CEOs of CGCSA-member companies highlight rising cost of doing business in SA

The CEOs of companies, who are members of the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa (CGCSA), have written to President Cyril Ramaphosa ahead of the State of the Nation address, highlighting the increasing cost of doing business in South Africa.

They expressed their concern about high levels of load shedding and deteriorating infrastructure, adding that this could result in consumers paying more for essential services.

Companies’ CEOs write a letter to President Ramaphosa ahead of the SONA

In the letter, the CEOs of among others, Massmart, Coca Cola and Tiger Brands say they want decisive action from the Government to solve, what they regard as a crisis.

They have raised concerns about the levels of load shedding they’ve had to cope with for the past 10 years. Furthermore, they claim that the deterioration of other essential services such as water, roads and the rail network, is affecting their ability to trade.

The CEOs say the use of emergency power generators causes unsustainable financial costs. And that these will almost certainly result in higher food and medicine prices for consumers.

“The biggest issue that we have as a country is load shedding and the deterioration of critical infrastructure such as ports and rail,” says the CEO of the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa, Zinhle Tyikwe.

A number of retailers are incurring massive operational costs as a result of load shedding. Pick n Pay which released its trading update on Wednesday has described load shedding as a permanent new reality.

“They have also given an indication of the costs relating to load shedding as with other retailers like Shoprite,” says Carmen Mpelwane from Sanlam Investments.

The CEOs want their members to be exempted from paying the fuel levy, as well as the road accident fund levy for as long as they suffer regular load shedding.