28/04/2020
The Post COVID 19 South African economy: Our President and his team are working to ensure that we are alive and the our economy is still as viable as possible when this crisis is over, what is expected of you and I?
We need to unlock a level of patriotism that is inherent in us and that allows us to cooperate notwithstanding the political party we support, our personal prejudices, our religions, our past hurts and other factors that would work against a level of nationalism that is required for each of us to stand behind our flag, not just when we win at international sports.
We WILL then dig into our institutional memory (extract the best - practice economic elements from the Apartheid era mix with Ubuntu and best - practice traditional African economic models ) and shape our economy where no product or service can be sold to our people without a South African component. This is more than B-BBEE & Proudly South African. We develop a best of breed solution which becomes structural. Where a citizen chooses foodstuff that has a sticker with the % of SA input with pride. Our chicken will state 100% SA grown not packaged. Our clothing label will say fabric and item made in SA from SA yarn.
Can we start with our staple foods eaten by the majority of our people, build capacity to grow here and reduce imports over time. Can we tap into the immense intellect of our people (we have amazing human resources across every race) to re-engineer processes and systems so the local is cost - effective.
Start small, in areas where we can make an impact and build capacity & capability to expand across value chains. We have everything we need right here in SA and if not here, mother Africa has it, so we go north first, before going east or west. Then there's the diaspora, our people are leading minds around the world, let's tap in.
We will still trade worldwide as we are part of a global economy but the world will respect the fact that we have a thriving local economy and that our economy is a partnership designed to benefit all South Africans as we eradicate inequality, unemployment and poverty together as one nation. Trading with us, means supporting the development of all sectors of the SA economy and that post COVID 19 will be a very different playing field.
We want to keep the South African Rand turning around (how many times, depends on us) in every community and our country before it goes out.
Do the post COVID 19 strategies of municipalities, provinces and national government talk to this, one step at a time...
Is this "doable" SA? Is it currently being done in some small way where you live or within the company where you work, or local, provincial or national government level?
Don't just say yes, say how. Tag people in your network that feel the same way, tag people and organisations that can do something about this in their sectors. Share this. Let's get SA talking And The doing.
