"Tea and biscuits will definitely not do it," says Khanyisile Kweyama, the CEO of the country's biggest business organisation, Business Unity South Africa (Busa), when asked if last week's state of the nation address would avert a credit rating downgrade.President Jacob Zuma said the government would reduce the crippling national debt by cutting down on overseas travel and free food.When Busa members worked around the clock to produce recommendations of what he should say to impress the international ratings agencies, rationing the snacks was not top of mind.Rationalising state agencies was."This was definitely an ask from big business," says Kweyama.She says it had better be addressed in detail by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in this week's budget speech or the country will face the consequences."We didn't expect that kind of detail from the state of the nation address, but it's going to have to come from the finance minister," she says.The ratings agencies will want numbers, percentages and time frames."We expect the minister to be very specific and list the number of state agencies they will cut. Or, failing that, a list of the areas they are going to look into, such as transport."The time for generalised expressions of intent is past, she says. Gordhan will need to quantify the savings expected from rationalisation."Tell us how many billions we are going to see fall off in terms of that."Should he go for the jugular and announce the privatisation of SAA?"We don't have a view yet on privatising SAA. But we have a view on drastic changes at SAA. We have said that there must be more professional private sector involvement at all our state-owned enterprises, including SAA."She says Busa is willing to identify tried-and-tested executives from the private sector with specific industry experience who would bring major value - on condition there is a commitment that the shareholder, in other words the government, will not interfere.They would have to be guided by the same corporate governance principles that apply in the private sector."In the same way we run private sector boards where the CEO has certain responsibilities, and a nonexecutive chairman is not an executive chairman," she says, in clear reference to SAA nonexecutive chairwoman Dudu Myeni, who has been acting as executive chairwoman."The lines of responsibility should be very clear."None of this is new, of course. It's no good saying: 'These holes were caused by government, these holes were caused by business.' The boat is sinking. Even in his first innings as finance minister, Gordhan frequently said it was the objective of the government to professionalise state-owned enterprises, cut costs and achieve a higher level of efficiency.Now this objective needs to be carried through, Kweyama says. Ratings agencies are looking for more than easy promises."Definitely, action is required. But at the same time agencies are looking for sustainable solutions. With definite timelines."Busa is playing a very visible role now, with its president, Jabu Mabuza, co-chairing a task team with the finance minister, and other members heading various emergency working groups. But isn't it all a bit late?"It's no good arguing that it's too late," says Kweyama, a former executive director of Anglo American South Africa who was seconded to Busa last year."It can never be too late. We can only say we are where we are, and this is what we need to do to move forward."She rejects the charge that organised business has been ineffective in preventing ruinous government policies that have led the country to the edge of the cliff.It has been active in the presidential working group that has met regularly for three years, she says, and "we have not been sitting back as mere recipients".But she concedes in retrospect that its participation has not been effective in preventing South Africa's slide to a sub-investment rating.She thinks the presidential working group may have been too focused on the long term while ignoring the threat of an imminent downgrade."It was saying: 'In the next four years or the next five years.' But where we are, it required a much faster intervention."Taking a long-term view was probably not enough. There should have been some short-term, as well as medium- and long-term, objectives coming out of that forum."Is she saying that organised business underestimated the possibility of the country being downgraded to junk?"If you were a fly on the wall at Busa's strategic planning sessions you would know that No1 on the agenda every year has been the risk of a downgrade."So why didn't it do something more proactive and aggressive to avert it?"It's not entirely in our power to prevent it from happening. There have been plenty of initiatives by our member companies."Shouldn't Busa have been more assertive?"You don't believe that three meetings in four weeks and setting up task teams is assertive enough?"Too late?"It will start setting us on the right course."Why leave the crisis meetings and task teams and working groups to the last possible moment?"We probably believed our initiatives would keep us [business and government] focused on averting a downgrade. But clearly they didn't."But it's too late for finger-pointing, she says."It's no good saying: 'These holes were caused by government, these holes were caused by business.' The boat is sinking. Never mind which holes are causing it to sink."At least now there has been a recognition from the government and business that things cannot stay as they are."The fact that there was 'Let's have a meeting, let's have interventions, let's have task teams' is a recognition of the need for drastic intervention and for things to be done differently," she says."We can't continue to do things the same way and expect a different outcome."Kweyama says she has lost count of the kilometres she has driven between Johannesburg and Pretoria for meetings with government ministers."We do it all the time. The fact we don't publicise it doesn't mean we're not doing it."Business leaders publicise it all right. They just haven't been able to show many results if the state of the economy is anything to go by.There have been victories, she says, claiming the government's climb down on tourism visa regulations as one."We were sitting in minister [Malusi] Gigaba's office pounding at him."If Busa was in such regular and close contact with government policymakers as she says, then how could something so destructive of the economy have been allowed to happen in the first place?"Maybe our focus was on other things."Such as the issue of university fees, she says.Well, again, a fat lot of good that seems to have done?She says that three years ago business and the government set up the National Education Collaboration Trust, led by Sizwe Nxasana, then the head of FirstRand, who went on to become head of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme."We might not have anticipated what students would be saying, but no one could accuse us of sitting on our laurels either."She contends that organised business has been so involved in long- term goals that it has not focused enough on immediate threats such as the looming downgrade."Business organisations are constantly having to reinvent themselves, and we just have to keep on our toes so that we make the necessary interventions in a timeous manner."We believed the initiatives we were involved in were working, but clearly they were not fast enough or they were not firm enough."..