Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-13

MR SAVAGE: Thank you, Chairperson, members of the Commission, once again for this opportunity to present the Tongaat-Hulett group submission to the TRC.
 Before I have done the introductions and also Dr Randera, the detail back ground information concerning the company has been given to members of the Commission at the time of the submission.
 So, I don't intend spending much time on the company's business here, other than to say very briefly it is involved in seven basic industries of sugar, building materials, foods, aluminium, starch and glucose, textiles and property.  So, it's a wildly diverse supply group.  All the manufacturing divisions are subject to international competition and exports are a major component of the business.
 The group is currently one of the leading long term investors in South Africa.  We are committed to South Africa and we're confident in the future of South Africa and in this regard we have recently committed more than three billion rands in the installation of new production facilities.  That's in fixed assets.
 The group employees more than 20 000 people in South African and over 10 000 people in Zimbabwe.  It also has interest in Mozambique.  Trade unions are well established and the company currently has 43 formally recognition agreements with 19 unions.
 So, it's a company that has width and depth.  Moving now to the submission itself.  It is essentially the product of work done recently by a committee of which I was chairman.  The committee comprised 18 people with a wide range of responsibilities and experience within the group and included some of the group's top Black executives.
 Resource was also made to retired managers and records of public speeches made by executives.  I should say that the exercise itself, members of the Committee, was not without emotion.  In fact it was an emotional experience and it ended up being both a (indistinct) and team strengthening exercise.
 Chairperson, the group believes that it is not - it has not been responsible for any gross violations of human rights as defined in terms of the TRC act.  There were, however, isolated instances of ill treatment of employees, for example by individual supervisors.
 There were also instances in the past 30 years were management was guilty of condoning discrimination and discomfort through for example, application of Apartheid's job reservation and the imposition of separate amenities.
 My own experience has been that in each case where any unfair incident was brought to the attention of group executives, corrective action was taken.  Whites were fired due to the ill treatment of Blacks.
 So, unfair incidents did take place and for these we are sorry and for these we apologise.  In retrospect it is clear that business in general, including the group, could have done more to hasten the demise of Apartheid.  Even though it is well recorded that the group publicly opposed Apartheid for many years, with perfect hind sight its opposition could have been stronger.  
 The group of course, is a public company and as such it had to act within the ambit of the law and I'm not giving this as an excuse.  It has been used before, but as a fact.
 There were instances in the mid 1980's, for example, when the group was requested to stop paying taxes as a means of protest.  It was felt at the time the group could not do this without substantial backing of other businesses and that was sorely lacking at the time.
 On the question of where the business benefitted from Apartheid, the group believes that it actually suffered as a result of Apartheid.  For example, through the isolation of South Africa within the international economy.  Bear in mind the group is big in exports.  The over regulation of social life and constraints on the labour market as well as the poor standards of Black education and the political and social instability and unrest.
 There was no doubt in the minds of executives that the group would have been more successful than it is, had it not been for the penalties of Apartheid.  
 Chairperson, over the years executives of the group, including the three of us here, have devoted considerable energies and time in the pursuit of socio-political change in South Africa.
 This has been done through inter-alia, participating in the leadership of organisations such as Urban Foundation, SACOB, the Corporate Forum, USALEP and the Consultants of Business Movement.  More recently of course the NBI business against crime and countless other initiatives.
 But other initiatives at that time aimed about bringing reform in which group executives participated, were the Buthelezi Commission, that's 1980, 1982, the KwaZulu Natal Indaba, 1986 and the Tongaat-Hulett planning forum, 1989.
 Various conferences both in South Africa and abroad on the need for political change were also tendered, for example, the meeting of business leaders and the UDF and COSATU in Broederstroom in August 1988.
 Now, this was an illegal meeting where the executives, including myself, were subjected to imprisonment, but that meeting resulted in the formation of a consultative business movement.
 I'm pleased to see in that regard, Chairperson, many familiar faces from that meeting, including Dr Boraine and (indistinct).
