All eyes have been on the Standard & Poor's rating of the sovereign debt of our country.  It is with much relief that they have not downgraded us to junk bond status. However, there is a clear message in the review of the weeks coming up to the decision of 3 June 2016...Our economy needs to grow and it needs to grow fast (innovatively).  I think there is no better time for us to find new capital to grow this economy! It's time for Social Capital to be capitalised and bear the fruits for the generations to come. Imagine if we do the following in KZN:

1. Use our nation's largest resource (People) like it's never been done before!!!!
2. Think of it similar to the 67 mins of the Nelson Mandela challenge. The only difference is that it will be continuous
3. Each person contributes five hours a week of their time to priorities of the economy (productivity/competitiveness of our companies, food security, care for our people, strengthening the education of our people, etc)
4. Then each month each person will have invested approx. 20 hours into the country and the priorities of our nation. Your one hour contribution can be anything of the following or more:

• Working the extra hours at work at no charge to make sure your company is strengthened
• Sharing old clothes with those that do not have. For someone to afford your old clothes they would have to work many hours to save and buy them
• Sharing all the spare food we have. Imagine we can support one mouth with all the extra food we have in our fridges and homes. One meal is many hours of work for some to provide...if you have the chance to be employed and provide!
• Mentoring a school child or a university student
• Investing time in a charity or municipality free of charge

1. If half the population (approx.11 million) of KZN participate (including youth) then we will have 110 million hours invested in the Province free of charge every month
2. If each hour is costed at R20 an hour (assuming average salary of R3200 pm), then we would have invested R2.2 billion a month in KZN alone

• This is R26.4 billion invested in KZN over the next 12 months at no additional cost. If we say that this can be replicated in the country five times over then we would have approx.R132 billion invested in our country in 12 months.

This investment can start immediately and could be continuous. Everyone can invest including the youth. Contribution can be tasks of goodness (passing on food/clothing to those in need, investing time teaching the youth a skill, etc), that are linked to the projects priorities.  We can make the activities linked to everyday life. This initiative will allow us to look at fixing and growing our country in a non-traditional manner (whilst the traditional forms of capital have a chance to grow and succeed). It will allow the limited resources of the Government and Business to be maximised. Benefits will include:

• Finding money that never existed!
• A bailout plan that is funded by ourselves with no payback liabilities and burden for the country
• A turnaround that can start immediately
• A campaign that will change the minds of our people
• A sense of patriotism that will last generations to come
• A success story for the world that could be replicated elsewhere
• Developing our citizens to care and think in terms of delivery all the time

It's time for Africa to rise for itself. It's time for the Social Capital wave. Let me know your thoughts on this and how we can recapitalise our economy the innovative way by writing to me at akash@sigmaintl.co.za. I look forward to hearing from you! 

By Akash Singh, the
KwaZulu-Natal Business
Chambers Council
www.kznchamber.co.za