Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-12

JOHAN RUPERT: Thank you, Chairperson.  Chairperson, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the invitation that you've given us to make a submission.
 In the past the previous Government did not take much notice of our views or criticisms.  Up to listening to some of the submissions yesterday and this morning, but especially yesterday, we're going to make a slightly different presentation.
 However, I felt that there was clearly such - still such a sad lack of communication that perhaps we needed to speak from the heart a little bit and so I wrote this last night and therefore this is a summary in speaking to the submission.
 I think we must start with the role of private sector in society.  Now that will always be a heated debate and I do not think 20 minutes or 20 hours or 20 days will suffice, but this role of the private sector is even more pertinent if business is perceived to be operating in an unjust society as we've clearly been doing during the period under review and before.
 Now, a public company like ours has a great number of stake holders.  We have shareholders, we have employees, colleagues, we have suppliers, clients and communities or the society that we operate in.
 Finally, you've a got a most unwanted partner, the tax man which represents the Government that takes 40 percent of whatever your economic activity can positively contribute, but does not share in the down side.
 Now, assuming that we operated in normal society, how would we have been judged by our stake holders?  Our suppliers and clients have always been treated fairly and every reason to believe that we've lived up to their expectations.
 We believe that we've treated our employees loyally and fairly.  We certainly did not do enough affirmative action.  It is difficult if you are in a company where the staff turnover is far less than two percent and especially if you're under attack and your number constantly diminishing.
 What do you do?  Do you appoint somebody above somebody that's had 20 years service or not, but I fully admit that we've not done enough. 
 We believe that we have spent enough time and money on training.  The fact that we could during a problematic period in one of our Berlin factories take 30 South Africans that roughly represented by coincidence the racial balance of our country and that we could increase the productivity in the German plant in six weeks by over ten percent, I think speaks highly of the level of training and the commitment that we've had to that.
 Our current minimum salary package in the Rembrandt group is over R3600,00 monthly and that is for a cleaner in the factory.  
 Our shareholders have also done well, but I don't think you're interested in that.  Over the years they've earned period returns on their investments.
 Now, we've tried to be good corporate citizens wherever we operate in the world.  We've tried to put something back into society in South Africa.  We've felt that we should be judges finally by what you put back into society and not what you take out.
 We've initiated and funded projects throughout the country.  The tax man has also benefitted greatly.  Over the last seven years we've contributed well over ten billion rand to the fiscus.
 Furthermore, the original one point five million that my predecessors invested abroad in 1955 has yielded a nett inflow of billions of rands back into this country.  We are a South African company, the shares are held in South Africa.  We are not some multi-national.
 Yes, we have subsidiaries and we have companies abroad, but the shares are held by South Africa by pension funds, by life offices.
 This was not achieved by any exports of South African raw materials or finished goods.  In other words, we did not build this company abroad of the quote unquote Black sweat of Black workers, unionised workers in hostels.
 This money went abroad, people went abroad and worked very hard.  The value of this investment held by South African residents is today in excess of 25 billion rand.
 By the way, for many years this exceeded the country's golden foreign exchange reserves.  I'm immensely proud of those achievements.  It shows what could be achieved by a few people from the Southern tip of Africa who believed in miracles and set out to make them happen.
 However, for over 40 years in South Africa, we've operated in an unjust society.  I think the first question we must ask is, did the private sector benefit from this unjust and inhumane system of social engineering.
 I think that's a (indistinct) point.  I'm not going to debate it.  I think that's a debate that can be held over weeks.  Certainly if that had to be the case, it is very interesting that we had the totally unique situation where business in South Africa was still a left of Government.
 Now, maybe not far enough to the left.  Certainly, retrospectively, it wasn't too far, but I cannot recall of a single Government abroad in every bit of economic and political history that I've read;  that I had to contend with businessmen that actually criticised them from the left.
 Now, within the private sector Whites were absolutely advantaged at the cost of Blacks.  I must say I first came across this when I came to live in Johannesburg in the early '80's and I found and I started right here in the Carlton Centre a small little joint venture with a Black friend which was a Black hairdressing salon that later along grew into a hair care business.
 Firstly the group areas act prohibited to us, but they in the end, because of the partnership I had a problem they couldn't take us to court.  But the interesting phenomena that happened is the number of Black friends that came with superb business ideas that had no access to capital.
 You must remember coming from the Cape and then living in New York, I didn't appreciate the problems.  One had a feeling and one knew, but the day to day problems one did not appreciate.  People had great ideas, they had the talent, they had the skills, they wanted to work, but they were denied access to capital.
 They weren't allowed the most basic which is private land ownership, home ownership.  How do you build capital, Chair, without having any movable asset in an area which people will lend against?  That caused me and later on the group to start the SPVC.
 I don't agree with everything that Prof Terblanche says, but the fact that Whites have been advantaged within the private sector at the - is undeniable.  In specific cases certain companies and individuals certainly did benefit.
 I think the question that I'd like to address is, did our company benefit from Apartheid.  I'll try to give you a brief overview of Rembrandt's role during these troubled times.  
 Now, Rembrandt was founded by Afrikaners and with Afrikaner support.  Quite frankly, nobody else would invest.  So, it basically was the wine farmers in the Western Cape that had the only assets.  Over the life of the company we've had only two chief executive officers.  It's well known and I will address some of the statements made in the recent past that both my father and I have been and were outspoken opponents of Apartheid.
 We viewed the system as an immoral and oppressive attempt at social engineering.  Now, with the advent of Apartheid, I wasn't born yet, but especially the Afrikaner had a couple of simple choices.  One either agreed, or you emigrated, or you tried to oppose the system from the inside.
 Now, my for-father arrived here in 1662 and my family and I have always considered ourselves as Africans and proudly so.  So, we chose the latter option;  to stay and to oppose the system from the inside, using what N P van Wyk Louw described as "lojale verset".
 Now, that's - I do not know, Wynand, how you translate that.

MR MALAN: Loyal resistance.