Michael Fridjhon writes that SA is the only country where Covid-19 lockdown regulations include a blanket ban on all liquor sales, and the job losses directly attributable to this action are considerable.
The most conservative estimates suggest that they comfortably exceed the total number of jobs which the state has been at pains to preserve through its decades-long refusal to abandon or otherwise dispose of the failing state-owned enterprises (SOEs). While most countries have imposed restrictions on the public consumption of liquor, off-consumption trade for home use has continued, either through retail stores or online trading platforms. Fridjhon argues that it is difficult to discern the logic behind SA’s ban on off-consumption sales. Those wealthy enough to have stored adequate supplies ahead of the lockdown are free to consume alcohol at will, but those in more constrained circumstances are being penalised, and the businesses which supply them are being driven towards bankruptcy. For the wine industry the problem has been compounded by the state’s refusal to allow wine to be exported during the lockdown, which has produced an inevitable attrition among the 40,000 workers employed on grape farms and in wineries. In Fridjhon’s view, allowing off-consumption sales, including for the informal sector, would save a percentage of the jobs at risk. At a most conservative estimate, if every one of the more than 100,000 unlicensed outlets were able to retain a single employee to supply and service the trade, then 100,000 people who are presently unemployed would have work.
- Read Michael Fridjhon’s article in the above regard in full at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
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