Crocodiles & Rain Forests

I am being let loose this weekend on two of groups of unsuspecting souls who think I might know a little about small business. Don’t know where they got the idea from because the more I learn the less I feel know! It’s the Woza Ekhaya bash at the Chelsea Football Ground, and my role is to talk about the issues surrounding setting up a business in SA.

Anyway, as I started to work through the material to cover, a single thought kept ricocheting through my addled brain: Eish, but it’s getting more and more complex by the week. 22 years ago this week, when first I ventured forth as captain of the good ship Link Technologies life was so much simpler. (Of course, that didn’t stop me from crashing her into a cliff in 1992 and losing the entire cargo – but that’s another story.) At least that was just plain ‘business stupidity’.

Lets look at a few of the issues that you need to watch out for – whether you want to or not. As long as you’re in the small business game, these are some of the rule books you need to have in the back of your head as you wade through the crocodile infested waters. (I have left the Close Corporations Act and the Companies Act out of this list because they’ve been around in some form forever – just like crocodiles, now that I think about it.)

And lest you think that it is a purely South African phenomenon – it isn’t. The amount of legislation pumping out of governments worldwide is enough to make a Green Peace activist pack up his tree-hugging outfit and give up on the rain forests.

• Financial Intelligence Centre Act – the main reason your banker is so paranoid about getting your home address right.

• Basic Conditions of Employment Act – the main reason we can no longer follow the Caribbean style of staff motivation of “De Whipping will continue until De Morale Improves”. Most of us know just one thing about this Act – if it isn’t displayed in the office for the staff to splash coffee on, you get penalised.
  
• National Credit Act – why it’s now your responsibility as a supplier if any of your prospects becomes a client when s/he/it already owes more money than a hedge fund, and why you won’t be able to get your money back.
  
• Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act – why I must add a disclaimer behind every statement I make that remotely smacks of financial advice. For example, I am not registered under this act as a financial intermediary and therefore I am not allowed to tell you that sinking your inheritance into pyramid schemes (which I am not qualified to tell you are illegal) might be risky, which I have not appropriately defined – even if I were to give you this advice after 7 hours of intense alcoholic and other stimulant intake at last night’s braai.
  
• SARS – there is so much here, and so many Acts, that they get their own website. It’s BIG. They’re BIG. Don’t mess with them. Get an accountant. (Which I am not allowed to advise you to do in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act. I am, however, allowed to demonstrate my intense concern by silently wetting myself at least once during the evening.)
  
• Electronic Communications and Transactions Act – which regulates what you can and can’t do on the Internet, and defines the SA version of spam, which differs from the US version, as well as how long an Internet purchaser can take before keeping your goods and demanding their money back.
  
• Labour Relations Act – in which your staff get more rights than your wife and children so don’t try to sleep with them, and follow the rulebook closely when employing them, firing them, or having dinner with them. (The staff, not your wife!) 157 pages of pitfalls, each of which will cost you serious money if you don’t have a priest, which I believe I might be able to advise you to locate. (For your wife, not your staff!)
  
• Promotion of Access to Information Act – my very favourite waste of money. Fortunately you don’t need to worry about this until 2011, unless you’re a doctor (or something). I forget.
  
• Auditing Profession Act – the reason for (Pty) Ltd auditing costs spiralling into the stratosphere. Not only is your auditor consequentially paranoid (and rightly so) but s/he/it must report any of your aberrations to govrernment before reporting them to you.
  
• Small Business Tax Amnesty … Act – in which the government will stop trying to put you in jail for missing the past few tax payments (and for which they had to temporarily suspend putting accountants into jail for helping you get this amnesty)
  

I have left out all mention of the equality and empowerment Acts because they’re a minefield and the last time I mentioned them my sense of humour got lost in all the cries of racism. Since I fell down the stairs three weeks ago and am waiting for the UK NHS to XRAY that left middle toe which seems to have an unusual skyward angle my invisible cloak of invincibility has been pretty tattered.

The point I want to make is that business is getting increasingly complex – as is the world. And your success in business will not depend on you being the best programmer/ plumber/ proctologist on earth. Your financial success will depend on how quickly you can swim, and high you can jump, when one of the above crocodiles brushes against your left leg.

Of course, the ideal is not to get near them at all, but human nature being what it is, I don’t know of a single person with the physical endurance and capacity to wade through the few thousand pages of archaic wheresotofores and thereforotomies and have any of the numbers make sense. But one can’t help a feeling certain disquiet when threatened with life imprisonment for some minor breach. We don’t want to learn it all beforehand, but we do want instant answers when the something moves down there.

I came to a single conclusion: the smaller you are, and the less you know, the more help you need. I’m off to find some. Have a great week.