Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) CEO Busi Mavuso has again pledged the association’s support to government in efforts to “manage the difficult balancing act” of combatting the Covid-19 pandemic, while ensuring economic recovery doesn’t “veer dramatically off course”.

In her newsletter on June 28, Mavuso says South Africa “cannot afford a major new social programme, though we must do what we can to avoid the humanitarian consequences of the restrictions on economic activity that have to happen”.

The financial pressures government faces inevitably restricts what is possible, she laments, despite the economic recovery the country has experienced over the last few months having enabled a minor recovery in government’s finances but “we need to remain focused on driving the reforms necessary to continue that improvement, especially in the face of the third wave”.

She notes that the recovery has also resulted in some increase in employment, reabsorbing thousands who lost their jobs, and that “bold moves” like the increase of the licensing exemption threshold for own electricity generation to 100 MW, and the disposal of a majority interest in South African Airways, have “given the economy a big shot of confidence”.

However, Mavuso stresses that the third wave of Covid-19 infections “can undo that confidence” if government does not show it is serious about further structural reforms.

Just as South Africa needs harsh interventions to slow the progress of the disease, so too it needs harsh interventions to accelerate the recovery of the economy, she urges, warning that “forbidding work without a massive social programme would be a recipe for disaster”.

She further stresses that the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic will only be won through the rapid distribution of vaccines.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his latest family meeting on June 27, called for a trebling of the vaccination rate to 300 000 people a day.

“That would be an impressive achievement,” Mavuso says, adding that the extension of vaccines to the over 50s, as announced on June 25, is a big step in widening access.

Additionally, the focused programme to vaccinate teachers launched last week is an important measure to ensure education is not further disrupted, she adds.

“The pace of the rollout to teachers was particularly impressive with 48 000 jabs administered on the first day and a target of vaccinating all 582 000 teachers and school personnel within ten days.

“But the third wave that is upon us is devastating despite the vaccine successes. As the President said last night, this wave looks set to peak at a level higher than the previous two,” Mavuso laments.

Ramaphosa announced a move to an adjusted Alert Level 4 lockdown, with additional restrictions for two weeks, which Mavuso says “reflects a very complex balance of considerations”, though she applauded the President for putting a clear timeframe to the additional measures, which allows businesses and others to plan around a finite disruption.