truth. But there is agreement on this: the free market is the most efficient path for redressing South Africa’s wealth divide and ushering in a new era of prosperity. But even here there are different interpretations of how free the market should be.
White business complains that the dead hand of government regulation is smothering enterprise and job creation, while many black businessmen advocate government intervention to redress the inequalities of the past.
Two years ago there was an attempt at unity when the South African Federated Chamber of Commerce (Safcoc) brought Sacob and Nafcoc together. For all its good intentions, Safcoc floundered because of inefficiency and allegations of corruption in Nafcoc.
Complicating the issue is a separate set of merger talks involving Nafcoc Johannesburg and the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry which, along with the Cape Town and Durban chambers, disaffiliated from Sacob over the past two years. Last year Mbeki appointed ARMGold’s Patrice Motsepe to clean up Nafcoc and get the negotiations back on track.
Motsepe has now been appointed president of both Busa and Chamsa and his strong political connections should give business a more attentive audience in the government. Business is envious of labour’s unity and the extent to which it has been able to shape government policy, and believes the recent signs of cleavage between organised labour and the government presents an opportunity to steal the high ground. The new unity structures will give business greater influence over economic policy at national and local levels.
No one is pretending there is unity on all issues, or that there won’t be disagreements in the future.
How the unified business organisations tackle these differences remains to be seen, but many in business believe the issue of business unity has been fudged by allowing the underlying structures to remain in place, each with its own membership and identity.
Steven Friedman of the Centre for Policy Studies says true business unity remains elusive as each of the underlying bodies will continue to pursue different agendas.
“I doubt the structures will collapse, but I think they will have a rather vacuous role,” he says. “They might issue statements saying things like ‘economic growth is good for the country’, but the real action will take place at the individual chamber level.”
“If you get married, but sleep in separate bedrooms, differences between the marital partners are allowed to persist,” says Kevin Wakeford, former CEO of Sacob, who led two failed attempts at business unity. “I think we may see stalemate around critical issues such as the extent of state intervention in the economy. What you have at the moment is a political coexistence, rather like the old tricameral Parliament for whites, coloureds and Indians. It’s a small step in the right direction, but it’s not enough to address the real issue of getting all South Africans into the mainstream economy.”
Sacob CEO James Lennox concedes there are “potential areas of disagreement, but there is far more that we agree on. Where there are disagreements, it is important that one view isn’t subservient to another, which is why we are in the process of setting up a process for resolving disputes. I believe our differences can be resolved, because everyone agrees on the objectives. For example, we agree that the free market is the way to go and on the need for good relations with the state, without giving up our independence.”
The aim of these unified bodies is to deracialise and integrate the various national chambers of commerce, promote economic growth, small business development and black economic empowerment and provide a unified voice for business.
Chamsa and Busa will be challenged to come up with common approaches to macroeconomic policy, small business promotion, labour and trade issues and empowerment. Lennox says while members may retain natural ties to the underlying bodies, it is generally accepted that the number of organisations representing business needs rationalising. It is also important to avoid duplication by integrating the various structures.
It took years of hard work to get to the point of business unity, but now the real hard work begins: rationalising the structures, proving to members that these new bodies are in their interests, defining the roles of Chamsa and Busa and getting agreement on key policy issues.