Our economy is in trouble

Just a week after  we debated the DA motion on the jobs crisis I saw a Facebook post by economist Mike Schussler which really scared me.

I shared a platform with Mike a few weeks back at The Wanderers in Joburg where we aired our thoughts on the same theme - the tanking economy and what we must do to turn the ship around.

But it was the comments on Mike's post that I found most troubling, coming from business owners at the coal face of our economy. You can read them below.

Ramaphoria is a chimera which has long disappeared and people must get used to the fact that we are in for a few rocky years until our political leaders realise we can no longer run a modern economy that is captured by socialist, racial nationalist and statist thinking.

Segments of the DA must also wake up and see that any form of BEE is taking this country in the wrong direction. Policy must be de-racialised and focus on ameliorating disadvantage by a laser-like obsession with investment and growth. Why use race as a proxy for disadvantage when you can measure the real thing?

We must reduce the cost of doing business wherever possible to make it easier for small companies to survive and grow. Current DA policy would exempt businesses turning over less than R30 million from BEE and certain labour regulations. This is a good start but we should go further and replace BEE with EED - Economic Empowerment for the Disadvantaged, conceived by the Institute of Race Relations. You can read about it here.

   

   

DA motion on the economy - text of my speech and YouTube video

Yesterday evening I took part in the DA motion on the economy with my colleagues Geordin Hill-Lewis, Angle Khanyile and Mbulelo Bara. My focus was on small business and the experience of the Western Cape in reducing red tape.

You can read my speech below or watch it on YouTube.

House Chairperson

The quickest way to uncover a political party’s attitude to the role of small business in the economy and solving the jobs crisis is to do a word search of their manifesto.

In the DA’s manifesto, launched on Saturday, you will find 39 references to small business, not just in the section on small business but throughout the document. In the ANC’s manifesto, small business gets 13 mentions and in the EFF’s, only 3.

Committee report on my Ombud Service Bill includes the DA's minority report

Yesterday our portfolio committee met to consider the report on the motion of undesirability of my Small Enterprises Ombud Service Bill. 

At our last meeting of 2018, we had a long discussion about whether the DA, in my name, could submit a separate minority report and we eventually agreed that it would, instead, be included in the main report.

The committee therefore adopted the report unanimously and it was announced in today's ATC - see pics. We should have an opportunity to present it to the National Assembly before the Fifth Parliament rises on 20th March.

You can read my minority report after the main report below. This is one of the first times the DA has succeeded in getting a minority report incorporated into a committee report. My colleagues Manny de Freitas and Chris Hunsinger are taking the Transport Committee to court to force it to include their minority report on the Road Accident Benefit Scheme Bill into its main report. It is an excellent piece of work and congratulations go particularly to Chris for this.

REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT ON THE MOTION OF UNDESIRABILITY OF THE SMALL ENTERPRISES OMBUD SERVICE BILL [B 14-2018], dated 24 October 2018

1.         Introduction and referral of the Bill

The Portfolio Committee on Small Business Development (“the Committee”) received referral papers from Announcements, Tabling and Committee Report (ATC) of Friday, 25 May 2018 which was the Small Enterprises Ombud Service Bill [B14 – 2018]. The Bill had been introduced in the National Assembly, proposed as a section 75 and was published in the Government Gazette Number 41623 of 10 May 2018.  

Inside Out Perspective: talk on SA's economy and job creation

Last Thursday evening I shared a platform at the Wanderers golf club with economist Mike Schussler and DA colleague Khume Ramulifho on the topic of jobs. The event was the second in a series organised by Dalu Cele, a councillor in the City of Joburg, aimed at giving the public perspectives on current issues from the outside (a guest speaker) and inside (two DA public representatives).

You can read my speech below.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, it’s a pleasure to see you all here at the second Inside Out event organised by my colleagues Dalu Cele and Nicci Rahn.

I want to begin by offering a few thoughts on where political philosophy and ideology fit into our discourse on the economy and job creation.

Political philosophy and ideology have become very unfashionable words in South Africa. They have been supplanted by words such as vision, mission and brand identity, in a world where spin doctors like Lynton Crosby and faceless officials have come to dominate our language.

But we need to understand the political philosophies that underlie the main actors in South Africa’s polity to understand how economic policies flowing from them impact our daily lives.

The ANC, in government for close on 25 years, is fundamentally a socialist party with leanings towards Marxist Leninism.

This dates to the Freedom Charter but has greater expression in the National Democratic Revolution which is the driving force of ANC ideology. In the NDR, the state is the main actor in society and the economy.

Opinion piece in Business Live - why the Department of Small Business Development is still floundering

Today's edition of Business Live published my opinion piece which sums up why the Department of Small Business Development has failed SA.

You can read it here or the text version below.

These pages have carried a running commentary on the performance of the Department of Small Business Development since its proclamation in July 2014. Heralded by special interest groups as an overdue and bold move to boost government procurement from black-owned SMEs, derided by anti-interventionist types as evidence of more government bloat, it has been a punching bag in our politico-economic dialogue ever since.

Most recently, special advisor to Minister Lindiwe Zulu, Thami Mazwai, (“A mischievous attack”, 31^st January) rebutted a call by the Small Business’s Initiative’s Bernard Swanepoel to do away with the department and said Parliament’s portfolio committee “have not questioned the need for the department”. Only the ANC members support its continued existence, with most opposition MPs including the DA calling for its closure.

Motion without notice read in the National Assembly on the effects of uncontrolled immigration to SA

National AssemblyMotion Without Notice

Internal Ref Number:	067	-	2018
Date:	29.11.2018
Subject:	Securing our Borders

I hereby move, on behalf of the Democratic Alliance, that this House:

1.      notes that the former Minister in the Presidency, Mr. Jeff Radebe, reported to Parliament's Ad Hoc Committee Probing Violence Against Foreign Nationals in November 2015, that the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration estimated that there were between five (5) and six (6) million documented and undocumented foreign nationals in South Africa, or 10% of the population;

2.      further notes that studies by the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation found that up to 75% of spaza shops in Delft in Cape Town and Ivory Park in Johannesburg were owned or run by foreign nationals;

3.      recognises that the retail sector in our townships and rural areas has been dramatically affected as a result, leading to anger and resentment among former South African spaza shop owners; 

4.      acknowledges the periodic outbreaks of violence against foreign nationals since 2008 resulting from this anger, most recently in Soweto in August this year;

5.      and calls upon Government to accelerate the plan of action outlined in the Ad Hoc Committee's final report which includes securing our borders, professionalising our police service and improving access to jobs and small business development, so that long term solutions can be found that eliminate outbreaks of violence and lead to a thriving locally owned retail sector once again.

I so move.

T CHANCE MP

Declaration in the National Assembly on Vote 31 of the budget adjustments

 Declaration on Vote 31 of Votes and Schedules 
28^th November 2018

Small Business Development

South Africa and this House have heard the ANC speak ad nauseam about the central role small businesses play, or should play, in our economy.

But the plain fact is, with economic growth of less than 1% our economy and the fortunes of small business are going backwards, not forwards.

This department is but a blip on the radar of small businesses struggling to survive a deluge of red tape, inaccessible government support and an unfriendly business environment.

It is totally irrelevant to the vast majority of them. With the result that it is incapable of making a dent in the 9,7 million unemployment queue.

Small businesses have the potential to create millions of jobs in South Africa but this department has shown little capacity to be the driver of government initiatives to make this happen.

The DA rejects this budget adjustment.