South Africa Foundation The South Africa Foundation was founded in 1959, amid substantial political unrest in
apartheid South Africa. Founded by
Anglo American mogul
Harry Oppenheimer, its primary purpose was to improve South Africa's global reputation and reassure the international community of the safety of
South African investments. Although it accommodated a large corporate membership in the 1980s, it ultimately settled on a membership of the country's fifty largest corporations. Political scientist Scott D. Taylor later described it as the "executive committee of the
bourgeoisie". The foundation served abroad, in the
New York Times's description, as "an independent source of information about South Africa as well as a sort of ad hoc
chamber of commerce for the country"; After the
end of apartheid in 1994, the South Africa Foundation was critical of the post-apartheid government's macroeconomic and labour policy, publishing a critique of the
Reconstruction and Development Programme under the title
Growth for All in February 1996. In the
Mail & Guardian and in the book
Reconciliation Through Truth, which he co-authored with
Kader Asmal, Roberts argued that the foundation's propaganda efforts had served the apartheid regime; in particular, he pointed to a 1967 advertisement in the
Sunday Times in which the foundation had argued that South Africans should stop apologising for apartheid and should instead adopt "a tone of confident self-assertion which publicised the opportunities of apartheid".
Rebranding as BLSA On 25 November 2005, Alongside
Business Unity South Africa, of which it is an affiliate, BLSA became one of the two leading business forums in South Africa.
Response to state capture During
the presidency of
Jacob Zuma, South Africa was wracked by allegations of
state capture, which intensified after Zuma fired Finance Minister
Nhlanhla Nene in
a controversial cabinet reshuffle in December 2015. BLSA's tepid response to the reshuffle was roundly criticised in the press. In the aftermath, BLSA took up a more activist stance towards Zuma's government. In October 2016, through the so-called CEO Initiative, the association pledged its support for Nene's successor, Minister
Pravin Gordhan. In August 2017, it launched the #BusinessBelieves campaign, which it said would aim to reverse the reputational damage that business had suffered as a result of
Bell Pottinger's "
white monopoly capital" campaign. BLSA's campaign included the adoption by all members of an "integrity pledge" promising zero tolerance for
corruption. In September 2017, amid mounting allegations that certain member companies had been involved in state capture, BLSA temporarily suspended the membership of
Eskom,
Transnet, and
KPMG.
Bain & Company was suspended a year later, during the
Nugent Commission hearings into Bain's consultancy work at the
South African Revenue Service, and it withdrew entirely in January 2022 after further evidence was published by the
Zondo Commission. == Current membership ==