Business

5 important things happening in South Africa today

Staff Writer

 ·13 Oct 2017

Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:

• President Jacob Zuma will hear today whether his appeal against the reinstatement of 783 corruption charges has succeeded. The Supreme Court of Appeals has scheduled its ruling for 9.30 on Friday. The ruling has been eight years in the making.

• Public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane has asked that the Absa/CIEX review be postponed to 2018, after her legal team dumped her. Mkhwebane’s office says that there is too much documentation to read through to meet the deadline set by the court. Absa and the Reserve Bank are challenging her findings.

• Former finance minister Pravin Gordhan says that South Africa has a tough road ahead of it – but if it wants to turn things around it has to get rid of the rot of corruption in government and the private sector. Earlier this week, