Business needs to get tough

Things are looking better for South Africa. The tide has turned.

- William Saunderson-Meyer

This, the view of Adi Enthoven, one of the country's business elite, has resonated across a country worn down by years of economic and social decline.

Enthoven is no lightweight. He's the third-generation heir of a formidable business dynasty, but, more importantly, he has long championed the corporate sector's growing involvement in government delivery.

As board member of Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) he's been at the gear-grinding interface of BLSA's partnership with government, which for two and a half years has seen about 20 CEOs work almost daily with departments, and with Enthoven himself heading the energy cluster. This is what has inspired his optimism.

Enthoven sums up the dominant South African narrative as being one of "failure and decay", with many accepting that a failed state is inevitable. "They have long lost hope," he says, "giving rise to an unfortunate paradox: this very absence of hope actively accelerates the decline, locking us into a negative spiral."