JOHANNESBURG - The Black Business Council (BBC) is hopeful that a number of its proposals at the organisation's policy conference earlier this year will get the nod at the ongoing national conference at Nasrec, according to general secretary George Sebulela.
Sebulela said these included the scrapping of the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, quicker transformation in the financial services sector and the establishment of a bank for black industrialists.
He said BBC wanted the government to ensure the allocation of banking licences to black companies.
Sebulela said that the establishment of a bank specifically for the black industrialist programme was key.
“At the moment you go to the IDC (Industrial Development Corporation) and they send you to the PIC (Public Investment Corporation).
"Then the PIC will tell you that it is not part of their mandate.
“We need a black industrialist bank that will have its own investment committee,” he said.
Yesterday, ANC delegates were locked in sessions to thrash out the organisation's policies for the next five years.
These included a number of economic policies that came up at the policy conference earlier this year.
Among others, the ANC at that conference tabled policies about the reduction of unemployment, land reform, raising the level of investment, activating small businesses and co-operatives and dismantling monopoly practices.
Analyst Sipho Seepe yesterday proposed a hybrid approach to radical economic transformation.
“There are two perceptions of radical economic transformation. There is a minimalist approach, which President Zuma presented, which is a disruption of a pattern of control, management and ownership.
“It says we are going to use state power to make sure that we use those levers of the state to disrupt that,” he said.
Seepe said that approach could be pursued through state procurement, legislation, the budget and so on.
“That you can do in a constitutional democracy. In fact, the ANC should have done this a long time ago,” he said.
Disruption
The second approach, he said, was driven by the SACP and advocated disruption of the structure of the economy and called for the reversal of the long-standing trend of exporting raw materials with little or no beneficiation or localisation.
“If one were to expect anything from this conference, it will be how to marry the version that advocates the disruption of the economy and one that seeks to work within a constitutional democracy.
“That is possible. But whether they will have time to talk about that is something else, because now they are concerned about the unity of the organisation,” he said.
Seepe was highly critical of ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plans to revive the economy, stressing that radical economic transformation was not a policy of any faction within the ANC.
“It belongs to the ANC. But when Ramaphosa came up with the New Deal, he made the right noises that the business world wanted to hear, which is not different from the liberal ideology of the DA.
“He did that to win favour with his main backers.
"Now that he is in the driving seat, it is going to be clear that he cannot deliver. He speaks in a manner that does not offend,” he said.