Gareth Ackerman, the chair of Pick n Pay, has become the latest business leader to criticise the government.
Business Day reports that the remarks were made at the release of the company’s full-year results.
Ackerman criticised the government for its overt support of Russia in that country’s ongoing war with Ukraine. He also said that it was ‘beyond understanding’ that the government would threaten South Africa’s preferential access to US markets through the AGOA.
Ackerman was quoted as saying: ‘At a time when growth-orientated policy change and certainty should be the only items on the agenda, we are mixing up policy with politics. How our government can risk Agoa — and other bilateral agreements — through overt support for Russia after its invasion of Ukraine and threatening to withdraw from the ICC is beyond understanding.’
Ackerman also said the impact of loadshedding had had a significant impact on the company’s profits. Pick n Pay has been spending about R60m a month on diesel for generators, and it spent over R80 million in each of January and February.
Ackerman also lamented the state of the country’s economy. ‘We are at a particularly precarious time in SA. With official unemployment sitting at 32.7%, and much higher among young people, the IMF has just forecast our growth at 0.1% this year. That isn’t even standing still. It’s going backwards,’ Ackerman said.
Image: Bl1zz4rd-editor, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons