Public Private Growth Initiative – The FIA’s involvement

In the latest FIA Insights edition – Collaboration Breeds Success, there is an article on “Government-Business Collaboration Set to Bring Socio-Economic Wins For All” which provides background to this multi-sector initiative known as the “PPGI”.

The FIA has proudly participated since October last year and in January 2019, presented an economic growth plan for intermediaries. In March 2019, BASA, SAIA and ASISA joined the PPGI initiative and on the 11^th of April, we attended a PPGI meeting at the Union Buildings together with the Presidency and Director Generals from various government departments to present a consolidated overview of impediments to economic growth. Some highlights from our presentation are noted below:

1. The Financial sector plays a cross-cutting and catalytic role across the entire economy – we are an enabler.
2. Seven Impediments / Opportunities were presented of which two were from the FIA.
   a) Advancement of SMME’s inhibited by onerous regulatory requirements and high start-up costs and
   b) Premium flight to overseas markets without touching the local market. We urged National Treasury to remove barriers that may exist preventing South Africa from becoming the insurance hub as well as the preferred insurance placement market for the rest of Africa.
3. Emphasis was placed on government taking a robust look at risk managing infrastructure in South Africa in general and specifically within the Municipalities. This general lack of maintenance or infrastructure development increases the risk for the Financial sector.  

A summary detailing the impediments and opportunities as well as requirements for infrastructure was sent to the PPGI facilitator on the 12^th of April for onward submission to the President for consideration. If you are interested, we can share the document with you – please email me on lizelle@fia.org.za.

In light of the elections and political uncertainty, we are using this opportunity to do the best we can to position our members as a trusted stakeholder to the industry and broader economy. We have a vested interest to ensure South Africa does not fall below investment grade.