Let’s face it, Tanzania is not a walk in the park if you like your deliveries on time and your business dealings free from bureaucratic interference. Which is why even Shoprite, who laugh in the face of Nigeria and scoff at Angola, have bravely turned their tails and fled from that handsomely-woven East African basket case. But Nakumatt, now, they’re storming right in, having acquired Shoprite’s three stores there in the face of a bitter challenge from the catchily-acronymed Tanzania Union of Industrial and Commercial Workers (Tuico), a challenge which they saw off at the Fair Competition Commission (FCC). And now they’re going ahead and rebranding those Shoprite stores, the better to put their mark on their acquisition, which cost them $45million-odd. Nakumatt now have 45-plus stores in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda, and employ 4,000 souls.

Comment: We wonder idly sometimes whether the blue Nakumatt livery will one day be hoisted over South African storefronts…

Cap’n Lew, or “Red Solomon” as he’s known to terrified aislefarers, is playing a canny game of cat and mouse with Woolworths among the shallow and dangerous shoals of retail acquisitions down under, to extend our metaphor dangerously past breaking point. Some of the wiser hands even suspect he has a cutting-out expedition planned for the dark for the moon on July 14, when shareholders will meet to decide on Woolworths’ bid for David Jones. See, if Woolies still hold over 90% of the shares on acquisition, they can compulsorily buy out remaining shareholders. Red Solomon currently holds 9.89% of stock, and no one knows whether he’s planning on extending this to the 15% he needs to scupper the deal, or indeed how.

Comment: Stirring stuff. Until July 15, we clutch our pearls.

Woolies are known as a well-intentioned bunch, the bleeding hearts if you like of the supply chain. They’re all about local and empowerment and sustainable and stuff like that. Why then does their African operation rely so heavily on food exports from South Africa? Currently, food stores comprise only 20% of Woolies’ footprint beyond the border, and this is a number they’re keen to edge northward. The issue is of course supply: Woolies is a business built on both quality and scale, and getting both of those to match up elsewhere in Africa is currently challenging. The answer, says Paula Disberry, The Dapper One’s group director for retail operations, lies in regionalism – getting infrastructure built on a regional basis the better to serve individual countries in the regions. All of this goes some way to explaining Woolies’ focus on the SADC region, as well as its recent withdrawal from Nigeria.

Comment: For as long as we can remember, we’ve been telling anyone who will listen that the businesses to invest on are those that bring supply chain infrastructure to an undeveloped continent.

We haven’t covered industrial action for a while and after the flurry of results and interims of late, things have quieted down somewhat. So here’s one: despite the fact that Tongaat Hulett reached an accommodation some weeks ago with FAWU, hundreds of that union’s members are still out on strike on the grimy light industrial heartland of Clairwood, south of Durban. Among the terms the wildcatters are demanding are an 11% pay increase, a R800 housing allowance, a reduction of the working week from 43 hours to 40 hours without losing benefits, and that thousands of contract workers be employed full-time. The current deal caps increases at 10% for the lowest-paid workers. The workers are barred from picketing outside the premises, but meet daily to strategise at a local park.

Comment: Hell of a thing, and an indication of the desperation some South Africans feel at the wrong end of the Gini coefficient.

Retail sales, it will not surprise you to learn, grew by a sluggish 1.8% year-on-year in April, where economists were predicting 1.6%, and where March’s number has been a yet more dismal 0.8%. Growth was also 1.6% for the quarter – the slowest since the onset of the global financial crisis. Household circumstance, consumer confidence, high debt levels, blah, blah, blah. This familiar litany is to be found almost every day in our nation’s fine newspapers, yet there seems no sense of urgency in business or in government to do anything other than bemoan the whole sorry shooting match and to click and tut and shake heads. In the meantime, we are told, the South African punter is now behaving like we’re in a recession, spending less on food than a year ago and failing to invest in durables, according to the Reserve Bank.

Comment: And when consumers “behave” like we’re in a recession, in a consumer-led economy like ours, that is exactly where we will soon be.