Financial Mail reports that Wendy Alberts, head of the Restaurant Association of SA (RASA), says hundreds of thousands of restaurant workers are starving as they haven’t earned any money during the national lockdown in which restaurants are not allowed to be open.  

She has been inundated with messages from restaurant owners who are unable to provide for hungry staff.  Alberts lamented that the Covid-19 lockdown was crippling restaurants, yet they have received "absolutely no financial support from the government, the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), banks or landlords".  Plus, there was a lack of communication from the government about when they could reopen and how.  Rasa estimates that restaurant sector employs 800,000 people, and is a large employer of unskilled workers.  It has surveyed thousands of restaurants about their financial positions and the responses overwhelmingly show that restaurants have been left on their own and face imminent closure.  Only 3% of those that responded said they had accessed financial help from banks in the form of loans.  .  The impact on restaurant workers has been even more dire.  Waiters rely on tips for a large portion of their income and they have gone without since mid-March.  Moreover, it is believed that when the lockdown ends, people will prefer to have food delivered rather than go to restaurants.  Alberts sees a future with far fewer restaurants.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Katharine Child at BusinessLive
• Read too, Holes in the safety net may leave informal workers and some in formal economy with nothing, at Moneyweb

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