Is Cyril Ramaphosa really the answer?

Cyril Ramaphosa could make us proud of our first citizen once more, but he must change his ideas or get a new speech-writer, writes Douglas Gibson.
In his play An Ideal Husband, Oscar Wilde wrote:”When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.” This is a variation of the old adage:”Be careful what you wish for; you might just get it.”
Many South Africans are hoping President Zuma will soon be standing down. The person best placed to replace him is Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, but would things miraculously come right if he became our president?
Ramaphosa is a consummate politician with buckets of charm. He is clever and able. He is also so rich because of BEE policies and the generosity of business from which he benefited so royally he surely cannot be greedy for even more money.
He could represent us with distinction and make us proud again of our first citizen.
If that is to happen, however, then he must either change his ideas or get a new speech-writer who will not let him say silly things that divide rather than unite.
Recently, Ramaphosa said the time of white business monopolies was over. The government was hell-bent on making sure black people owned and managed the economy.
“For far too long this economy has been owned and controlled by white people. That must come to an end. For far too long, this economy has been managed by white people. That must come to an end.
“Those who don’t like this idea (ie whites) - tough for you. That is how we are proceeding,” he said.
Ramaphosa is sophisticated enough to know that he was playing the race card with a vengeance. This was little different to his famous statement a year or two ago to a black audience that if they did not vote for the ANC, the”boere” would be back in government.
He sounds like our distinguished Deputy Minister of Defence, Kebby Maphatsoe. According to Julius Malema, Maphatsoe was the cook in the ANC’s Camp Quatro who lost an arm while trying to escape from the camp because he could not take the discipline.
Maphatsoe said anyone who criticised the Zuma involvement with the Guptas was in bed with white monopoly capital.
President Zuma himself repeated recently his totally incorrect statement that only 3 percent of the economy is owned by blacks and that this had to change.
Dave Steward of the FW de Klerk Foundation responded cogently in an article last week, pointing out that Ramaphosa is quite wrong. Black South Africans control economic and fiscal policy (and I may add, have done so for a generation).
They control the state's 35 percent share of the economy; they own the 10 percent represented by the informal sector and they own a higher percentage of the stock market than whites do, while foreign investors own around 39 percent of the shares on the stock market.
Alec Hogg calculated recently that foreigners own around 49 percent of the top 40 companies.
This leaves somewhere around 18 percent in the hands of white people who do have a large share of the ownership and the management of business generally, but what are they to do? Should they hand over to Ramaphosa and his friends the ownership of their businesses without compensation or at bargain basement prices?
Should they get their capital out of the country as fast as possible?
Or should they pack up and leave the field, taking their skills, their business experience, the jobs they create, the taxes they pay, and their children with them to countries where they will be welcome?
There would be very little left in South Africa if we started going down the Robert Mugabe government's path.
How about Ramaphosa phrasing his ideas much more clearly and inclusively?
He could stress how important the business sector (black and white) is in our country; that it is they who create the jobs and they and their employees pay the taxes that fund the government's social policies.
Every old person receiving a pension, every child grant and all the state subsidies paid to 16 million of our people derive chiefly from the taxes paid by a few thousand businesses and a few million individual taxpayers.
He could commit himself and his party to an obsession with growing our economy, putting all else aside in pursuit of growth so that ever-more people, most of them blacks, will be empowered by having jobs.
He could appeal to the business community to stand shoulder to shoulder with the government in educating and upskilling our children and older workers so that many more blacks will be empowered.
Almost no one in the white community, let alone the business community, wants to prevent black people from owning and managing a larger share of the economy.
But grow that economy; work for it - don't demand more and more handouts; create new businesses and grasp the myriad opportunities that exist in a young country such as ours.
Stop shouting at and insulting the minorities and making them feel unwelcome and unappreciated.
My children and grandchildren are not entitled to more than yours because they are white - but then, nor are yours entitled to more than mine because they are black.