WOSA gets the numbers wrong, again

Wars are like London buses. Nothing for half an hour and then along come two, at the same time. With Ecuador threatening the mother of all media battles over that famous Ecuadorian Julian Assange, British woes have just redoubled with Decanter magazine “simply the best in the world” speculating on a Whisky/Wine trade war between SA and the UK. Weapons of mass destruction are back in the news with a bang.


Simply reports “Bulk exports – mainly to the UK but also to Germany – stood at around 40m litres in 2006 but since then have soared to 50-60m litres” Huh? The latest numbers from SAWIS put bulk exports at over 200m litres, so this serious underestimation of SA strength is clearly black propaganda from MI5, MI6, James Bond or whoever runs the UK secret service these days.

WOSA are quoted as claiming “for every 10m litres of wine that are exported, 107 jobs are lost in packaging” which puts SA casualties at well over 2140, far above the 700 claimed by the SA government. So clearly battlefield losses are being hushed up to keep up morale in bottling communities.

WOSA mouthpiece Andre Morgenthal is quoted as “not being sure” that “tit-for-tat moves were the best thing” and added that “while WoSA welcomed the government’s initiatives, exporting in bulk was a matter of economics and those figures could not be reversed: ‘of course it is much more cost effective to ship in bulk – there’s nothing much we can do about that. But the government needs to give more financial assistance into research and marketing as the EU and other governments do.’”

Although quite how increasing WOSA’s R35 million annual party fund (surely “research and marketing” budget?, ed.) will help label designers and printers, bottle makers, bottlers and cork suppliers, is not explained. Let’s hope a secret weapon is being developed by the party planners in Dorp Street.