LETTER: Cobra group evokes Dunkirk spirit
The task force seeks to rescue businesses in distress from the raging waters of the economic tsunami
The economic crisis in SA is more than a “100-year storm”. We are facing the greatest decline in the history of SA’s modern economy. Dr Miriam Altman, a member of the National Planning Commission and Covid Business Rescue Assistance (Cobra), SA’s largest pro bono initiative helping distressed businesses, forecasts unemployment rising to between 30% and 37%. Singular Group estimates it will take four to seven years to recover and forecasts GDP contracting 10%-16%.
But our economic crisis has been building for the past five years. Covid-19 has simply worsened the situation, and the technical recession confirmed in the first quarter of 2020 is likely to become an economic depression. The situation already seems to have exceeded the government’s support plan. The Treasury projects that job losses could reach up to 7-million due to the coronavirus pandemic. Never before has there been a clearer need for the government, business and civil society to work together to defend the thre...
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