Published on Linkedin on November 19, 2016
The chairman of Swiss-based luxury-goods company Richemont and South Africa based company Remgro accepted the Sunday Times Top 100 Companies Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his contribution to the country’s economy. In his
thank you address he took time to lecture ANC Dignatories present on the tenets of
Economics 101
‘We have created wealth. By the way Mr President, for all of you civil servants here –
even Minister Gordhan – says, ‘we’ve got to be caring. Don’t make too much money’.
I’ve got news for you. The PIC owns two-and-a-half times the number of shares in
both Richemont and in Remgro that our family owns. Now remember that’s your
pension fund, you may wish to reconsider the ‘caring’ bit.
Our job is to create wealth and to pay people properly, which we’ve done all our lives.
Creating wealth and creating jobs, creates further jobs. We pay tax. We brought back
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tens of billions of Rand in foreign exchange and every year our family companies bring
back more dividends than the rest of the Stock Exchange together. So you do not
expect these ‘narratives’, especially not from the Presidency and his close friends.
So the real question is, ‘why?’ That question you will all have to think about for
yourselves. What is being hidden? Why attack the people instead of debating the
issues?’
I have thought about it sir. The South African ANC Government is currently negotiating
a one trillion Rand nuclear deal with Russia behind closed doors. Could this be the
‘why’ that you seek and know the answer to. The photograph on the left is of an
abandoned Russian nuclear site in Cuba.
Perhaps this is South Africa’s destiny too?
Our issues are unemployment and a terrible education system. It is a disaster. Unless
we fix that, we have no hope.
Yes, Minister Gordhan, I started in 1979 a small business development corporation
and we’ve created 700,000 jobs. This was done for black people living in cities who
did not have the ways and means to build up capital. So I’ve been in small businesses.
We’ve done it since 1979. Been there done that and we’ll help again. But we really
need to define the roles between business and the government and the state because
governments cannot create jobs. The state cannot, otherwise there’d be no
unemployment anywhere in the world.
It’s the private sector that has got to create the jobs and all we need is certainty, rule
of law and transparency.
When there are tenders, they must be public tenders. They must be transparent.
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