eBusiness Weekly
CAPE TOWN-Absa Group Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Maria Ramos is betting that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is on the right track with rebuilding the continent’s most-industrialized economy.
Almost a year since taking over from his corruption-tainted predecessor, Ramaphosa started commissions of inquiry to determine how graft became so entrenched and to prevent it in future.
He also set in motion plans to reinvigorate economic growth through an investment conference that raised billions in pledges and a jobs summit that pulled together the government, businesses and labor on ways of creating work.
“The things he committed to, he and his cabinet have delivered on,” Ramos, who was part of drawing up South Africa’s constitution with Ramaphosa before the end of segregated rule in 1994, said in an interview on Friday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. “That’s what I expected of him and the way I have come to know him.”
Ramaphosa is seeking to lure $100 billion of investments by 2023 to revive an economy struggling to create jobs for the 27 percent of the workforce that’s unemployed. Since announcing the investment drive in April, China, the U.K., the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz unit have pledged $35.5 billion, with companies promising another $20 billion in October.
Work Ahead
“We’re starting to see confidence coming back into the economy,” Ramos said. And while important commitments have been made on job creation, these still need to implemented, said the CEO, who served as Director-General of Finance under the first democratic administration of Nelson Mandela.
Ramos, 59, said Ramaphosa has an “open invitation” for businesses wanting to engage on economic policy and growth opportunities, such as tourism. The government is also being encouraged to ensure predictability with policy making, the lack of which has hurt South Africa in the past, she said.
“The biggest challenge facing South Africa is to have a strategy and to build confidence around sustainable growth and job creation,” she said. Cape Business News
