While South Africa’s Covid-19 ‘state of disaster’ may formally be over, the country’s economic woes remain entrenched. After a brief post-Covid bounce in 2021 – with the government in April of this year lifting disaster measures put in place to tackle the coronavirus – the continent’s most industrialised economy is bearing the brunt of the twin global challenges of lower economic growth and soaring inflation.
Such challenges are exacerbated by a series of domestic economic crises that have restricted growth even ahead of the pandemic; longer-term handicaps, such as government corruption – which hit new highs under former president Jacob Zuma – and underinvestment in the country’s electricity network and other infrastructure, have not been helped by recent flooding in the country’s KwaZulu-Natal province.
