Possible food price hikes following a week of riots in KZN, Gauteng

A possible hike in food prices was on the cards following the looting and setting alight of shops in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, including Pretoria.

While most parts of Pretoria remained calm last week, Mamelodi suffered sporadic incidents of looting which led to 130 people arrested. Several shopping centres closed down as many retail centres were gripped by fear of copy-cat attacks.

Economist Dr Azar Jammine said the effect of closure of harbours last week, and the N3 highway that facilitates transportation of goods between Durban and Gauteng could likely result in food supply shortages and prices going up.

“What you can see is shortages of food developing which could cause the prices of food to rise more rapidly and become less affordable in the affected provinces.”

Many of the affected residents from Mamelodi flocked to nearby areas such as Silverton for supplies and several shelves at the Shoprite store were empty on Friday, due to high customer demand.

Jammine said the provinces could also see shortages in healthcare products and medication and there could be damaging effect on the investor confidence after the riots.

“There was huge damage on businesses. It is estimated that 50 000 businesses were affected. Most of the black-owned businesses were wiped out by this. Bear in mind that they employed people. Now the unemployment rate will rise and poverty rate will rise.”

Jammine said long-term effects of the riots on the economy would depend on political stability.

Pretoria-based economist Dawie Roodt concurred that for a few weeks to a month, the province might see a hike in food prices but expected that to subside by October.

“There will be a direct impact on unemployment and poverty rate. Long-term economic growth will be suppressed because of people losing confidence in the country. Many businesses may also not reopen,” he said.

“In the long term, the brand South Africa will be affected. The image of SA to investors will be affected, not just KZN.”

Tshwane metro spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said they expected things to return to normal this week.

“We are expecting the situation to normalise this week. Currently, the situation is stable but there are areas of concern such as Mamelodi but beyond that, we are seeing normality kicking in.”

Mashigo said the sporadic protests and threats of protests saw two government vaccination sites and one mobile testing clinic at Wonderpark being closed last week Monday.

The closure of shopping centres last week also affected the private sector vaccination programme with about 10 Clicks stores in the region closed.

Mashigo said all 31 vaccination sites and mobile testing in the region operated without interruption this week.

“There are no interruptions. We expect everything to be normal. The impact was there last week, people did not turn-up the way we expected them to. People could not move freely but this week we are optimistic we will increase.

“We added the vaccination sites from 25 to 31. We want to add the number of people vaccinating. All the eligible candidates are encouraged to get vaccinated.”

Tshwane mayor Randall Williams said the police have also launched an operation to recoup some of the stolen goods which were looted from Mams mall and Denlyn mall.

“In Tshwane we were able to speedily contain small flare-ups of criminality and looting with our law enforcement teams working together with communities and various stakeholders to maintain law and order.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday said at least 212 people lost their lives. Of these, 180 were in KwaZulu-Natal and 32 in Gauteng. No fatalities were reported in Pretoria.

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