GIULIETTA TALEVI: How to make R13bn in investments vanish
Lebanon should be front of mind for South Africans as a cautionary tale of what happens when a political class of elites systematically destroys a country
As my former colleague, journalist Stephen Gunnion, put it on Wednesday: “It beggars belief that that between SA Breweries (SAB), Heineken and Consol Glass, more than R13bn in investment has been pulled. The economy has been sabotaged by the government because of [Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma’s] ‘principled’ prohibition. The impact will linger a lot longer than Covid-19 itself.”
This week, SAB confirmed it had iced R2.5bn of capital expenditure this year, and is reviewing the R2.5bn it planned to spend in 2021. Dutch brewer Heineken has scrapped a R6bn expansion plant, and Consol — which supplies bottles to the liquor industry among others — has indefinitely suspended construction of a R1.5bn glass manufacturing plant in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng...
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