South Africa’s economy has taken some heavy body blows: can it recover?

ECONOMISTS are growing increasingly concerned about South Africa’s economy. This is because the country’s three major macroeconomic problems – lacklustre economic growth, growing inflation and very high unemployment – have been exacerbated by a series of major disruptions.

These include the Covid pandemic that started as a health crisis but escalated quickly to an economic crisis. Millions of people lost their jobs as economic activity came to a halt under lockdown.

In the middle of the pandemic violence that lasted for eight days erupted in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. Further pressure has been piled on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which is pushing up food prices.

The most recent blow has been devastating floods in some parts of the country that caused loss of lives and massive destruction of infrastructure, including to the country’s biggest port in Durban.

These events hit an already fragile economy. The South African economy has been on the receiving end since 2009. It