In the early 1980s, he established a scenario planning function in Anglo with teams in London and Johannesburg. Two members were Pierre Wack and Ted Newland who previously headed up the scenario planning department at Royal Dutch Shell and then acted as consultants to Anglo for over a decade. Using material from these teams, Mr. Sunter put together a presentation entitled 'The World and South Africa in the 1990s' which became very popular in South Africa in the mid-1980s. In it, two scenarios were offered for South Africa: the 'High Road' of negotiation leading to a political settlement and the 'Low Road' of confrontation leading to a civil war and a wasteland. South Africa took the High Road. Two highlights for Clem were a presentation to FW de Klerk and the Cabinet in 1986 and a visit to Nelson Mandela in prison to discuss the future just before his release. Since 1987, he has authored 17 books some of which have been bestsellers. His other main interests are seeking to mobilise the private sector in the war against HIV/AIDS and create a new generation of entrepreneurs in South Africa.
He was recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Cape Town for his work in the field of scenario planning. He was also voted by leading South African CEOs as the speaker who has made the most significant contribution to, and impact on, best practice and business in South Africa. He has given scenario presentations in Europe, India, Singapore, Britain, Australia and various African countries. He has lectured at the Harvard Business School in Boston and at the Central Party School in Beijing.
December 17, 2016
That was the week that was in South Africa, to quote the title of an old British comedy series. Three finance ministers in one week must be a record of some kind and certainly proves that the future is unpredictable and beyond your control. Sometimes there are no flags to indicate an imminent drama and even a fox is taken by surprise.
One of my recent articles for this website was entitled: The perfect storm: why waste it? It went through all the red flags fluttering in the breeze concerning the global economy and South Africa. Now, all of our own making, the breeze is turning into a hurricane with an epicentre not far off our shores.
So rather than write yet another negative article about the current situation, I want to stress the idea that I have been advocating in public for the last few years. We need an Economic Codesa to set our economy on a new path just like the political ones did in creating a new democracy in the early 1990s.
We achieved political freedom without economic freedom and that is a very dangerous mixture, particularly at a time of low economic growth.
We never completed the job and we still have economic apartheid dividing the haves from the have-nots. In addition, we have a national unemployment rate of around 25% which is equal to the record figure in America at the time of the Great Depression in the 1930s.
No presidential council of business advisers meeting privately behind closed doors with government ministers is going to resolve the basic problem we have of widespread exclusion from the formal economy suffered by township and rural entrepreneurs.
We need to start creating an inclusive economy right now that encourages widespread participation in the wealth creation process.
I do not mean by this an old-fashioned socialist economy driven from the centre, but I do mean a centrally conceived and agreed platform which allows the entrepreneurial spirit to flourish. I guess the best way to express my wish is that the objective of an Economic Codesa must be to construct a level playing field instead of the highly slanted one we have now.
I also totally agree with Julius Malema when he talked in the UK at my old university about employee share ownership programmes so that workers too - rather than a few politically connected individuals - can share in the capital gains of business.
I even wrote a column in February 2012 expressing the view that Esops, as these programmes are known, are top of the pops. If it works in the UK with the John Lewis chain of upmarket department stores, it can be made to work here just as effectively.
None of this is easy to achieve and it requires a big-bang event with plenty of fanfare and media coverage. Indeed, it should be beamed live on one television channel.