LETTER: Would you shop at Gordhan’s Shoprite?

Driving between Potchefstroom and Cape Town last week, I saw only two trains operating: one was Rovos Rail and another was hauling minerals.

But between Kimberley and Britstown, where the Gqeberha road turns off, I counted almost 100 trucks hauling manganese. The road damage I witnessed on this section of the N14 will require a rebuild. It was a pristine road two years ago. It really brings home the cost of socialism, as the railway line would be full of trains carting the manganese if run by private enterprise.

This is the testament of Pravin Gordhan, with R230bn in value at state-owned enterprises (SOEs) destroyed on his watch.

Let’s contrast that with Shoprite. Its 1990 market capitalisation was R29m and now it is R152bn, and in that period it bought Checkers, which was making a R40m loss a year. Look at the turnover of Shoprite in 2023 — at R215bn with a profit of R5bn — compared with Eskom’s R150bn and its loss of R23bn.

A rule of thumb with Eskom: if you took out half the workforce, did not spend R28bn on diesel, paid competitive prices for coal and suppliers, and ran the plants at an industry standard of 85%, you would halve your costs.

If Whitey Basson was running it with a free hand, aiming for a similar profit to what he achieved at Shoprite, we should be paying roughly 40% less for electricity. In contrast, if you were buying your groceries at Gordhan’s Shoprite, you would pay double for your food and it would still make a loss.

Rob Tiffin
Cape Town

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