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As MEC for Transport, I read with disbelief the statement purportedly attributed to Mr Brand Pretorius, MD of the McCarthy Group, accusing President Mbeki of an "autocratic leadership style" and the lack of a "unity vision" for South Africa. This is the most unprecedented attack to emanate from a business leader.

For the record, President Mbeki has led South Africa to two elections in 1994 and 2000. More than two-thirds of South Africans voted for him and many more support his style of leadership and emphatically support his vision for a non-racial South Africa for a common patriotism. It is for this reason that the United States of America, Europe and Africa describe President Mbeki's South Africa as a country of hope. Such is the respect he commands not only in South Africa but also internationally.

I have faxed a copy of this scurrilous statement to the Minister of Transport, Dullah Omar and the Minister of Trade and Industry, Alec Erwin, as well as MECs of Transport in the nine provinces. I had to do this because there is a pending meeting to be attended by Ministers Erwin and Omar as well as all the nine MECs with Toyota to discuss its disruptive role in the taxi industry, particularly the government's black economic empowerment programme.

As MEC for Transport, I have been approached by workers employed at the Durban Toyota plant. They have sought my intervention at the lack of transformation at Prospecton. They alleged that management of that plant follow the old apartheid whites-only policy with blacks excluded from the middle and senior leadership of that industry.

They alleged that to Toyota, the new South Africa has not yet happened. Most of our people use Toyota vehicles. Taxi operators and millions who buy and use Toyota vehicles voted for President Mbeki. If for anything else, one would expect an MD of a company whose clients are overwhelmingly black to show sensitivity instead of this foolhardiness. For myself, I was today on the verge of buying a Toyota vehicle for my personal use from a McCarthy dealership. I have changed my mind. I cannot be comfortable dealing with a company with a political agenda. If the business of government is politics, it should be accepted that the business of business should not blatantly political under any pretence.

If Mr Pretorius believes President Mbeki to be autocratic and lacking a uniting vision, does he intend funding opposition to him or what does he intend doing about it? Seeing that fora established for government and business to iron out problems like Nedlac and the Durban Growth Vision are clearly inadequate for the MD, what does he intend to do?

I chair the Economic Cluster in the KwaZulu-Natal Cabinet. I also co-chair the Durban Growth vision, a forum of organised business and civil society that has successfully hosted three summits.

I have found Durban and KwaZulu-Natal business in total support since we started the growth vision. I find KwaZulu-Natal big business totally supportive of transformation and the vision provided by President Mbeki's government; nationally, provincially and locally. I am convinced that none of them will support such blatant political attack on the President.

I hope against hope that the 'McCarthy' MD was misquoted. There is otherwise no other explanation.

Contact: MEC S'bu Ndebele at 082 5533 592

Issued by: Office of the MEC for Transport, KwaZulu-Natal, 16 November 2001