No time to celebrate as work to be done after Ramaphosa’s election: BLSA

There was no time to celebrate the election of Cyril Ramaphosa as president of the country because there were critical areas that the country needed attending to‚ Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) said on Thursday.

The organisation welcomed the election of Ramaphosa following the resignation of Jacob Zuma. “BLSA believes the election of a new president this afternoon represents a fresh opportunity to focus on the urgent task of growing the economy and putting our people into jobs in order to address the key challenges of poverty‚ inequality and unemployment especially among our youth.”

BLSA CEO Bonang Mohale called on the new administration to urgently focus on a few critical areas.

“Some public services are cases worse now than they were in 1994. The South African Revenue Service and the National Prosecuting Authority used to be our pride and joy‚ but now they are captured‚” Mohale said.

He said the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) were bankrupt.

“We need to address the leadership‚ capital structure and governance issues gripping these SOEs.

“Now that we have Mr Zuma out of the way‚ and the terms of reference and regulations promulgated‚ enabling the Zondo Commission of Inquiry to be functional‚ we need it to be adequately resourced to begin its work of investigating state capture against key figures in the ANC’s senior leadership and in Mr Zuma’s cabinet.”

Mohale said his organisation stood ready to present its proposal on an emergency socio-economic recovery plan.

“In business‚ the incoming administration‚ hopefully free of dead wood‚ incompetence and those facing corruption allegations‚ will find a willing and capable partner to help pull back our country from the brink of collapse‚” Mohale said.