As one of SA’s most influential former miners, Neal Froneman has a unique perspective on how to stimulate economic growth to create jobs. Here’s a sneak peek at what the rainmaker will propose at News24’s On the Record summit in March.
When Neal Froneman speaks at News24’s On the Record Summit in March, he will champion the end of race-based legislation.
To deliver an investor-friendly environment, “South Africa needs to move on from racially based legislation to legislation that is competitive and less bureaucratic,” he says.
“The best performing businesses practice those concepts already. I don’t know that we have to legislate all that and constantly double down and create complexity and friction where it’s not needed,” the self-proclaimed proponent of stakeholder capitalism says of the issue of diversity and inclusivity.
“Businesses have moved on, and we keep on letting legacy issues cloud our vision,” he says.
READ | Trevor Manuel: ‘We’re still acting as though we are in the 1980s’
In solving the critical twin issues of inequality and poverty, Froneman is fully behind “creating jobs through economic growth. That, in my mind, is the only practical and sustainable solution.”
And, for SA to achieve this goal, we must take decisions that serve the goal of economic growth.
“You can’t drive a car forward on a torturous road by constantly looking in the rear-view mirror,” he says.
Need public and private talks
Froneman is still one of the world’s most influential gold mining executives despite retiring from Sibanye-Stillwater as CEO last year.
His email signature title now reads “rainmaker – retired”.
A rainmaker is someone who brokers many aggressive deals, generates significant business and secures massive investments. Froneman fits that description to the T – having built a mining empire through a “dizzying merger and acquisition spree”.
He also has a reputation for being blunt, speaking his mind, and being critical of government business policy.
“I’m not one that just criticises,” he says.
Currently, he chairs Business Against Crime South Africa and is co-chair of the Joint Initiative on Crime and Corruption with the director-general in the Presidency.
READ | Rockstar economist David McWilliams: SA’s route to 5m jobs – Make capital cheap, firms lead
For many of his outspoken views, Froneman says that some have suggested he have these conversations in private with relevant stakeholders.
“We’ve tried for many years to have these private conversations,” he contends.
On Day 1 of the News24 summit, Froneman will be part of the panel titled It’s the economy, stupid (or is it?) and will be joined by Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi, CEO of Business Leadership SA Busi Mavuso and Standard Bank’s senior political economist Simon Freemantle.
Post the summit, expect him to “certainly use the links we have to act in the national interest”.
Solutions?
Froneman summarises: “The problem is that to create jobs, we’ve got to grow the economy. To grow the economy, we have to invest. To invest, we’ve got to create an investor-friendly environment.”
At the moment, SA is “not an investment-friendly climate, and it’s because government wants to control everything”.
He suggests SA start with property‑rights certainty, make labour rules less rigid, show its seriousness on crime by prosecuting high-profile cases and fix municipal delivery so companies aren’t patching potholes. After all, he says, “defunct municipalities become a burden to business”.
READ | Mbali Ntuli: How civic education can move the needle on jobs
Strengthening the domestic front offers certainty and predictability to investors, who then have no hesitation to pump capital into the country.
However, SA’s foreign policy also hinders investment.
“If you think of the world capital markets, they are in the Western world. They are not in the Eastern world,” except maybe for bank debt in China, he says.
One of the biggest sources of capital in the Western world is the US, but SA keeps “poking” them in the eye. Those capital markets have the money, it is available and “our style of business fits those markets. I don’t think Russia’s got money to invest,” he says.
READ | Ravi Naidoo: SA must deepen link from paper certificates to pay cheques to create more jobs
He wants SA to walk the talk and “be truly non-aligned”.
“South Africa could be this bridge between the East and the West, if it just played its cards right. It’s probably one of the only countries in the world that can do that, but we choose to be aligned with the East, even though we say we’re not aligned.”
This then affects the SA economy directly, “because you undermine our ability to borrow money, get investment and grow the economy”.
‘We need to win’
Froneman comes across as less of a ranter and more of a diagnostician with a critical but solution‑oriented lens.
His years as an influential miner, his close ties with business and government leadership – locally and internationally – and his clear-cut analysis offer him a perspective not many have. And he wants to use all that to get results.
“We need to win. We need to win whatever game we’re going to play, wherever we’re going to play,” he says, evoking the green and gold of the Springboks.
A word on the president, who will deliver the keynote address at News24’s On the Record summit?
“I think the president does listen. I have never found an unreceptive president. He doesn’t want to hear problems. He wants to hear solutions, and he will work with those solutions,” Froneman says.
Find out more about the On the Record summit here.
If you are interested in attending the On the Record summit in-person, please contact us here.