Lockdown level 4 latest: ‘Hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk’

The government’s decision to force restaurants to shut down under Lockdown Level 4 without any financial support for restaurateurs and their staff was “unconstitutional” and could lead to the death of the entire industry.

This was the warning from Restaurant Association of South Africa CEO Wendy Alberts, who said the latest decision to move the country to Lockdown Level 4 and close restaurants, except for the sale of take-away meals, had placed hundreds of thousands of employees at immediate risk of losing their jobs.

“Yet again, the restaurant industry is the hardest hit industry of all. There is absolutely no plan of any type of financial support or any payment or deferred payment or tax deferment or halting of leases or halting of any debts that we need to pay,” Alberts said.

“We have been called to close our businesses, we are not in a position to trade and yet we are still going to be expected to pay 100 percent of our debts.This is absolutely unconstitutional. There is no mention of TERS (Temporarry Employee Relief Scheme),” she said.

Alberts said the industry should have been prioritised to receive the vaccine ahead of the latest lockdown.

“We still haven’t had any expediting of the vaccine. If we are at the forefront, and if we are being targeted yet again as an industry where we are labelled responsible for the spread of Covid, then why hasn’t  the vaccine been expedited to our industry? Why are we not up front in getting the vaccines out?”

Alberts said business insurance policies had become “tricky” as insurance companies had remodelled their policies with restaurants, and third party delivery services would benefit from hiked food delivery prices.

She said hundreds of thousands of jobs were at risk of being lost “immediately and imminently”.

“Our businesses are frail. Fourteen days in the life of a restaurateur could be the fatality of a total industry. We are calling to the government to open lines of consultation and communication imminently to support the industry through this very difficult time over the next to weeks,” Alberts said.

“We have always shown complete compliance and respect for government and we  have always supported government in the initiatives to save lives and livelihofods, execute the most amount of protocols and endeavour to keep our customers and our staff safe.  We need government to work with us and I think the gap of not having a devoted minister to our portfolio certainly lends itself into the position were are finding ourselves today with the industry being put in a vulnerable and compromising position,” Alberts said.