By: Natasha Archary
Former Minister for Health, Dr Zweli Mkhize touched on the importance of overcoming the trust deficit between government and private sector in his interview with Sizwe Dhlomo on Kaya Drive.
In response to a question posed by Gugulethu Mfuphi, host of KayaBiz, Mkhize said there’s no way the country’s economy can grow with a mutually beneficial collaboration between government and private sector.
“No leader of the African National Congress (ANC) can sit here and say there’s no way we’re going to work with business. The reality is we need to deal with the issue of inequality in the country but the basis is that you need a partnership.
You know when there was the crisis in Japan with the Tsunami, the Prime Minister came in and called on businesses, instructing what needs to be done.
What I would do is call the different sectors, let’s take car manufacturing sector which is one I worked very closely with when I was ANC National Treasurer, and ask ‘what’s your target, where do you want to go, how many jobs are you going to create?’
The market that you want to create, government needs to help to achieve because of the bilateral relationship.”
Dr Zweli Mkhize on the trust deficit between government and private sector
WATCH: Dr Zweli Mkhize’s full interview on Kaya Drive with Sizwe Dhlomo
But Mkhize’s dreams of a cohesive relationship between the private and public sector may be a pipeline dream, with many of the opinion that there’s no trust in the ruling party.
Failure to deal with the private stakeholder’s concerns may be the biggest gap government will have to tackle.
According to Mkhize, multi-billion rand incentives have to be deployed with a stronger focus on dynamic companies and reciprocal conditionality.
This will enable the country to raise its productivity, competitiveness, export capabilities, energy efficiency and carbon mitigation.
In doing so, there will be a very strong, mutually beneficial relationship between government and the private sector.
Also read: Presidential hopeful Dr Zweli Mkhize believes he is the perfect candidate to lead the country
