Grave concern over South Africa's future

Deepak Nagar, Grant Thornton's chairman, says that 24% of the companies surveyed admitted that they were putting off important investment decisions and a further 24% were looking for investment opportunities in foreign countries.

It says the entire nation is battling with service delivery issues such as gas and electricity. Billing concerns were highest in the Western Cape (19%) followed by Gauteng (17%), Eastern Cape (14%) and KwaZulu-Natal (10%).

In Gauteng, road issues were causing the most concern with poor road maintenance and non-functioning robots impacting on business performance.

The Q1 2012 Tracker Survey found that 37% of South African executives rate over-regulation and red tape as the biggest constraints to business expansion and is even higher than the lack of skills in the workplace.

The increased cost of security to prevent crime was impacting on businesses along with a decline in staff motivation, low productivity, a loss of skilled staff and a decline in customer numbers.

For more:

• Business Live<: Business blasts government inefficiencies in new survey
  
• Grant Thornton: Poor government service delivery continues to negatively impact SA businesses