Cape Town – The country’s biggest beer maker, SAB, said yesterday that it had abandoned R5-billion worth of capital investment projects in South Africa on the 12-week alcohol ban imposed by the government as part of its response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
SA finance vice-president Andrew Murray said it would cancel R2,5-billion of investment for 2020, while an additional R2.5-billion of investment was being reviewed for 2021, due to the ban.
“The cancellation of this planned expenditure is a direct consequence of having lost 12 full trading weeks, which effectively equates to some 30percent of the SAB’s annual production,” said Murray.
Yesterday, spirits, wine and cider group maker Distell said the industry had already lost 118 000 jobs and projections showed that a nine-week ban now would cost another 84,000 livelihoods.
Industry figures showed a loss from the first six-week ban on alcohol sales came to R15.4bn, and if the current ban remained in place for nine weeks, another R13bn would be lost to the fiscus – or three times the annual budget of the National Prosecuting Authority.
According to Distell chief executive Richard Rushdon, almost 800 small liquor manufacturers, from wineries to craft brewers, faced bankruptcy because of the ban.
