Protests will hurt economy

Cape Town - Cape Town’s politicians have been urged to meet in order to stop the violent street protests and save the Cape’s economy from damage.

The call was made on Monday by the head of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Michael Bagraim, who warned: “A perception out there is that ‘this [ongoing protest action] is going to be the future’.

“And this leads to the sentiment that ‘we shouldn’t be investing in Cape Town’,” he said.

“I had it from a group of Dutch investors, who are wanting to open a factory here, and had a problem with the airport.

“I find that horrific and I’m very worried about it.

“That factory was going to employ 50 people, and the investors could, in turn, tell their friends… It’s a very unfortunate state of affairs.”

Even if the perception that street protests were now a permanent feature on Cape Town streets was incorrect, the damage came from perception, not reality, Bagraim warned.

“The perception is actually more dangerous than the actual damage.

“A lot of business sentiment is driven by perception, and that perception is being eroded by service delivery protests.

“Perception then becomes reality,” he said. And the reality was that “politics is starting to destroy people’s livelihoods”.

“Workers suffer the most,” he reported. “First, they don’t get paid when they go out and protest. And, second, it puts a damper on business, because businesses don’t employ more people.

“It’s bad news.”

Bagraim urged the Cape’s political leaders to “sit down at a table together as soon as possible” to try to solve the issues without the damaging street protests.

“There’s an old Zulu phrase that says when two bull elephants fight, it’s the grass that gets trampled.

“The businesses are the grass in this instance,” Bagraim said.

In terms of actual damage, the city’s mayoral committee member for safety and security, JP Smith, said extra deployment of officers had already cost the city around R600 000 in overtime in the past two weeks, since protests were launched in Philippi, and more than R5 million had been suffered in damage to municipal property, such as street lights.

“We are deploying extra resources in a bid to contain this damage,” he told the Cape Argus.

The city’s safety and security executive director Richard Bosman said the millions in damage comprised R3.9m worth of damage to traffic signals, and R1.6m for damaged council-owned toilets. - Cape Argus