Tag: South African Special Risk Insurance Association (SASRIA)

South Africa joins over 60 countries that will head to the polls in 2024, with heightened risks for civil unrest reminiscent of July 2021 top of mind. 2024 has been dubbed the election year, with voters in more than 64 countries heading to the polls.

As South Africans prepare themselves for higher stages of load shedding in the coming colder months there remains a growing concern around the possibility of a total grid failure. A grid failure is described as a total or partial interruption or suspension of electrical power supply from the national, regional, municipal or private grid supplier resulting in widespread power outages.

As a result of the collapse of almost every government service and state owned enterprise, South Africans are perforce increasingly seeking ways to avoid or replace government services. State insurers have also failed.

The possibility that the Government’s insurer South African Special Risk Insurance Association (SASRIA) may not be able to meet its solvency capital requirements caused by the large claims arising from the riots, looting and destruction of last July is becoming a reality.

The turbulent geopolitical climate is creating uncertain economic conditions across the globe. In South Africa, several unique challenges are worsening the effects of global risk factors, including load shedding, hefty fuel hikes and ongoing inflationary increases.

The Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) 2020 was tabled to Parliament on 11 November 2021 by South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.

Businesses in South Africa experienced major losses in July from physical damage, business interruption, and loss of revenue, looting, vandalism caused by civil commotion, protests and riots which resulted in about $3.4 billion in lost output and placed 150,000 jobs at risk.

As calm steadily returns after the recent social unrest, analysts are hard at work tallying the cost of the looting and disruption to economic activity. So far, the damage to 2021 growth is estimated at between 0.5 and 1.0 percentage points.