Newsletter # 47

As a joke I wanted to just write “No content due to Load Shedding” for the Newsletter, but then thought if you made the effort to access the newsletter you deserve more than some dark humor. Get it? Dark…Humor…

Not that anyone is laughing as it seems that 2023 will be the year of load shedding. I think the 2022 record will be broken very early on in 2023, and that is not a record to be proud of. The topic is sure to dominate the State of the Nation address and the National Budget – blah blah blah, same story, same people, same result. Talk is cheap. We SAFAS are resilient, but even we can hang on for only so long.

Imagine you are running a business (or a different one if you already are). Your staff are not getting to the work they are supposed to do and will not get to the additional work that is required to maintain the business, let alone grow it. You have paid every consultant, tried every programme and all the incentives to improve productivity, but to no avail. Customers are upset. Even the ones which you do pro-bono work for, sometimes especially them. They are the neediest of the most basic but least available goods and services that you have to offer. Many of your well-paying customers have left or are planning to leave. Many are using alternative suppliers for what they cannot get even if that costs them more. Who will want to buy your business now?

Sounds like South Africa, right? And very few people at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos in January 2023 bought anything SA. Especially not the “load shedding will end in 12 to 18 months” sales pitch. Eskom has not even appointed a panel to look for a replacement to de Ruyter yet… but who in their right mind wants that job anyway?

On top of the continued poor economic performance, interest rates were increased by another 0.25% in January. And trying to be positive some experts say well at least its lower than expected. Just before they also show the Reserve Bank’s revised 2023 economic growth target of just 0.3%. Wow, so the cost of capital increases by 0.25%. But the growth in output from capital is expected to be only 0.3%. It just does not make sense why the rate in increased. Just as little sense as me wanting to marry Scarlet Johansson for her money…

I did not want to start the year negatively. But who knows, maybe there is only one way to go from here and that is more positive. Now enough of the electricity jokes – get it “positive” and “negative” …Don’t worry, Eskom also does not get it, literally. But here’s hoping. Until next time, keep breathing.