Sometimes the voice of millions doesn’t get heard, until echoed by the right individual. In this case it is Johann Rupert, one of SA’s most celebrated business leaders.

The comments were made at his group’s annual general meeting this week in Stellenbosch.

This, from Bloomberg:

“The leadership of this country, quite frankly, is becoming very, very hard to defend abroad,” Rupert said today at Remgro’s annual general meeting in Somerset West, near Cape Town. “The people who are running the country now were not given proper education. Wherever you look we have got stagnation and really worrying signs.”

“I’m concerned that we are not prioritizing the right things,” Rupert said. “We picked low-hanging fruit for a very long time. Those trees are now starting to run empty. How can a person not have electricity? How can we create jobs? ”

Asked by a shareholder about the company’s prospects, Rupert said the global economic outlook “is not looking too rosy” and that leading fund managers were focused on capital preservation.

“It doesn’t really matter who you listen to, whether it’s the IMF or whosoever, they are petrified,” he said. “The only way to get out of this is economic growth. I see nothing on the horizon to pull Europe out of its malaise. America will do better than Europe. Yes, India will grow, yes, China will grow.”

Think about what it takes for a man like Johann Rupert to say something like that out aloud? Knowing it would affect his own company. That’s how real this is getting. That’s the mess our current leadership is in.

Daily Maverick had this to say:

On Tuesday one of the country’s richest men, Johann Rupert, gave a presentation at Remgro’s annual general meeting in Somerset West, in which he suggested South Africa was going slowly bust. It would end, he thought, quite suddenly. We would wake up and, as a country, be bust. It’s the kind of comment that one used to hear from those who were doomsayers, the old white elite who couldn’t stand the fact there were black people at the Union Buildings. But now something has shifted: in a way, Rupert seems to have perfectly captured the gloominess of the public mood.

He certainly has. But what happens from here?

Well before we think about that, let’s just ponder some key points, from Bloomberg:

• South Africa’s central bank expects the second-largest economy on the continent to grow 1.4 percent this year, the slowest pace since a 2009 recession, as a series of blackouts caused by a creaking power-station network and strikes crimp production. The negative sentiment has been compounded by corruption scandals implicating President Jacob Zuma and his administration.
• An inspection of 450 state entities by the nation’s Auditor-General uncovered 30.8 billion rand ($2.8 billion) in irregular, unauthorized or wasteful expenditure in the 12 months through March last year, up from 30 billion rand the year before.
• Thuli Madonsela, the nation’s graft ombudsman, alleged in a March report that Zuma unduly benefited from a 215 million-rand state-funded makeover of his private home. Zuma denied ordering the renovations, which included a swimming pool, chicken run and cattle enclosure.

It’s going to take more than a statement from a businessman and a few articles in global media to fix the problems we’re facing. But one thing it does give, is momentum.

Well said, Johann.