Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-12

MR HINDOE: Thank you, Mr Chairman.  Just one question.  Mr Van Wyk, if you could just help my dilemma.  I'm trying to understand your response that you did not benefit from Apartheid.
 Well, the perception that I have is that when you look at the capital levels of the companies round about the '48'4 '49's and you compare it today, definitely there is - there's been a substantial growth. 
 I would agree that perhaps human resources, yes, definitely there was no benefit there and it is that we lamenting that we did not utilise the potential that we had, but on capital growth I find it difficult to accept it.

MR VAN WYK: Well, I started off, I said that in our document we said that business as a whole, the whole business sector, White and Black, did not benefit.
 What - when the question that is put up if one looks at our members and their position, we say that we as an organisation did not use our structures to the extend that because people were close to Government and there could have been benefits and concessions given.
 That obviously is something we cannot just deny, but we say we don't have any knowledge;  that is not public knowledge.  That is not in the public domain and  ... (intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Van Wyk, can I just help a little here?  I think we've - I mean I agree with you when you say business as a whole, but when we talk Apartheid, we're talking about separate development.  We're talking about racialism in its broadest and most raw sense as well.
 When we talk about business benefitting, we're talking about White business benefitting.  I think that's what we're trying to reconcile here in our understanding when - because not only yourself, but many other groupings have come here and said, you know, business did not benefit.
 Whether it's Mr Rupert or whether it's Mr Rashold or yourself or Old Mutual and on the other side we - the figures speak for themselves.  I think that's what we're trying to understand.

MR VAN WYK: Right, if I can reply to that, I think that if we as a - on those assumptions;  if we had a peaceful transitions with appropriate economic policies, we're in a market orientated system, a balance between caring for the poor, but at the other end taking the discipline of the market.
 Then I believe much more wealth would have been created.  We would have had bigger companies than we have now.  The fact that they grew from '48 to now, they would have grown even more.  That is the one side, but relative if you just take in South Africa, the White business obviously was advantaged to Black business.
 Black business was held back.  They were given all kinds of constraints which kept them away from being fully competitive.  I think that there's a huge lesson for us to be learned from that for the future;  that what we need in this country to really proper and flourish is to unlock all the potential that is available.
 We mustn't hold people back.  We must help everybody to run as fast as he or she can and in that way generate wealth.  We must grow out of our problems.  We can't shrink out of it.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr Van Wyk?  The last question ... (intervention).

MR HINDOE: Chairperson, I feel ... (intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Mr Wynand Malan.

MR HINDOE: I just have two brief questions.  The first one is on the matter that's just been raised;  the fact you used very openly and I think one is moved and cannot be helped but be filled with respect for the manner in which you openly acknowledged the fact that White business and White people in general benefitted from Apartheid and Black people in general were disadvantaged by Apartheid.
 The fact that, unlike the things we were hearing yesterday, there is an open acknowledgement of that, public confession and public apology on that.  One finds that very moving.
 The next step that flows from that is what do your organisation in particular think must be done to address the harm that has been caused by what you are confessing.  What is your attitude, for instance, to a policy of affirmative action in this country? That is my first question.
 My second question is on a submission that was made to the Commission this morning by one person who has testified before us about the flight of capital out of this country in large quantities.  Is your institute aware of this and what is your attitude to it?

MR VAN WYK: Your first question relates to affirmative action.  We have actually dealt with it in our document and we feel that we should have a policy in regards to  affirmative action that everybody in this country can relate to.
 In other words you take as your premise, we must unlock all the potential we can.  Wherever there's a hinderance;  whatever structure there is for people to really grow and prosper, we must try and remove that so that they can all run, because at the end of the day we are being measured by international markets.
 Our products, our services have to compete against products and services of other countries of other societies and there is a market (indistinct) which measures quality, measures on price and we have to compete with that.
 So we must help everybody to be as competitive as they can be and then you see where the biggest backlogs are;  where the biggest resource, the biggest pool of under or unutilized resources of human ability.  We must focus on that to help people that they can really unlock their good - their God-given potential and use their brains.
 You know, this is the old story they say with many of the old workers.  They said, you've paid for a pair of hands and you get the brain for free.  What do you do with it?  You must utilise all the human potential we have in this country with the focus there where the biggest historical backlogs have developed.
 I think that is the policy that each and every person can identify with.  It's not pulling people round.  It's saying we want people to compete on merit, but we help everybody up.
 The second question relates to the flight of capital.  We have had stringent exchange controls in South Africa and people who were found acting in breach of it;  there were all kinds of criminal cases against it.
 We as an organisation have always supported the law.  We say you must be law abiding and part of the lessons we have learned, we say that for us as a society to succeed we must ensure that we as a society remain with respect for the law.
 We had a problem with the laws that were unjust and unfair and - but I think that it is generally accepted that there were many people who took funds out of the country.  I think that is something you must rather ask the Reserve Bank.  They would probably give you better statistics on things of that nature.
 We as an organisation;  that was never our policy.  We always, for some years now, pleaded for the abolition or relaxation of exchange control, because we believed it would help us get a better growth rate in this country which would make us more competitive.
 But we - to the extend that we had rules, we said people had to comply with them.  We only pleaded for the change of the rules of the game.
 If I could just add a further thing?  One of the things we're also doing in our organisation;  that is we've been active reaching out, building bridges, trying to cross the historical divides.
 We have a partnership initiative for instance with NAFCOC and we have been meeting at our "Hoofbestuur"-level, provincial levels down to the "Sakekamer", the local branches of our organisations, because we believe that we must reach out everywhere and build bridges and get people to know one another and in that way a lot of potential will also get unlocked.
 I think together we can do more.  That is the basic philosophy.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Malan?