With small businesses already hit hard by the impact of COVID-19, and especially the imposition of a national lockdown, it is time municipalities and landlords granted property owners and tenants some breathing space by suspending payments for the duration of the lockdown.

This is the call made by Geoff Jacobs, President of the Cape Chamber of Commerce & Industry, in the light of the negative economic consequences of the national lockdown and the decision by the Stellenbosch municipality to suspend rates.

“Rates and rents are a substantial cost of doing business. With all non-essential businesses being forced to close during the lockdown, continuing to pay them will be the nail in the coffin of many small enterprises. Many will be forced to shed staff as the only way to survive, if survival is at all possible,” Jacobs said.

“I am not calling for a write-off of debts for municipal services or for landlord rents, but I am asking the City of Cape Town in particular, and municipalities elsewhere in the province, to recognize that they must share the economic burden the lockdown is imposing.

“It is in all our interests that when this crisis is over, there will still be an SMME- business sector able to play its vital role in providing employment, and continuing to grow our local economy”, Jacobs pleaded.

“Stellenbosch municipality has shown the way. The City of Cape Town has the resources and should set an example to other major cities by doing the same,” he said.

Issued by The Cape Chamber of Commerce & Industry