Gareth Ackerman sounds warning on profits, saying Pick n Pay expects a decline of more than 20% for H1 2024. It's been difficult to stay positive about the future of South Africa for a long time, said PnP Chairman.

Foolhardy government policies will push South Africa over the edge, increase food shortage and prices and destroy business, warns Pick n Pay chairman Gareth Ackerman.

At the retailer's AGM on Wednesday morning, Ackerman, who is also co-chair of the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa, railed against the government's newly drafted race-based water rights quotas and the Employment Equity Amendment Act (EEAA), which are compounding pressure on businesses already being squeezed by rolling blackouts, crime and criminal cartels, the breakdown of logistics capacity, truck burnings and diplomatic stand-offs with our biggest trading partners.

Together, these factors are undermining any hopes of an economic revival.

By imposing new racial quotas on employers of more than 50 people, the EEAA is a threat to private employers should they fail to employ a workforce mirroring racial demographics, which will in effect make large numbers of qualified people unemployed and substitute them with unqualified people, he said.

"It (the act) is very probably unconstitutional and could ruin many productive companies and foreign investments on which the economy depends.

"I cannot understand why our government has not caught up with the times. The act tries to force on business, by decree, an outcome that...