Big Decisions
High unemployment is only going to deteriorate over the next decade which is very worrying especially if the youth have no prospects. There has to be an uprising at some point as there is no solution for this problem.
There comes a point in life where decisions have to be made due to the circumstances you find yourself in. Things in South Africa have steadily deteriorated over the last 10 years and have no got to the point where by staying doesn't make any sense.
Everything is pointing to a move abroad and if I am honest should have happened 2 years ago already but moving during lockdowns and not being fully vaccinated would have been impossible.
This weekend on Saturday I have a crunch meeting with my business partner with the hope he agrees to setting up something elsewhere even if it is a back up plan that becomes the main plan for the next 10 years.
My love and desire is to stay with manufacturing as that is what I am good at overseeing a plant as numbers come naturally to me. Logistics is easy as I have been doing that for over 30 years along with problem solving. Manufacturing items for the market place is just a combination of everything I know and this is what I enjoy.
Business in South Africa is going through a shock phase currently and is by no means back to normal as it cannot due to constraints fighting against it at every turn. There is always a road block whether it is no power, no raw materials, increased import duties or the threat of strike action. All of these combined will increase the last threat significantly and is going to be a boiling pot of unrest. This is suffocating any growth and this is forcing companies to make tough decisions.
With the latest reports coming out of our power utility Eskom things are only going to get worse than what we have already experienced. The last few days have been hellish and today considering I am only writing this and it is 2 pm we have had just over 6 hours worth of power from midnight. We were cut off from 6am until 13.45 as starting up substations after scheduled power cuts is becoming harder to maintain. Tomorrow the fault will be worked on resulting in no power from 8am-5pm. They may fix the fault but the underlying problem of power cuts is not going away.
Eskom said on Sunday that it has run out of cash to buy diesel and does not plan to order any more until 1 April 2023.
The consequence of this will be extreme levels of load shedding not yet experienced in SA.
If you are interested the article is here to read UPDATE | Extreme load shedding ahead as Eskom diesel budget runs dry
This is seriously bad for manufacturing businesses like myself as a stage 4 means every 6 hours you lose 2 hours of power 24 hours a day. Stage 6 means every 4 hours you lose 2 hours of power which basically in a nut shell we cannot manufacture the products we do as the waste of raw material is too high. In the past we could run the machines overnight or whenever we knew we had a long enough run time. This doesn't work for us and many others will be in the same position.
The end result is more businesses closing their doors increasing the jobless numbers which will result in more drama at some point. This is a boiling pot that could turn nasty as no one is happy with what is happening.
Desperate people turn to crime unfortunately as there is no other choice in order to survive and we have seen serious crimes on the increase with cash in transit robberies a weekly occurrence with some having 2 or 3 on one day. ATM bombings, kidnapping along with hijacking and robberies. kidnapping is a new one which has come from nowhere where they ask for a ransom. Not a pleasant picture being painted, but that is the reality when you have no law and order in a failed state.
Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) expect unemployment to hit 40% by 2030, but most of us believe we are already over that figure if everyone was open and honest. Open borders along with a shrinking GDP with businesses closing down due to power restrictions does not bode well long term.
Personally I cannot wait 2 years to wait and see the what if scenarios as in 2 years I can establish a business elsewhere with no risk of the above scenarios and would be foolish to hang around. Contractors are already coming in next week to start fixing this house up so it is ready for the market as soon as possible.
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