AGANGSA LASHED OUT CONFUSED REPORTING

AGANGSA LASHED OUT CONFUSED REPORTING

By BRIAN KAJENGO

The media is reporting that in an address to the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI), African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Gwede Mantashe punted the idea of a new small business ministry be established after the May 7 elections.

Some media reports state that a new ministry is a certainty while other reports suggest it is still a possibility.

“It is typical of this government that their failure to solve a problem becomes a bureaucratic tangle,” says Agang SA party leader Dr Mamphela Ramphele, adding, “Frankly, it is all a case of buying time.”

“After twenty years of failing to foster a sense of entrepreneurship among citizens, the ANC now wakes up because it cannot hide its failures any longer and wants to spend more of taxpayers money on yet another layer of bureaucracy on top of the others they already cannot manage,” she says.

“It was the same with women and children. Unable to protect our women and children from violence and exploitation, they created a ministry that has done absolutely nothing for the last five years,” says Ramphele.

According to Ramphele the governing party is unable to accept that it has failed to deliver services efficiently and effectively, and because of its insistence that it should nevertheless remain in control, both individual and corporate citizens end up receiving inadequate help from a failing government.

“Entrepreneurs need freedom to innovate, unobtrusive government support, and a regulatory environment that welcomes them,” says Ramphele.

“What this government should do, but cannot bring itself to do, precisely because it puts itself ahead of the country and its entrepreneurs, is to get out of their way by reducing red-tape and bureaucracy, crafting simple, effective, and accessible support and financing mechanisms, amend the tax code to encourage investment and the establishment of small businesses, and spend time and resources developing the skills among the population that businesses need if they are to grow. Instead, this government wants again, to run a bigger bureaucratic show to employ more cadres when it can’t even run the show it has,” says Ramphele.