Mudavadi asks business to cooperate with State

Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi has urged the private sector to rid itself of the perception that it is in opposition and instead work with the government.

Only by forging partnerships with the government, can the private sector help the country achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the DPM said.

Influence development

Mr Mudavadi said the private sector was failing to influence development due to its dependence on goodwill rather than insisting on institutional infrastructure to guarantee its contributions.

“We tend to deal with regimes as a favour to do business with and therefore are perceived as opposition when we disagree rather than as a sector which merits respect as a contributor to development,” the DPM said.

He was addressing a United Nations forum on the topic: “Delivering on the MDGs: Accelerating for the future”. The forum was organised by the business community on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York on Tuesday. (READ: Kibaki, Mudavadi US trip fuels speculation)

Mr Mudavadi said the business community could help a lot in achieving the next stage of MDGs if they avoided courting transitional governments for short term gains.

He said such relationships were governed by “redundant Cold War ideology” that determined that “in order to do business, you had to grease the hand of the Big Man.”

“The value of sustaining MDGs from the business sector contribution lies in a partnership with the government based on predictable institutions.

“Business must insist on legislation that protects public and private partnerships, not particular individuals in power,” he said.

The DPM also urged business to provide “concrete, pragmatic and actionable proposals on mobilising global and domestic financial resources instead of committing to help sustain a particular regime in power.”