Sygnia CEO Magda Wierzycka said the South African government is sabotaging businesses and killing the economy.

Speaking to Jeremy Maggs on Moneyweb@Midday, Wierzycka said that the South African economy is moving backwards.

She added that the government does not have any plans to deal with job creation or improve the quality of education.

There is also a severe electricity shortage with load-shedding expected to become much worse as demand increases in winter.

“We have no support from the government for the private sector. I’m not talking about big business, but also small and medium-sized enterprises,” she said.

She said South Africans were previously willing to accept that they had a poor government with a struggling economy and no job creation.

However, matters deteriorated rapidly. “We now have a situation where the government is actively destroying jobs through incompetence,” she said.

She said the government is sabotaging businesses through the electricity crisis and which is killing the economy.

“We were willing to accept that we had some deficiencies in terms of our ability to deal with terrorism and money laundering,” she said.

“Now we find out that South Africa is actually the centre of money laundering and sabotage. Hence, we have a situation where we are greylisted.”

She warned that if the country continues with its current trajectory, the consequences are “almost too horrifying to think about”.

South Africa is a failed state

Wierzycka’s criticism of the government follows comments during a Brenthurst Wealth webinar that South Africa is a failed state and nothing on the horizon points to a changing situation.

She said municipalities, which form the backbone of South Africa’s government, cannot provide basic services like water and electricity.

She said 45% of water in South Africa is lost within municipal water systems due to poor infrastructure, poor maintenance, and illegal connections.

Many people hope the 2024 general elections may result in a change, but Wierzycka said this optimism is misplaced.

Even if the ruling party loses the elections and makes way for a coalition government, it is unlikely to improve things.

“If the municipal elections are anything to go by, we are looking at complete chaos of coalition governance,” she said.

She added that the prospects of a DA/ANC coalition – which many analysts have pegged as the best hope for coalition governance to succeed – are incredibly slim.

“I don’t want to say I’m negative about [South Africa], but I am negative about it,” Wierzycka said.

“I don’t want to leave this country; I love this country. But I am out of ideas in terms of what we need to do to fix what we are facing right now.”

“When I look at the mess which has been created, I cannot see the light at the end o the tunnel.”