Business organisation Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) has reiterated its plans to launch the BLSA Reform Tracker – a publicly available online tool that tracks government reforms, assesses progress and successes, and highlights blockages, says BLSA CEO Busi Mavuso.

The organisation in May first announced that it would be launching the tool, which will enable the public and private sectors to quickly track the progress of reforms and empower all stakeholders to collaborate more effectively to deliver an improved business environment.

“It will track many reforms, including for the projects that business has partnered with government. I hope the tool will help accelerate progress to ensure that reforms conclude,” Mavuso states in her latest weekly newsletter.

The BLSA Reform Tracker will be launched in Johannesburg on August 14 and in Cape Town on August 15.

Business cannot operate effectively in a failing State. Over the past decade, loadshedding has cost the country billions, port inefficiencies have imited export potential and crime has driven up operational costs.

That is why organised business expends substantial resources on supporting government to deliver reforms that improve the business environment, thereby enabling economic and employment growth.

“Working with government, we have seen tangible progress. However, our efforts are not charitable endeavours, they are investments with measurable returns.

“Every rand we spend supporting government and reform is a rand not invested in core business operations, expansion or innovation. Our shareholders and stakeholders rightly question why business should subsidise government failures.”

The efforts of business must have an endpoint. The interventions of organised business have been focused on dealing with the legacy of State capture, which destroyed so much of the country's institutional capacity in government, emphasises Mavuso.

When government systems fail, business carries the cost through higher security expenses, backup power generation, alternative logistics arrangements and lost productivity, which renders the economy unable to compete against global markets, compounding the country's problems.

The test of economic reforms must be whether they actually change things; hence the BLSA Reform Tracker.

Business is ready to invest in infrastructure and skills, but needs government to be equally committed to reform and delivery, she says.

“This partnership must be properly structured with clear objectives, timelines and accountability mechanisms. We need sprint targets, measurable outcomes and regular evaluation of progress,” she emphasises.

The BLSA Reform Tracker will support these efforts, she adds.

One critical area of reform is the electricity system in South Africa. There has already been much progress, but State-owned Eskom has legally challenged the licensing of electricity traders.

The planned reforms will enable electricity trading in South Africa with multiple generators supplying electricity to multiple customers across the grid. This is vital to ensure electricity security, but also to start bringing down electricity prices in the country after so many years of dramatic increases.

“Eskom must align itself with the reform momentum. The reform process that government is leading is clear and positive. Business has strongly supported the plan, which has already led to private investments in new electricity capacity worth billions of rands,” Mavuso says.

“We need to focus on urgently concluding the reforms, and not trying to stymie progress through litigation.”

BLSA and business organisation Business Unity South Africa last week called on the South African government to urgently intervene to protect the national energy reform programme and for Eskom to withdraw all legal challenges against the five electricity trading licences granted by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).

On August 8, Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa also urged Eskom to stay or withdraw its court action to have Nersa’s licensing of five electricity traders in 2024 reviewed and set aside, highlighting an accelerated regulatory process to finalise the trading rules.

Eskom’s transmission subsidiary will become an independent systems operator that will manage the grid to connect generators to customers. The focus should be on providing the grid capacity to support the competitive electricity market that is being developed, Mavuso recommends.