- Piet Mouton, CEO of PSG, says that Covid-19’s death rate pales in comparison to other causes of death in SA, such as road fatalities.
- If the economy is not fully open immediately, more people will die because of the difficulties if the economy said.
- Mouton said that if the government really took care of the people, it would use the money that was allocated to revitalize the ASA to build more hospital beds.
The head of the Mouton family business, PSG, has again retorted the government’s decision to keep the blockade in place by saying that more people will lose their lives due to the loss of livelihoods if the economy is not opened “immediately”.
Piet Mouton told shareholders during Friday’s annual general meeting that he believed South Africa should never have been in the current position where 3 million people lost their jobs.
“I will reiterate that my heart goes out to all those who have lost friends, family, colleagues and loved ones because of Covid-19. However, I would again like to implore those responsible for South Africa that we open the economy immediately,” he said.
Mouton said that Covid-19’s death rate of 79 per 1 million people has paled compared to SA’s annual mortality rate of 9 500 per 1 million people. He claimed that around 14,000 road fatalities in this country each year pose a much greater risk to life, but the economy has never been closed.
“Do we stop driving trucks because of the likelihood of death while driving? The answer is simply no! So why are we preventing people from making a living. Three million people have lost or risk losing their jobs due to the blockade,” added Mouton.
Mouton talked about how the blockade extension was destroying many companies. In April, he wrote an open letter saying that while everyone wants to protect lives, the government should remember that lives are inextricably linked to the economy.
On Friday, he added that he believes SAs will have more deaths due to difficulties if the economy is not immediately fully opened. He said SA citizens have the constitutional right to earn a living and they should never have been in the position where they could not.
Mouton also said that the government must consider how the current situation is widening the fiscal deficit and how the SA will pay for it, and for state-owned enterprises that are drying up the taxman.
“My personal opinion is obviously that instead of pushing money to revitalize the ASA, we should push money to build more beds in hospitals,” he said.
Mouton said that before Covid-19, SA had a very weak economy due to corruption and the decade of “loss” that many say characterized Jacob Zuma’s tenure as president, a continuing blockade will destroy many remaining companies.
