The reputation of black business professionals in South Africa has been blemished and it is largely due to the likes of Black Business Council president Sandile Zungu and the leader of the newly formed African Transformation Movement party, Mzwanele Manyi.
This is according to Business Unity SA president Sipho Pityana, who wrote a scathing open letter, in his personal capacity, to Zungu, calling on him to own up to his alleged involvement in the state-capture saga.
The letter, published in City Press days ahead of the Black Business Council’s summit on Thursday and Friday last week, was aimed at encouraging delegates to question Zungu’s role in state capture and his contribution to the widespread perception that black business and corruption work hand in hand.
According to Pityana, Zungu’s alleged dishonest behaviour started when he and Manyi broke away from Business Unity SA to re-establish the Black Business Council.
The business council, which was formed in the mid-’90s to unite several black business organisations, became part of Business Unity SA in 2003 when black and white business organisations united.
But it broke away again in 2012 after disagreement over the best way to transform the economy.
“The rubbishing of the black business agenda starts at that point.
“It was a step by two Jacob Zuma loyalists [Manyi and Zungu] to re-establish the [Black Business Council], albeit with different objectives,” Pityana told The Herald.
But in his letter, Pityana said that when Zuma took office as president, Zungu and Manyi and a few others sought to take over Business Unity SA to reposition business to boost Zuma’s agenda.
“So, everywhere, and whenever the [Black Business Council] spoke, it purported to speak on behalf of all of us as black business professionals,” Pityana said in the interview.
“And every time I hear him say that he is the leader of black business, I cringe.
“I feel uncomfortable as a black businessman to be associated with that calibre of leader,” he said.
Zungu‚ who was an adviser to Zuma‚ took the reins at the council in 2018 as part of a leadership overhaul after millions went missing.
Zungu has reportedly also been a business partner for both Zuma’s son, Duduzane, and the Gupta family.
Owing to this, Pityana – in the letter – called on Zungu to confess to his “culpability for the state we find ourselves in today”.
“As I urge you to testify, I do similarly to those who fill the ranks of our affiliates, to encourage them not to wait to be exposed, but to come clean.
“Of course, this can only happen if you have a conscience,” he wrote.
Pityana told The Herald he was urging Zungu to explain his alleged involvement with both Duduzane and the Guptas and why he was specifically chosen by the notorious family.
“What qualified Sandile [Zungu] to be a suitable partner of the Guptas, who we know are corrupt and were driving a particular project of capturing the state?” he said. “Explain that.”
In an interview on The Karima Brown show on 702 on Wednesday, Zungu said Pityana was “an unthinking dumb head”.
“He says I have alleged deals with Duduzane and Guptas, please name them.
“I am one of the most ethical business leaders and if ever he has got concerns and he feels that someone has to testify at the Zondo commission, please go there and I will be invited or subpoenaed.”
While Pityana commended Zungu for both reading the letter and addressing it at the summit, he said black professionals in SA were now challenged to change the narrative that they were all incompetent and had failed.
“There seems to be no recognition of the fact that the failure is not of black professionals but of a particular project – the project of state capture,” he said.
“That’s why I make the point that while Sandile [Zungu] and I might both be black, I am not black like [him].
“The dividing line is our ethical compass.
“Business cannot be an island, to the extent that we all know that there has been corruption across the board.
“We know that business must step up.
“My assertion is that, that project, of Sandile Zungu and Jimmy Manyi, placed the new era [Black Business Council] at the heart of the state capture project,” Pityana said.