Act on anarchy now, says Gold Fields CEO

• Chris Griffith calls for urgent action, saying SA cannot pretend July violence did not happen

Stronger and faster action is needed to thwart instability and escalating anarchy in SA in the wake of the riots that gripped parts of the country last month, Gold Fields’ CEO said in one of the most forceful remarks by a business leader on the looting orgy that delivered a blow to SA’s image as a safe, investorfriendly emerging market.

Speaking to Business Day, Chris Griffith, who took over the top job from long-time CEO Nick Holland in April, said it was difficult to give investors comfort following the unrest and a general increase of criminality and violence in the country.

“You can’t pretend that this didn’t happen,” he said.

“You can’t pretend that government wasn’t slow. You can’t pretend that this all couldn’t flare up again.”

Griffith, who heads a company that was founded in the 19th-century gold rush, said it was also difficult to explain why some ministers responsible for the poor reaction to the riots ended up serving in other portfolios. For example, Nosiviwe

Mapisa-Nqakula was removed as defence minister in a cabinet reshuffle after the riots but last week she was elected National Assembly speaker.

While the unrest ripped through KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng, causing major disruptions to supply chains, most mining operations were unaffected, including Gold Fields’ South Deep mine, its only remaining SA asset.

The mining industry is, however, battling against increasing criminality, ranging from procurement mafia to cable theft and beyond, piling pressure on President Cyril Ramaphosa to maintain law and order as he canvasses the private sector to pump money into an economy whose fragile prospects took a pounding from the unrest and pandemic-induced lockdowns.

“For us as South Africans, this is a very dark period and it’s going to be very difficult for us to recover quickly and to demonstrate that, actually, everything is okay, because things are not okay,” he said.

“There are a lot of red flags at the moment for SA, and we

really need as a country, as government, to take much stronger action quicker than we are at the moment.”

He said record unemployment and the slow economic growth rate, which would not be enough to return to 2019 levels before the latter part of 2023, were also very concerning.

This is echoed in a statement issued by the Minerals Council SA, an industry body group, after the release of data showing SA’s official unemployment is at an all-time high of 34.4% with 7.8million people out of work.

On the expanded definition the unemployment rate is 44%.

The council urged the government to accelerate the implementation of institutional and structural reforms to improve competitiveness, grow investment and raise the inclusive growth rate to create jobs.

“Unless further clear and bold political decisions are urgently made on further critical structural and institutional reforms, SA faces the real possibility of a full-blown sovereign debt crisis and the emergence of further social upheaval,” said

Minerals Council CEO Roger Baxter. “In the absence of much higher levels of economic growth, none of these problems can be solved.”

Difficult as the operating environment in SA may be, Griffith affirmed Gold Fields’ commitment to South Deep, its last remaining asset in SA.

Although the asset has a troubled loss-making history, it appears to have turned the corner, being cash positive for the past two years with signs of continued improvement.

Gold Fields asset left in the country: South Deep

34.4% the jobless rate, according to Stats SA’s latest data