For my birthday in the first week of June this year, I went to the Wacky Wine Weekend in Robertson with a good friend, a black economic empowerment (BEE) mogul. The attraction was that R60 entitled us to a bottomless dop, for the entire weekend, at all the area’s fine estates.
Determined to have a good time, and as responsible citizens, we had a designated driver, duly certified as such by the organisers, and he drove us from one estate to another. He is the mogul’s other half and accepted the job knowing the kind of mess he was getting himself into.
A few dops later my friend announced that her first annual dividend check had finally arrived, several years after she had signed her first BEE deal. The value of the check was about R3Â 000. She planned to add this to the birthday gift certificate she had received from the designated driver and go shopping for BEE shoes.
She described them as pencil-heeled, sharp-toed shoes meant to make a clear statement in Johannesburg that this is a no-nonsense sista who wheels and deals. I mentioned that I had a similar pair, but they were courtesy of some relatives with a bit of cash and taste. BEE shoes can be most uncomfortable, I have to admit.
Which brings me to my trials and tribulations with BEE. When I started, or joined, a BEE company in 2005-06, I had already moved to Cape Town from Johannesburg.
I was living in Muizenberg, a quaint village on False Bay that accommodates just about everybody but the BEE type. I’ve yet to see anyone with BEE shoes or car in this village. The footwear of choice here is a longboard and the sharks don’t wear suits Â- they patrol the coast. This probably explains the absurdity of my far-fetched dream to become a BEE player.
Whenever I attended board meetings in Johannesburg, my partners would smirk that I had become a bit slow since moving to Slaapstad. But really, the world literally stops when your running route takes you on Boyes Drive, up on the mountain and along the bay. It is breathtaking.
Like the shoes, BEE has a somewhat weird attraction, yet brings all sorts of discomforts. Some time around 2006, the government went into overdrive about the benefits of the accelerated and shared growth initiative for South Africa (Asgisa) programme.
Alec Erwin, then-minister of public enterprises, informed us that the skylines of major cities would be dramatically transformed as the government released cash and invested in infrastructure development. Just about everybody would get a piece of this action, he suggested. Naturally, a few of my sistas got organised and brought in a combination of skills and we were ready.
The first attempt at a deal was a dismal failure. The other guys had been in the game a long time and taught that money talks in BEE.
The second attempt was a modest success because of a combination of skills, some cash, experience and — yes — contacts.
But all these had nothing to do with Erwin’s Asgisa.
I certainly hope that one of these days the government will in fact implement Asgisa, or whatever new acronym it comes up with. Cape Town, for example, could do with some nonracial human settlements.
So for two to three years, this BEE company soldiered on, supported by the personal sacrifices of its members, developing a pipeline and looking for funding.
Then the world economic crisis happened: liquidity was scarce and it appeared that it would take some time before we really became the players in BEE we imagined.
But as the recession started to bite, the country’s politics went on the boil. The divisions within the ANC created, among other things, a major schism among blacks who aspired to business.
This past summer I sat in a board meeting where South Africa’s changing economic and political landscape was on the agenda for discussion. Despite the fact that the world economy was in the throes of a crisis, discussion on the economy was managed with aplomb: adjust predictions, streamline the pipeline and wait to see what happens when there is an upturn.
The political discussion was another matter. The elephant in the room was the Congress of the People. The reason was that some board members had publicly associated with Cope’s election campaign.
The main argument centred on two contentious issues: the risk of association to the business and the fundamental right to the ”freedom of association” as guaranteed by our country’s Constitution.
It was an interesting, emotionally charged and yet unresolved discussion. I am convinced similar discussions were occurring in boardrooms across the country.
We agreed to acknowledge that the divisions within the ruling party had split the broad church of ANC supporters right down the middle. It was irrelevant who was right or wrong, but the status quo was likely to remain for a long time and, perhaps at a later stage, when the temperature had subsided, we could have a more rational discussion.
It was a polite, civilised and mature ending, I thought.
But in a bizarre incident some weeks later, I received a strange text message from one of my partners in another BEE company. It went like this: Partner:
”We have to talk.”
Me: ”In a meeting; urgent?”
Partner: ”Yes.”
Me: ”About?”
Partner: ”He won’t let us sign.”
Me: ”Who and what??”
Partner: ”So-and-so because of you.”
Me: ”But why?”
Partner: ”Because you Cope.”
It emerged in the conversation with my partner that she was called into the office of Mr So-and-so and was told in very simple terms that I had to go. I was reminded of a scene in the movie, The Godfather, with Marlon Brando receiving visitors coming to pledge their undivided loyalty to him.
My partners were in a bind: they had to choose between me and losing out on a big partnership led by this Godfather. So I resigned.
The big lesson in my BEE odyssey is that business, black or white, has little interest in constitutional niceties. It is about the bottom line Â- even when the bottom line is non-existent.
Not a few people have observed that BEE is about educated blacks fighting over access to patronage dispensed by the state. This battle for patronage is sure to sink South Africa. When friendships and relationships are based on access to politicians and their power, something in the soul simply dies.
Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist, wrote recently that the United States needs to take advantage of the downturn and innovate. He says Apple and Microsoft were conceptualised during a downturn and they have now become global necessities. He called on Americans to come up with innovative ways to get their economy out of the current crisis.
South Africa must also think outside of the box. I keep thinking how we could have had a more valuable discussion on the changing economic landscape. Perhaps we would have come up with an innovative idea to help ride out the downturn. Instead, time was wasted on the Zuma-Mbeki template.
If only South African entrepreneurs could focus and buck the international trend, investing in productive capacity rather than seeking short-term payoffs based on speculative pursuits and proximity to politicians.
I suggest they could start by producing their own shoes.
Palesa Morudu is a writer based in Cape Town