 It has been suggested by some that the group's support for the Buthelezi Commission and the KwaZulu Natal Indaba might have inferred a political alignment.  This support however was unrelated to party politics.  At that time it was motivated by a deep concern of the group and by leaders in the community that the then Minister of Constitutional Development, Mr Heunis, and the Natal Provincial Administration, were attempting to enforce unjust and unworkable geo-political divisions upon the province.
 Some unions also believed that the group was sympathetic to specific political parties.  The conflict between the IFP and the UDF throughout the 1980's inflicted unique circumstances on business operating in the area.  
 In most of the group's plants the allegiance workers was clearly divided between the political forces and employers could not be seen to be siding with either party.  It was because the group was never allied to any political party that at different stages it receive both compliments and criticisms from other political parties.
 I should say that the group's geographic situation in KwaZulu Natal placed special responsibilities on it and it continues to do so.  I've got many cases of these which I could - if we had time we could go through.
 But I would like to see - I would like to mention, Chairperson, that one incident comes to mind and that was the time when the group chairman and myself and another prominent businessman in KwaZulu Natal personally facilitated a meeting between the president and Buthelezi before the election.  
 We believe it was that key meeting where we personally met the president in Johannesburg, convinced him of the need and the timing of the meeting to take place, it was that meeting that we believe was instrumental in KwaZulu Natal coming into the elections.
 As I say it's because of our size and our location we have responsibilities in that region.  Now, with regard to labour relations, group executives have played pioneering role in the Wiehahn Commission.  
 In fact JB Makwasa was a leading member of that.  That was in the late '70's and by the time trade unions for Black employees were recognised in law, the group had already accepted the employee rights of freedom of association, of representation, of collective bargaining, of training and development and the right to strike.
 The Tongaat-Hulett was the regional business leader in the signing of recognition agreements with the emerging unions.  
 Now, throughout the '80's many operations in the group was severely effected by political violence.  This caused stayaways, high levels of absenteeism, employees being killed in the violence and it seems (indistinct) to say consequential loss in productivity and business.  It seems (indistinct) to say that, but that was a fact.
 Sometimes the continued violence led to the group deciding to withdraw from certain business operations as was the case at Hebok textile mill at Hammersdale.  In the 1980's in Pietermaritzburg, Hulett-aluminium lost 15 employees, killed in political violence and during that time many employees used to sleep at work in order to be safe.
 At Hambanati, a township located near Tongaat, violence also erupted.  This had tragic consequences for many employees and once again, (indistinct) to say, clearly disrupted business.
 The groups, rather in trying to deal with this unstable environment is well documented and is also evidence in the participation by many of its executives including the three of us here in trying to mediate between the factions.
 Chairperson, earlier this year and arising from a TRC investigation in the Durban area, concerning confessions made by security police, a body was exhumed in the grounds of a house owned and rented out by the group to the South African Police.  
 At that time, to give some back ground, the group owned more than 4 000 houses, residential houses and was letting out 300 houses to the public.  Now, I'm saying that not to distract from this appalling incident.
 It was raised by the TRC, brought to our attention, a thorough investigation was carried out by the group and a full report was submitted to the TRC in Durban.
 A copy of that full report has also been submitted to the TRC sitting here today.  The reply from Commissioner 
Richard Lyster, dated 18th of April of this year, stated and I quote:
"We've read the documents and it appears that while the company was aware that the property was let to the South African Police, neither the company nor any of its employees had knowledge of any illegal activities carried out on these premises and in this regard we also had detailed discussions with the KwaZulu Natal leadership of the ANC and COSATU."
Moving onto the issue of land.  While the group - while the very nature of its core business has relatively large areas of agricultural and industrial land, it also has been a victim of large scale racially motivated expropriations.
 Areas exploited by the Government included KwaMashu and later Phoenix.  Phoenix was to accommodate the resident who had been forcibly removed from (indistinct).  During the 1980's however, the group successfully opposed the expropriation of thousands of hectares of land under racially motivated Government plans that compensations at Shenembi and the Umthloti Valley.
 It also opposed the implementation of group areas in Tongaat in 1965.  The group's view is that land should always be put to the most productive and economically rational use.
 In this context it has for example promoted Black entrepreneurship into small and medium scale farming and has initiated the development of lower income housing on its land.
 The conclusion  ... (intervention).