The president of Randburg and Fourways Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Richard Ntjana has appealed for calm and unity during this time of unrest.
Ntjana said, “We would like to appeal to our beloved members and members of our business community to keep calm and discourage the spread of fake media which makes our community panic.”
He highlighted that now was the time to spread the message of hope and unity and become a stronger nation going forward.
“Our organisation has been hit hard in the past few days of civil unrest and the looting of shops. We have since [gone from] an organisation [which is] a business lobby group to now an organisation that deals with trauma counselling. The bulk of our members are not coping with anxiety, many living in panic, devastated by confusing messages from all quarters of social media reporting about the looting of shops and factories.
“It is sad to see a nation that was striving for unity and cohesion to deal with the economy at the brink of collapse due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and we are very concerned to see retail centres closed.
“Some parts of our beautiful country have just been turned into war zones… With the deployment of the army, the situation is very dire but some businesses are not comfortable with the police and army visibility in our areas where major shopping malls and factories are based.”