President of Business Unity SA (Busa) Sipho Pityana and his Black Business Council (BBC) counterpart, Sandile Zungu, put aside their deep differences and kept their cool when they co-chaired a meeting between the two organisations this week.
The meeting, which was attended by the office bearers and chief executives of both organisations, came after the two presidents met a day before in an attempt to iron out issues they had aired in an ugly public spat.
However, according to a source privy to the discussions of the two-man meeting, little progress was made and instead the only agreement was that organisational issues be dealt with.
“A single-minded effort will be made towards a unified voice of business in South Africa to continue championing the interests of business and to better partner other social partners in tackling the challenges of disappointingly low levels of economic growth and stubbornly high levels of unemployment that then lead to increasing levels of poverty and increasing levels of inequality.
“The BBC and Busa will focus on finding solutions,” a BBC statement read.
Speaking to City Press after his meeting with Pityana, Zungu said that he had smoked the peace pipe with his opponent and that “the focus was on the organisations”.
Zungu also confirmed that the lawsuit he had planned on instituting against Pityana due to the open letters he had written was “on hold for now”.
According to two sources close to the matter, Zungu and Pityana stayed clear of the issues raised in the respective open letters to each other when they chaired the meeting.
Attempts to get hold of both Pityana and Zungu after the meeting proved fruitless.
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