It is important to have a climate enabling large and small businesses to flourish in South Africa and to leverage the country’s positioning in African business to the full, Nedbank chairman, Reuel Khoza, says.

Khoza’s statement in the latest annual report of South Africa’s fourth biggest bank is a far cry from the strong comments he made in last year’s annual report attacking the country’s current crop of leaders.

At about this time last year, Khoza decried “a strange breed of leaders” in South Africa, saying they were bent on emasculating the rule of law.

Khoza, who was known to be politically linked to the ANC during president, Thabo Mbeki’s reign, told shareholders the political leadership’s moral quotient was degenerating.

“We are losing the checks and balances that are necessary to prevent a recurrence of the past,” he wrote in last year’s annual report.

His comments came shortly after last year’s government’s moves to review the role of the Constitutional Court. And the apparent interference from the presidency in the withdrawing of the suspension of crime intelligence boss Lieutenant-General Richard Mduli.

Murder and corruption charges against Mdluli were mysteriously removed.

Khoza’s comments were heavily criticised by the ANC and many government officials at the time, a clear sign of a highly sensitive ruling ANC and the government towards criticism, particularly from the company executives.

This criticism seems to have deterred him from making any further comments similar to those he made last year.

In his statement to shareholders in the latest annual report, Khoza’s comments seem highly sanitised.

“South Africa had progressed in many areas since 1994. GDP per capita (in constant prices) has increased 31 percent to R36 908 and domestic fixed-capital formation from 16 percent to 19.3 percent of GDP, after reaching 24.5 percent just before the advent of the global economic recession,” Khoza writes in the annual report.

“Access to services has improved, with 75.8 percent (1994: 58.2 percent) of the population having access to electricity, 94.5 percent (1994: 62 percent) to water and 82 percent (1994: 51 percent) to sanitation, while 11m people have been accommodated in formal housing.”

He adds commentary about some of the most obvious things about South Africa.

“South Africa is blessed with a wealth of natural resources and has the most developed infrastructure and economy in the whole of Africa. SA has good prospects for strong economic growth,” Khoza says.

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