Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-13

<UNKNOWN>: Mr Chairperson, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, out of occasion such as this meetings like this, one has to grow through these experiences and look to the future.
 For business it means that we have to be able to operate in an environment where the world is becoming smaller and more competitive and in the same time we have to operate in an environment which fully - and in a way, which fully supports the non-racial and democratic principles of the new South Africa to which we all so fully subscribe.
 But when one looks to the future one cannot lose sight of the past, because the one flows from the other and it's certainly true the National Party's Governments, Apartheid policy, was an effect, a mass affirmative action for the Whites in South Africa.
 That's something which Bobby had eluded to and which had an obvious flow on to meaning that the Black people in South Africa were disadvantaged by the activities of this Government policy.
 The Government had a further policy which was not so all-embracing and that was to support, in a business sense, its friends in supporters and this one saw very much in the years of the Apartheid regime.
 Anglo was the - stood out during these times and the National Government of the time looked on as far from friendly and there were very many hostile attacks, both on Anglo and on its chairman, my father, first, Gavin really after him and more recently Julian Ogilvy Thompson, who were portrayed as being unpatriotic and anti-South African and there's evidence of this in the Hough(?) Commission which the Government set in place in 1964.
 Then in the direct business sense in the efforts, successful efforts that the Government of the time made to frustrate Anglo being able to buy Samancor when it was privatised.
 So there was an effect from both the Apartheid policies and Government's - the then Government's business policies.
 Certainly, as Bobby has said, if the democratic and non-racial South Africa of today had been put in place in 1960, the Anglo we see today would be a very different company to what it is.
 It would certainly be more focused on mining, because that is our base, but in relation to what we're talking about today, it is my belief that it would - that the racial mixture of employees at the Anglo American Corporation would very much more reflect today the demographics of the country.
 But sadly these changes only came in place in the '90's.  With hind sight it's quite clear that we at Anglo did not do everything we could have or should have during those periods and as Julian has said, for that we must express our apologies and our remorse.
 However, what we must now be certain of, is that we learn from our mistakes of the past and that we don't make them again in the future.  Certainly during the Apartheid decades hundreds of thousands of lives were wasted and the human dignity, talent, wisdom and energy of tens of millions of South Africans denied.
 The social, political and also economising costs imposed by the Apartheid politics are quite literally incalculable.
 Yet, of all South Africans, including business and labour, can learn those lessons and affirm never again, perhaps some value may yet be redeemed.
 When we look forward, Anglo looks forward with confidence to the new millennium.  We in our company in a democratic country, part of the community of nations or the Government whose following sensible economic policies and it is our belief that even as we had not been able to fulfil some of our words of the past, in the new South Africa, we will be able to fulfil those words more easily and with greater determination and that we commit ourselves to.
 We also believe that we will now be able to fulfil those words my grandfather used when he founded the Anglo American Corporation.  To earn profits, but to earn them in such a way as to make a real and permanent contribution to the well being of all the people and to the development of Southern Africa.  Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Dr Ally?

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you.  Thank you very much for that submission.  I'm going to put some questions to you which flowed out of submissions by other groups, organisation and COSATU particularly, because I think that it's important that we have you to respond, because some are very strong accusations.
 But before that, just one or two general questions.  Bobby, you speak about the 1960's as a period during which if there was not Apartheid, it was possible that the country would have experience phenomenal growth, growth rates which you say (indistinct) to what Brazil experienced.
 I'm sure that you are aware that the 1960's was a period of the worst repression.  The Sharpeville massacres and the banning or organisations and that lead to a massive outflow of capital from the country and the Nationalist Government then was in a very vulnerable position, a very weak position.  
 Yet there's the charge that if it was not for the role that Anglo American played in the 1960's, the period that you say if there wasn't Apartheid, the economy would have grown phenomenally;  that Anglo actually made a deal with the Engelhart Corporation of the United States and the effect of that deal was for foreign capital to flow back into the country through a group like the Engelhart Corporation which had a lot of credibility and that other funds followed.
 If it was not for the role of Anglo during that period when the Apartheid State was so vulnerable, change may have come a lot sooner.  How would you respond to that kind of charge?

<UNKNOWN>: I don't think there was any (indistinct) deal with the Engelhart Corporation to bring money into the country.  It is the case that as I remember that Mr Engelhart formed a company which is now known as American South African, it may have been called something else then.
 It may have been a South African investment company and they were interested in buying gold shares and they bough a number of gold shares, some from us and some from other corporations in the country.
 The - I can't remember the exact figure, what this was - we could easily look this up and let you have it, but in my recollection it was something in the order of 10 million dollars which of course was more money then than it is today.
 But I don't - there was no other major deal that brought money into the country that we were involved in.  It was the Engelhart group that I can recall.

RUSSELL ALLY: The allegation was not so much that there were other deals necessary, but that this action in itself, by the Engelhart Corporation showing that they had confidence to invest in South African and in particularly a deal with Anglo, after a serious out flow of capital because of the political situation, helped to bring other foreign investors.
 That if Anglo had perhaps acted differently at that point, then this growth that could have taken place without Apartheid may have come sooner.  That's the charge.  Not necessarily that Anglo did more deals.

<UNKNOWN>: I'm not sure if I entirely follow that.  I mean we did sell some shares to this company which was formed by Mr Engelhart.  It wasn't actually the Engelhart Corporation and we took those funds and invested them in other things in South Africa.
 I can't give you an assessment of what effect that had on other foreign investors at the time.