{"id":848288,"date":"2026-01-19T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=848288"},"modified":"2026-01-19T14:13:46","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T12:13:46","slug":"r370-million-national-shutdown-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/848288\/r370-million-national-shutdown-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"R370 million national shutdown in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The police ministry has revealed that the attempted &#8216;national shutdown&#8217; in 2023 cost the country R370 million in additional operational costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was revealed in a parliamentary Q&amp;A by the EFF&#8217;s Leigh-Ann Mathys, who questioned the costs incurred by the South African Police Service, specifically relating to the shutdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his response, acting Minister of Police, Firoz Cachalia, noted that the SAPS&#8217;s operations bill amounted to R368.1 million during and directly related to the shutdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The acting minister said that the bulk of the costs related to overtime pay, where employees of the SAPS are entitled to certain benefits and payments when deployed away from their normal place of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This includes payment for extended hours, overtime hours, accommodation, meals, travel and subsistence allowances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In light of this, the operational cost for the SAPS was broken down as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>R306.4 million was spent on overtime remuneration<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>R51.0 million was spent on meals<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>R10.5 million was spent on travel and subsistence expenditures, and <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>R226,526 was spent on miscellaneous payments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The mobilisation of the SAPS was a proactive measure to protect all citizens in the country and maintain the rule of law,&#8221; Cachalia said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Measures had to be put in place to protect the rights of protesters to protest while at the same time allowing all citizens to go about their business.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the threat of widespread protest action had been made, inclusive of threats to close down major roads and business, the SAPS was required to put in place measures to maintain peace and protect the citizens of South Africa and their property, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The SAPS&#8217;s measures proved to be effective, with efforts to bring South Africa to a standstill ultimately falling flat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While some businesses were disrupted by the protest action, by and large, most regions in the country reported few incidents, and people were able to go about their business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What the shutdown was about<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Firoz-Cachalia.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Firoz-Cachalia-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-845016\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Firoz-Cachalia-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Firoz-Cachalia-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Firoz-Cachalia-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Firoz-Cachalia.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Acting Minister of Police, Firoz Cachalia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The 2023 National Shutdown was led by the EFF and took place on Monday, 20 March 2023. At the time, then-police minister Bheki Cele characterised it as a simple protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the shutdown itself was in the name of &#8216;everything wrong with South Africa&#8217;, it was centred around two major issues at the time: load shedding, which had reached critical levels, and the Phala Phala scandal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Participants were calling for the resignation of President Cyril Ramaphosa while demanding that electricity be restored to the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to the EFF, the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) and smaller political parties took part. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, they failed to reach the critical mass needed to make an impact, with many major players, such as Cosatu, taxi unions, and larger political parties, steering clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The SAPS also moved to mitigate much of the impact, confiscating thousands of tyres intended for burning during the protest and arresting protesters who stepped out of line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An incident report following the shutdown characterised the protest action as largely peaceful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A post-protest report from the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (Natjoints) showed that over 550 people were arrested on the day for, amongst others, public violence, intimidation, damage to critical infrastructure, theft and attempted looting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of those arrested, Gauteng recorded the highest number with 149, followed by the Northern Cape with 95, the Eastern Cape with 80, and the Free State with 64.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Almost three years after the &#8216;shutdown&#8217;, load shedding remains largely resolved &#8211; though critical electricity issues remain, particularly around pricing and local infrastructure issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Phala Phala scandal, meanwhile, remains a dark cloud hanging over the president&#8217;s head, with little political will to pursue the issue further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The police ministry has revealed that the attempted &#8216;national shutdown&#8217; in 2023 cost the country R370 million in additional operational costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":705789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[6934,24191,3888],"class_list":["post-848288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-eff","tag-national-shutdown","tag-saps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":848296,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848288\/revisions\/848296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}