Between a rock and a hard place

We’ve all lost loved ones this year. My dear friend Mary* lost her beloved husband Mark* to Covid. Last night, I spent five hours on WhatsApp, chatting with Mary. She was broken. “This protest action is terrifying me. I cannot work. I cannot sleep. I feel as though I cannot breathe. Mark was my rock. When this sort of thing happened, he would hold me and tell me everything will be okay,” she wrote to me.

Why am I telling you about this deeply personal conversation? Because we all have “rocks” – and they are being taken away by the thugs that appear to have assumed control over parts of our country. And, in my mind, this is all just so wrong.

For some people, their “rock” is their health or that of their family. Yet this violence has seen Covid vaccination centres close – in the middle of the third wave. Those South Africans who desperately need medical care have been impacted too. “Unfortunately, the violence in certain parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng is placing additional pressure on both the public and private healthcare systems. Like many other businesses, we have experienced some challenges due to staff shortages because staff cannot reach their place of work,” Dr Richard Friedland, chief executive officer of Netcare, told FOCUS.

Rand plummets

For others, their rock is the exchange rate. Predictably, as the violence spread throughout the country, the rand plummeted. This is fine for companies that export. However, as we all know, as a country, we import far more than we export. So, those who depend on a favourable exchange rate won’t sleep well tonight.

For many people in the transport industry, their rock is their business. For the employees, their rock is their job. Yet both are being impacted by the protests.

Let’s start with the impact on the former – namely the employers. According to Gavin Kelly, CEO of the Road Freight Association, the short-term losses for transport operators have already run into billions of rands. “Depending on the category of vehicle, the type and value of cargo and the specialised equipment required for the cargo, the total value of a rig can be anywhere between R3-million to R10-million per vehicle. A simple calculation of capital losses (assets and cargoes at an average of R5-million per vehicle) of the 40 trucks destroyed to date amounts to around R250-million to R300-million,” he notes.

The cost of loss of income through the closure of businesses is far greater. “There are instances where small businesses have lost their only truck, or trucks,” says Kelly.

This brings me to the employees, for whom their rock is their job. A company that has closed down means zero employment opportunities and zero ability for those former employees to support a family.

More than 200 malls looted

Then there are the families in South Africa. For many of them, their rock may be the ability to enjoy a reasonable quality of life and the simple things – a good meal, for instance. Thanks to the thugs that roam our streets, this too is being impacted – because we’re now facing food shortages. But there’s a greater impact too…

By the afternoon of July 12 more than 200 shopping malls had been looted and retailers had lost an estimated R2 billion, according to Busisiwe Mavuso, CEO of Business Leadership South Africa. What happens when you burn businesses and trucks to the ground? When you loot and destroy stores? Costs are incurred, of course. Security costs will increase, as stores and logistics companies are forced to employ guarding services. Routing for trucks will change to safer (but perhaps far longer and hence more costly) routes, where control is easier. And who will ultimately carry these extra costs? The consumers. And goodness knows that, when it comes to the average family in South Africa, there’s not much spare money lying around.

“South Africa is sliding downhill”

For the continent of Africa, South Africa was its rock. Back in October 2012, The Economist wrote that “not so long ago, South Africa was by far the most serious and economically successful country in Africa”. But – in an article entitled Cry, the beloved country – it warned that “South Africa is sliding downhill while much of the rest of the continent is clawing its way up”. Fast forward to 2021 and Michael Fitzmaurice, executive director of the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations (Fesarta) and Kelly speak with one voice when they confirm that slippery slide downwards.

“The spinoff of the devastation and looting in South Africa has far-reaching effects on the entire SADC region and does not bode well for South Africa’s global image. Not only has it impacted hugely on the economy of South Africa, but it has set the recovery of the economy back by at least 10 years – if not longer. It will not surprise me if we see some large-scale disinvestment in the country as we did in the apartheid era. We are also likely to see further downgrades to junk status by the likes of Moody’s, Fitch, and Standard & Poor’s in the short term and the rand is likely to breach the R15-to-the-dollar mark very soon,” warns Fitzmaurice. (Read more about his sentiments on this subject in the sidebar, “Violence will have catastrophic impact, warns Fesarta”.)

Kelly is equally pessimistic. He says the country’s much-lauded status as the Gateway to Africa is gone. “Cargo owners/customers will choose to move products through neighbouring countries. This has already been happening as South African ports become inefficient and the surrounding ports develop, improve and drive efficiencies up. South Africa’s Gateway to Africa status was already being eroded and under threat during the past three years of violence against the road freight sector. The status has been lost and these attacks will further cement the move of transit freight from South Africa to neighbouring countries,” he warns.

Mavuso concurs that the impact is dire. “The disquiet about Zuma’s arrest is being used as an excuse for sheer, opportunistic looting,” he says. “The anarchy on the ground puts yet another nail in our ailing economy’s coffin.”

It all started with attacks on trucks

As Sibusiso Ngalwa notes in an exceptional article in the Daily Maverick titled “How the early 2000s KZN ANC recruitment drive and 2020s truck torchers helped ignite Zuma-aligned looting”, this entire sorry situation was born out of “an unholy alliance between some people who identify themselves as MKMVA** in KwaZulu-Natal and disgruntled former truck drivers who accuse foreign nationals of taking their jobs”.

“This is the grouping that was accused of being behind attacks on trucks on the N3, earlier this year … They lit the match and watched the inferno grow out of anyone’s control,” he writes.

Personally, I really hope that the situation isn’t out of control. Mary’s situation is beyond tragic: her rock is gone. Forever. It is my fervent hope that the same doesn’t apply to millions of other South Africans caught up in the crossfire.

*Names changed.

** Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans’ Association