Cape Town – South African consumers face a debt crisis after the country entered a technical recession in 2017, according to Debt Rescue CEO Neil Roets on Friday.
“We have been living through the recession for the past couple of months,” he said. “It has had a big impact on consumers. More than 10 million consumers (over 50% of economically active South Africans) are over indebted, which means they are in arrears on at least three payments.”
Roets said a lot more people have been applying for debt review over the past couple of months. “People are worse off with regards to finances,” he said. “We see all these price increases, but salaries are not increasing. People are also learning about debt counselling, which is helping them.”