Behind The Looting
South Africa experienced major unrest after the arrest of its former President Jacob Zuma after he defied a Constitutional Court order to appear before the State Capture Commission. What started as a “#FreeZuma” protest took a wrong turn when protesters diverged to looting, burning of trucks and buildings, attacking journalists among other things. According to the South African Property Owners Association (Sapoa), an organisation that represents owners of commercial property including listed and unlisted companies and private individuals, about 800 shops have been looted and more than 100 have been torched at shopping malls and retailers lost an estimated of R2 billion.
Behind The Looting
Implications of the unrest are on everyone’s lips and forgetting the socio-economic issues that are behind the looting. This article is to bring to our attention the true state of South Africans and how the socio-economic issues have played a role in looting more than 200 malls all across Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal.
- Poverty
According to the World Bank, approximately 55.5 percent (30.3 million people) of the population is living in poverty at the national upper poverty line (~ZAR 992) while a total of 13.8 million people (25 percent) are experiencing food poverty. This no doubt played a role in the looting. People are hungry and the government is doing little to solve the problem, hence residents were motivated to loot.
2. High Unemployment Rate
The unemployment rate jumped to 32.6% in the first quarter of 2021. The Youth unemployment rate currently stands at 63.3% in the first quarter of 2021 from 63.2 in the fourth quarter. That reveals a devastating and depressing state of South Africans. Residents are sitting idle at home and that is why they had time to go to loot and burn buildings.
3. Macroeconomic Policies
South Africa’s economic policies are unsustainable and inefficient. The current policies are not effective and are failing to address the core challenges faced by individuals. Economic policies are sustainable if they lead to human development which then causes economic growth. Political instability and corruption can be linked to this problem.
4. Crime
The unrest had a criminal element in it. Criminals saw an opportunity to perpetrate criminal activities, in fact, crime in South Africa has always been there. South Africa is worldly known for its high crime rate and is among the countries labeled as dangerous. Some common causes of crime are poverty and unemployment.
There is no denying that these factors and others have over time contributed to the unrest that we have witnessed in recent times and unfortunately, until we solve these socio-economic challenges, we still going to deal with things like this in the future. However, it must be stated that these socio-economic issues are no excuse for residents to wreak what we have seen this past week in South Africa.
