IRMSA Risk Report – South Africa Risks 2020
At this stage in our country’s history, risk management has never been more important. Already, many risks have materialised but in their wake a whole new set of risks have emerged. We, as a nation, as organisations and as individuals must identify these risks clearly, and put the necessary strategies in place to mitigate them.
This was the overall theme of the address to the IRMSA Risk Conference in October 2019 by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng.
He said that we need “to prevent new risks from emerging while we manage those that already exist – with a view to reduce them or minimise them and to hopefully eliminate or leverage them in the long run.”
The Chief Justice set the context by correctly noting that our approach to risk must be informed by the shared national vision embodied in our Constitution. He emphasised that this vision incorporates the fact that there were injustices in the past, and that they need to be redressed or they will continue to constitute risks to our democracy and erode the social capital on which every nation depends:
What is it that we are called upon to do as individuals and as the citizenry of South Africa? How will we make sure that those injustices of the past do not continue to pose the risk they posed in the past? How do we eliminate them so that we can become the stable, peaceful and prosperous nation that we all desire to be?