Source: Trading Economics
‘Eskom has become the proverbial cholesterol in the municipal service delivery breakdown,’ said acting judge Millar. Image: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg‘Eskom has become the proverbial cholesterol in the municipal service delivery breakdown,’ said acting judge Millar.
Two groups of residents of the Lekwa (Standerton) and Ngwathe (Parys) municipalities have the right not only of access to electricity supplied by Eskom, but to enough of it to sustain the most basic human rights guaranteed in the constitution. This was one of the findings made by acting judge Anthony Millar in the High Court in Johannesburg on Friday, when he granted an application from residents of the two municipalities and ordered Eskom to urgently restore electricity supply to recent, adequate levels.
Read: Eskom blamed for ‘human catastrophe’ in Lekwa and Ngwathe He also hit Eskom and the two municipalities with punitive cost orders, citing Eskom’s uncaring attitude to the hardship its earlier decision to throttle electricity supply imposed on residents. The two applications dealt with substantially the same issues and were heard together.
While many people have been forced to cut back on their spending because of reduced income, Celliers in an interview with FIN24, said banks had experienced a “massive drop” in transactional volumes, across the industry, showing that everyone was saving more.
When people are saving more of their money, banks benefit as they sit on bigger deposits. But they also lose out on transactional volumes and revenue that they would have generated from lending activities if people bought homes, cars or took out credit for other purposes. However, it’s not just about banks’ transactional volumes, the ripple effects are much bigger.
“An economy needs trade,” said Celliers. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a big enough economy for 50 million people if we don’t have trade. Whether it’s a spaza shop, at Woolies (Woolworths) or at a restaurant, we need trade. If we all sit at home, you will have a much smaller economy.” While the South African economy came close to a standstill during the hard lockdown, the move to Level 4 failed to lift retail and wholesale trade sales in May.
Stats SA is yet to publish June data but recent trading updates of companies like Spur and The Foschini Group showed that trading remained subdued in June while the jury was still out for July as restaurants were allowed to open for sit-downs only this month. Celliers joins a growing number of people and organisations who have warned that South Africa cannot save its way to recovery.
