Riots, looting will only further reverse SA economic growth, warns Pandor
International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor has described the violence and looting as a further blow to South Africa’s economy.
She was speaking in Windhoek on Thursday.
Scores of people have died and more than 1500 arrested during a wave of violence and looting which swept through Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal over the past six days.
Twenty five-thousand troops from the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) will be deployed to the areas to quell the civil unrest.
She told Namibian media that government is acting to restore order in the two provinces.
“I want to stress that everyone in South Africa, as in Namibia, has the right to demonstrate and protest peacefully. But any threat to life or destruction of property is a criminal activity and will be responded to by our security forces.
“And so we have begun to effect arrests in a number of areas in South Africa, including arrest of people who are caught with stolen goods which were looted from retail stores in our country. Our government is acting to restore law and order because this is very important to economic activity in South Africa.
Pandor said the country will keep its borders open.
“We are working very closely with the business sector to ensure that goods continue to move. We were able to successfully do so during the worst of the pandemic.
“I think we should be worried about the nature of the violence that we have seen, the nature of criminality. Worried because these things sometimes spill over. But we should use this as a lesson. South Africa’s economy was just beginning to recover from the worst of the pandemic. This is going to further reverse our economic growth.”
