On Wednesday, South African economy was crippled by one of the biggest protests in recent times. Tens of thousands of people refused to show up at work in a protest against spiraling food prices and rising cost of electricity. The protests hit hard the mining and manufacturing sectors which together drive the bulk of South African economy.
The protests were organized by the Congress of South African Trade Unions as millions of workers struck work and marched across cities like Cape Town and Pretoria. The strike brought the shoe, car and textile factories to as standstill and according to some reports work in the country’s gold mines were badly affected. Analysts warn that such strikes would further hurt an ailing economy which grew at just 3% this year as compared to 5% in the past four years. The police claimed that by and large the strike went off peacefully even though there were scattered reports of some people being threatened as they left for work.
The strikes come in the wake of rising food prices and soaring electricity costs in South Africa and like similar trends in rest of the world, the poor have been the hardest hit. Many African cities have seen some of the worst protests in recent times when locals were accused of attacking and destroying the business of the more prosperous immigrant population.
-Kalyani Mookerji
