If we don't address the problem of the poor it is going to catch up with us. We are already experiencing problems with people who are angry and tired of waiting for transformation in their own lives. Business will not be sustainable in that environment.
I'd like to see us commit to the skilling of people rather than concentrating on numbers. There's a tendency in some companies to tick boxes and say, "Alright, we have the BEE numbers, even if they just sit in a corner and we don't bother to up-skill them." I've met some - from big companies, too - who don't have the skills you'd expect - people who were put in a position with a title, but without the support to learn; to grow into serious businesspeople.
We have clerks with SNG whose parents don't understand what exactly they're studying; a few may have had teachers that inspired them, but most need supportive mentors in the workplace. Companies that comply for compliance's sake often create a very hostile environment for equity appointments - black people are let in the door, but they're not given the support they need to become better skilled. For someone from Qumbu, who was educated by their grandmother on a state pension, the whole environment is very intimidating. So there's a tendency for them to switch jobs a lot, in that atmosphere.
I'd rather they take just ten people and commit to really training them to a level at which they can compete globally. For the sustainability of our country, we need to commit to that vision, rather than stats and compliance. We have to put heart and soul into educating and skilling our people. There are some examples of the private sector committing to that vision - the Thuthuka Bursary Fund, which the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants instituted, is showing that if you support and mentor disadvantaged BComm students properly, they can out-perform their more privileged contemporaries. It's because they've been prepared; the programme is committed to producing leaders of substance who can effect real change.
I understand why this is hard for a lot of companies. I think short-term objectives may be blinding some of them, to an extent. This is not about short-term profits - it's about a long-term strategy. The situation as it is now is simply not sustainable. Let's stop this lip-service to compliance. Instead of making 30 equity appointments, make only ten - but spend the same amount as you would have on 30, to make sure that those ten are developed into leaders of substance who can improve the country in 20 years time. Let's get this right at the basic level. Let's commit to paying it forward, to lifting people up in the best way we can. It will have a multiplying effect: those ten equity appointments that a company trains and mentors properly will each empower another ten leaders. And Western business culture can meet them halfway; don't expect people from such a different background to just 'adapt' without a life skills programme, for example. We could wake up in ten years' time and be amazed at how we've moved forward as a country.
