Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon on Thursday suggested some leaders of big business in South Africa are as cowardly and mean spirited as their apartheid-era predecessors.
This was in the light of the pressure brought to bear by Business Leadership South Africa on banking giant First National Bank (FNB) not to go ahead with a planned anti-crime campaign, which included 2,8-million pamphlets with attached envelopes addressed to President Thabo Mbeki.
In his weekly newsletter, published on the DA’s SA Today website, Leon said it is strange that during a crime crisis that sees 51 South Africans murdered every day, some would deny such a crisis exists.
”Curiously, the organisation of big business which was behind the pressure on FNB to pull its message to the president gives itself the title ‘Business Leadership South Africa’.
”Whether they actually practise bold leadership, or rather some curious form of government-approved ‘followship’, is perhaps the big question.
”What is indisputable is that the bulk of big business leadership in the old South Africa was perhaps as craven as business leadership appears to be in the new [South Africa],” he said.
Leon also criticised Mbeki for what he called his denial over crime being out of control in South Africa.
”As we saw on TV the other night, the president stated that most South Africans did not share the perception ‘that crime was out of control’.
”And when the denialist-in-chief is also the chief-of-state, then, as the movie says, ‘Houston, we have a problem’,” he said. — Sapa