I feel a bit like a therapist sometimes. Good people sometimes need a bit of a moan.

What certainly seems true is that as 2024 draws to a close everyone is completely exhausted. Yes, there is still a month to go, but the mid-month close of business seems to have shifted even to the past week as people start to slow down noticeably.

The year has been exhausting for so many reasons — GDP has been weaker than expected and people have been more cautious on the pace of reforms leading to growth, even with the end of load-shedding. Logistics and other reforms, while ongoing, take time.

A year-end celebration of so much of the year being without load-shedding therefore seems odd, and likely not to be on many people’s agendas. Indeed, the absence of economic recovery on the back of no load-shedding seems rightly concerning and perplexing to business — even if we know it is because other limiting factors such as logistics have bitten quickly, and prior levels of adaptation to load-shedding were so high.

The other problem is one of expectations management. The year 2018 saw raw “Ramaphoria” — it is far easier for people to just ignore the facts as happened back then and drink the Kool-Aid. Now there is a problem of once bitten, twice shy, and a more complex balancing of nuanced expectations management. Positive reform is happening, but it will only have a positive effect in the long term. The need to constantly balance and check the views of a board to be positive, but not too positive, is exhausting.

Businesses have also been thinking longer term than usual — the government of national unity (GNU) has focused them to think about political and social and policy stability over a full five years through to 2029 in a way (or at least a level of earnest detail) that has not been the case before.

While presenting to boards and c-suites in the past few weeks I’ve got the usual questions one always gets on “the long term”. The level of engagement and debate over events and risks in three or five years’ time is a huge step change — rather than just sage nodding that the long-term risks tick box has been ticked.

Add to this the distraction of the Group of 20 (G20), for businesses not just government. Most of it is highly performative or simply just not about SA but global themes and issues. As positive an opportunity and showcase as it will be, a huge volatility grenade is in the process of going off already.

The amount of effort required to juggle issues such as the US inauguration, and a water crisis that is getting worse rapidly in SA, in Gauteng in particular, will also be exhausting in the new year.

Political navel gazing, games and noise just add to the distractions. I am still convinced that most of the GNU drama from all sides belongs very much in the “noise” bucket rather than the “real issues” bucket. Gauteng politics in particular has exhausted people.

Perhaps after Covid-19 this has also simply been the first full year that wasn’t part of the “recovery”, so people are complaining over nothing much that is unusual compared to the pre-Covid period.

All of this sounds very glum, but it only goes to show the challenge and effort that will be needed in 2025 to stay the course. There is also a cautionary word here on the problem of circularity. To get higher growth we need corporate sentiment to improve, based on prospects for political stability and reforms but also specifically to translate into investment and tap-opening decisions.

If that doesn’t happen we will remain stuck in a rut. Already there has been no real sign of early animal spirits, meaning growth has remained weak in the second half of 2024.

Harking back to a number of columns through this year, it is not clear that the government gets how finely balanced the problem of kick-starting growth is. This has been shown clearly in exuberant and economics-illiterate communications from the government and certain politicians after the release of jobs and GDP data since the elections (the jobs issue is particularly maddening given the strong seasonalities in the data).

With eyes focused internationally and on the G20 in 2025, it will be important not to forget the need to craft careful domestic communications and expectations management. The publication of the government’s medium-term development plan and then the state of the nation address will be the first major opportunities in the new year. A business-as-usual speech (far too long, trying to cover too many bases) certainly won’t cut it, but it is the risk we face given so much clambering for mentions is likely from the GNU partners.

Next year might well be even madder and busier and more distracting and demanding of patience and calm than 2024. Certainly, it will not be a time to slow down, but a time to lean in for the long haul.

• Attard Montalto leads on political economy, markets and the just energy transition at Krutham, a SA research-led consulting company.

This article first appeared in Business Day.