The devastating impact of the liquor sales ban on alcohol producers and the restaurant trade is threatening the future of producers elsewhere in the supply chain, with the bottling industry facing mammoth losses, according to a Fin24 report.
It said the country’s largest glass producers, Consol and Isanti, were having to spend millions a day just to keep furnaces running. If the furnaces were stopped, they would have to be rebuilt for the companies to begin producing again.
The industry contributes R11.8 billion to GDP and employs more than 26 000 people.
Glass industry suppliers of raw materials such as silica sand, limestone, soda ash, feldspar, iron slag and cullet were also at risk.
The report said the ban threatened to bring 75-year-old Consol Glass to its knees. It had lost R3.5bn in sales and production during the first alcohol ban. Keeping its furnaces going cost the company some R8 million a day. It continued to produce glass for essential products such as containers for food, pharmaceuticals and non-alcoholic beverages, but this accounted for only 15% of total sales.
Said Mike Arnold, CEO of Consol Glass: ‘We estimate the reinstated alcohol ban will have the same dire consequences as the first ban, another eight weeks of no sales means another R1.35bn lost to the business and the possibility of the closure of around half our facilities as well as further salary sacrifices and short time for employees.’
He said closure of the glass industry would ‘deindustrialise the South African economy by around R20 billion and the country would have to become a net importer of glass packaging and other related products’.
Isanti managing director Shakes Matiwaza said that, like Consol, the company spent R8 million a day to keep its furnaces going. Rebuilding its nine furnaces would cost R500 million.
He suggested South Africa should rather consider a restriction on the consumption of alcohol, warning that it would take years to recover from the long-term effects of the ban.
City Press reported that, with more than 1 557 healthcare workers infected, the expected peak in KwaZulu-Natal could be disastrous.
It quoted the Democratic Alliance’s KwaZulu-Natal spokesperson on health, Rishigen Viranna, as saying: ‘We’re highly concerned that there’s massive under-testing within KwaZulu-Natal, which makes up 19.3% of South Africa’s population, yet – in terms of Covid-19 – only makes up 7% of the tests that have been done. We believe there may be many positive patients who haven’t yet been tested.’
He said the province, which had experienced a steep rise in infections over the past two weeks, had recorded more cases of infected healthcare workers than any other province, with more than 1 500 front line workers testing positive for the virus.
City Press also cited a report published by Corruption Watch last week, titled X-Ray: The Critical State of the Health Sector, which said South Africa’s public health system was confronting a mammoth challenge due to the corruption affecting service delivery.
The report, based on 700 whistle-blower accounts from 2012 until the end of last year, indicated that, of the 670 cases of corruption reported in the health sector, about 52% concerned allegations against provincial governments, while about 40% levelled allegations at national government.
Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has been discharged from hospital. He was admitted on 20 July after testing positive. He has been advised by his medical team to self-isolate at home for another seven days.
Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition Ebrahim Patel tested positive at the weekend. He was reported to be in ‘good spirits’ and was in self-quarantine.
Positive cases grew in South Africa yesterday by 11 223 to a cumulative total of 445 433 (with 265 077 recoveries). Deaths rose by 114 to 6 769.
The highest tally of cases is in Gauteng (160 154), followed by the Western Cape (92 079), the Eastern Cape (73 585) and KwaZulu-Natal (64 061).
In other virus-related news
- More than 16.06 million people have been reported to be infected globally and 643 811 have died, according to a Reuters tally;
- The tally showed that cases in Latin America had for the first time surpassed combined infections in the United States and Canada, with the region now having 4 327 160 cases – about 26% of all cases globally; and
- North Korea reported what it described as the country’s first suspected case of coronavirus. AFP reported that medical infrastructure in the closed and repressive state was regarded as woefully inadequate for dealing with any epidemic. The country’s state news agency, KCNA, said a person who defected to South Korea three years ago returned last week across the demarcation line with Covid-19 symptoms. Leader Kim Jong-un reportedly held an emergency meeting with top officials, imposing a lockdown in the border city of Kaesong. South Korea said it had not reported any illegal crossings of the demilitarized border in recent days.