South Africa has banned booze sales... again!

As you'll have no doubt realised, pretty much everywhere in the world has been seriously affected by the spread of COVID-19. That includes South Africa, where the number of cases is still rising and rising (the number of cases has risen to over 276,000 with over 12,000 new cases recorded per day, with over 4,000 people dead). The country has been placed into a national state of emergency until 15th August.

Part of a slew of emergency measures introduced by the South African government had been a temporary ban on alcohol sales, both internally, and overseas, that lasted from 26th March to 7th April and then again from 16th April to 1st May.

After 1st May, exports fully resumed and retailers were allowed to sell alcohol for 4 days a week. That's now changed again though as President Cyril Ramaphosa banned the internal sale of alcohol in South Africa once again, although exports will still carry on. Are you confused about this yet? I definitely am.

So, why is South Africa going in and out of these periods where the sales of alcohol are mostly or completely banned? It seems that the South African government feels like alcohol-related incidents are causing too many unnecessary hospitalisations.

"As we head towards the peak of infections, it is vital that we do not burden our clinics and hospitals with alcohol-related injuries that could have been avoided," Ramaphosa stated in his public address on 12th July. "This is a fight to save every life, and we need to save every bed. We have therefore decided that in order to conserve hospital capacity, the sale, dispensing and distribution of alcohol will be suspended with immediate effect."

President Ramaphosa further explained that there was "clear evidence" that alcohol sales being resumed on 1st May, "has resulted in substantial pressure being put on hospitals, including trauma and ICU units, due to motor vehicle accidents, violence and related trauma."

As you'd imagine, people in the brewing and alcohol industry in South Africa are not very happy with this. Various industry groups have stated that they are "disappointed" with the decision to once again stop sales of alcohol, something which they said had been made without any warning being given to them and that flew in the face of "continuous engagement" with the government and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) in South Africa. In fact, they went as far as to call the move "deeply troubling".

A statement issued by those alcohol-related industry groups has said that, "while we acknowledge the urgency of the situation, it is crucial to understand the complexity of alcohol-related trauma so that we can sharpen our focus on the most effective interventions and also measure their impact against a shared understanding of the facts and the problems. This requires access to health and alcohol-related information in private and public sector hospitals and clinics which government has never shared with industry."

This has resulted in a huge loss of earnings for South African's alcohol industry, as well as potentially enormous job losses. It's been reported that the wine industry alone has directly lost around 3 billion Rand (£142.1 million, or $178.5 million), with up to 18,000 jobs in being directly at risk. While exports are still carrying on, according to Wines of South Africa, exports have been very negatively hit due to, "reduced logistics at ports and adverse weather." If that's how it is just for the wine industry, imagine how much the rest of South Africa's alcohol industry is being affected by the same issues!

Kurt Moore, CEO of the South African Liquor Brandowners' Association (SALBA) went on to express some of his own individual concerns. He feels that yet another temporary alcohol ban will have a "disastrous economic impact on the industry and continue to exacerbate the loss of excise revenue" as well as fuelling a "growth in the illicit liquor market." With legal alcohol impossible to purchase yet again for a currently uncertain amount of time, we could genuinely be seeing a return, at least on a temporary basis, to alcohol-related practices that haven't been widely seen since the prohibition era in America.

Whichever way you look at things, it's not looking good for South Africa's alcohol industry as a whole. South Africa's government seems to be very confused at the moment over how it should handle the alcohol industry.

On the one hand, it does seem to be open to talks with industry groups about how best to handle how the pandemic is affecting them but, on the other hand, it seems like they feel like alcohol consumption is so much of a threat to public health right now that they'd rather people just didn't drink or buy it at all.

Hopefully once the worst of the pandemic is over there (President Ramaphosa estimates that the peak of infections will occur between the end of July and the end of September) people working in the industry will be able to recover and get back mostly to how things were before COVID-19 ravaged the world.

Although, with a window as wide as late July to late September for the peak of the virus in South Africa, it looks like the struggle for South Africa's breweries and wineries to survive may be far from over...