Owning up to the trust deficit - Letter published in Business Day 7th July 2014

Click here to go to the BDLive website or read the letter below.

Thursday’s Business Day carried an article by Paul Vecchiatto on the exchanges between me and members of the Portfolio Committee on Small Business Development (ANC rejects claim it is ‘against business’, 3 July).

What it omits to mention were the further denials by some ANC members of the Committee of my claim that a trust deficit exists between government and business, not to mention labour. I referred to the trust deficit because I thought this was something we could all agree on.

In his speech introducing the NDP to Parliament on August 15th 2012 Trevor Manuel said: "The plan also identifies a deficit in trust between business, labour and government that needs to be reversed if we are to build this economy."

Can you get anything more explicit than that?

On July 1^st it was reported Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene referred to the trust deficit at a Thomson Reuters Economist of the Year event in Sandton in relation to obstacles to implementing the NDP:   “Somebody said that we actually have a triple deficit: the current-account deficit, the fiscal deficit and the trust deficit”.

Clearly the message has not got through to all the cadres.

My comments were not cheap political point scoring, as Deputy Minister Thabethe tried to impugn. They were intended as a caution that before we can create the millions of new enterprises and jobs our economy needs we must overcome the trust deficit that undoubtedly exists.

Members of the Small Business Development Portfolio Committee must wake up and face reality - if we can't do this in Parliament where can we?