Comments by Nedbank chairman Reuel Khoza that the moral quotient of South Africa's political leadership was “degenerating” reflected uncertainty about the government's policy direction, JSE chief executive officer Nicky Newton-King said on Friday.
Newton-King told the Cape Town Press Club that investors wanted certainty from markets and that South Africa's policy position was unclear.
“All of these comments reflect the uncertainty,” Newton-King said.
“I have a choice of where do I invest a billion - in South Africa or Australia... I can't put capital at risk if I don't know what the policy direction is.”
“We have to make up our minds what we want to be.”
Khoza said the country’s “strange breed” of leadership needed to adhere to the institutions that underpinned democracy.
“Our political leadership’s moral quotient is degenerating and we are fast losing the checks and balances that are necessary to prevent a recurrence of the past,” he said.
SACP leader Blade Nzimande attributed Khoza's anger to “the crisis of neo-liberalism” affecting the financial sector.
Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa also accused Khoza of belittling those who voted for the ANC as stupid.
Newton-King said the “haves and the have-nots” were increasingly linked to doing business in South Africa.
“Companies have to stop and think how they do business,” she said.
“We need to think about what has to change for the gini coefficient (a measure of income inequality) to shrink.”
South Africa however, remained an attractive destination because investors could move their money in and out of the country as they liked.
The JSE was also the world's best regulated market.
Recently the chief executive of Oando, Nigeria's largest non-government oil company, chose to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange because he wanted to attach the company to the bourse's high governance standards.
Newton-King said Bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) would become a much larger part of South Africa's future.
She said however that the country had to attract more business from these countries, which are expected to have around 40 percent of the world's wealth by 2020. - Sapa