The head of the supermarket group explains why few businesses are willing to speak out against government, writes Chris Barron

It is a mark of the business community's craven sycophancy that, when Pick n Pay chairman Gareth Ackerman raised his voice against government threats to the media, he was accorded instant hero status by an almost pathetically grateful press and public.

Here, at last, was a business leader with backbone - just when we feared the breed was extinct. What a relief. But perhaps it should be tempered.

Ackerman says he is surprised by the lack of support from his colleagues in the wake of his protest.

"Organised business (in the form of Business Leadership SA) has made a few statements, but companies themselves have not come out."

Cabinet minister Trevor Manuel called South African business leaders "cowards" for not tackling the government more often. Does Ackerman agree?

Not really, no.

"There's a fear in business that there will be some form of retribution from government or from labour or from different quarters if they come out and criticise government.

"I don't think 'coward' is the right word to use. If you look at the reaction when FNB came out a few years ago and the way they were lambasted by government ... as a consequence of that I think business has tended to keep below the parapet rather than allowing themselves to be attacked by government."

That's cowardice, isn't it?

"There are a lot of issues that we as business need to be careful of, because the government has lots of different organs of state they can use to bring pressure to bear, and it could be detrimental to the business or the shareholders."

He agrees that this paints a dismal picture of our democracy.

One organ of government is the Competition Commission, which has been putting retailers through the wringer for alleged price fixing.

It hasn't come up with anything yet but the commission's attentions have cost Ackerman's group heavily in terms of time, money and negative publicity, he says.

"They made a huge big song and dance in the press about retailers who are overpricing and to date they've found nothing. It has cost us millions of rands trying to defend it, and there is no substance to it.

"They asked us for information but didn't know what they were asking for. We sent 74 box files full of data, but they don't understand what they're looking for."

This is the kind of thing the government can do to make life difficult for businesses which speak out of turn, he suggests.

"So one has to be careful."

Isn't he being a bit paranoid?

"Perhaps."

Perhaps not. One has heard of a company being visited by employment equity inspectors soon after making a public fuss about some ill-advised government project.

The company is not Pick n Pay, although Ackerman says he is "irritated" by accusations of racism aimed at companies the employment equity commission feels have not sufficiently "transformed".

It fingered the retail sector as being one of the worst offenders.

"We have a pretty good track record in terms of developing black senior managers and executives."

How many?

"A very small percentage at top level," Ackerman concedes. "Partly because we've always had a policy of promotion from within and we have been an easy target for the head-hunters. They come in and poach a lot of our senior black managers."

The employment equity commission has consistently rubbished this claim.

"Well, of course they do."

Ackerman is impatient with the commission's insistence that businesses reflect the country's demographics at every level.

"My view is South Africa needs to be a meritocracy, the best people to do the best jobs. There needs to be people development but people should not get a job just because they have the right colour skin."

Ackerman's father, Raymond, who recently handed over the reins of his company to his eldest son, stood up to the apartheid government occasionally and made sure he got maximum PR points for it every time.

Ackerman jnr's public protest about the media bill and tribunal may have been courageous but it was also good PR, wasn't it?

"It wasn't done for PR reasons," he insists. "I had no idea the response would be what it was."

Quietly spoken, almost self-deprecating, Ackerman, 52, says his style is not the same as his father's.

"I very much prefer to be in the background. I don't ... do you see my picture on the walls?"

No, indeed. In fact his office is surprisingly spartan. Not a picture of him or anyone else in sight.

How much time does he spend in it? His R3-million chairman's fee has been criticised by shareholders as excessive, given that as a non-executive chairman this is not a full-time job.

It is not how much time he spends in the office that matters, he says. It's the fact that he is on call 24/7.

His dad, who was after all the executive chairman, was far more hands on. But Ackerman has already shown that when there are tough calls to make, he makes them.

He took the decision to leave Australia after his father had fudged it for years.

Was it a strategic blunder to be there at all?

"Many people have said that," Ackerman says.

Pick n Pay was muscled out by bigger players using their buying bulk to squeeze out smaller ones, he says.

Taste of their own medicine?

"Oh, come on. We don't do that here."

His public opposition to government's media plans was the second time in his short reign as chairman that Ackerman has spoken out.

A month ago he warned that the government's land reform programme was jeopardising the country's food security.

"Its focus has been to get land into the hands of black people, not to get production into the hands of black people," Ackerman says.

"The consequence is that very large quantities of productive farm land, a lot of that in prime agricultural areas, have been moved to communities or people who actually can't farm it for a number of reasons, such as lack of capital and skills.

"We used to be self-sufficient in food, now we're importing. We used to export bananas, now we import bananas from Mozambique."

Adding to the burden of developing farmers is the government's failure to invest in the municipal market system, he says.

The result is "most big retailers increasingly source directly from farmers, which squeezes out the smaller farmers".

Twenty years ago Pick n Pay bought 85% of its fresh produce from municipal fresh-produce markets. "Today if it's 5% it's a lot," he says.

If the government is serious about encouraging emerging farmers, this is another area where it can help.

Ackerman may speak quietly, but he does speak out.

Many much louder business leaders don't.