CFO Glen Zulu encourages public and private sector collaboration

To address some of South Africa’s biggest challenges at the moment, including the power, water and transport issues, Information Regulator CFO Glen Zulu believes the public and private sector need to identify partnership opportunities.

According to Information Regulator CFO Glen Zulu, one of the biggest challenges South Africa is currently facing is diminishing financial resources and low economic growth. “The available funding is not sufficient to adequately meet planned strategic objectives,” she says.

She explains that, because of this lack of resources, the country faces dilapidating infrastructure (especially around power, water and transport), decreasing food security, increasing levels of poverty, corruption, a delay in finalising outstanding legal matters, as well as SOEs incurring losses – to name a few.

To address this, Glen encourages the private sector and public sector to identify collaboration and partnership opportunities. “Together, the two sectors can enhance economic growth and reduce the levels of poverty.”

These partnerships can also help in the agriculture space, especially concerning food security. “Farming equipment, for example, is expensive to procure and maintain. That aspect is not taken into consideration during land distribution matters,” she says. “A properly costed plan in terms of required resources and equipment needs to be considered when venturing into agriculture.”

Glen referred to the mining sector CFOs. “They have contributed a lot in maintaining the Eskom infrastructure to eliminate loadshedding. This is a fundamental collaboration between a state entity and the mining sector.”

She also suggested that if South African citizens start gardening at home, they can help address food security issues on a smaller scale.

Talking to her peers specifically, however, Glen concluded: “CFOs need to go beyond financial strategies in assisting South African economic growth by providing leadership in dealing with matters of national interest.”