Johannesburg – South African Breweries (SAB) announced that it could be forced to pour 132 million litres of beer down the drain. This is beer that has been sitting in tanks because of the lockdown.
The alcohol industry is suffering huge losses because of the ban on the sales of alcohol since the National State of Disaster that was declared by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“SAB is respectfully requesting that it be allowed to transport packaged beer from its breweries to its storage depots for the sole purpose of protecting inventory. Urgent action is needed to avoid material financial losses to both the government and SAB, as well as significant job losses,” said Vice-president of corporate affairs at SAB Zoleka Lisa.
Lisa added that the company had been prevented from transporting inventory from its breweries to its depots for safekeeping.
“This is not a request to reopen the trade and allow the sale of beer. Covid-19 is a health crisis. This request concerns the latter, not the former. Transporting inventory for storage poses negligible additional risk of transmission of Covid-19 and SAB is committed to take all the steps necessary to mitigate this risk.” Lisa said.
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