The only way to alleviate poverty in SA is to wrest back the economy from foreign business and take control of it in much the same way as previous regimes took the banking industry away from their former colonial masters.
That is the opinion of Anthony Fitzhenry, CEO of Axiz, a self-styled "employee ownership evangelist" among South African IT companies that hopes others will follow its lead in recognising the importance of community and inter-dependence to business success.
Fitzhenry says he is making employee ownership of businesses a personal crusade, and that a growing number of local companies are showing interest.
"Recognising the reason why members of our community are poor is fundamental to finding a solution," says Fitzhenry. "As South Africans, we are subject to systemic impoverishment through globalisation."
Fitzhenry explains that for every unit of currency that is spent in the developed world, there is a seven times economic benefit, but in SA and other developing countries there is only a three times economic benefit because of the large number of goods imported.
"Axiz is focused on being in Africa for Africa which led us to start looking at import substitution and local capacity building so that our communities get more economic benefits and we can employ more people."
Axiz has implemented this strategy by moving from importing all memory in the 1990s to manufacturing memory modules locally, using local utilities and labour. "We have been able to take a 1:3 economy and change the ratio to 1:7.
We are a capitalist company in that we want to go out there and win, but we want to do it with social responsibility and contribute to the community.
Anthony Fitzhenry, CEO, Axiz
"Why should we mine iron, convert it to steel and export that only to re-import it in the form of computer cases, allowing someone outside the country to add value," asks Fitzhenry. He says South African companies should look critically at everything they do and develop strategies to build capacity to add value locally and trap the profits for the benefit of the community.
Fitzhenry describes the Axiz culture as one of socialist capitalism. "We are a capitalist company in that we want to go out there and win, but we want to do it with social responsibility and contribute to the community, because the success of our company is dependent on the health of our community."
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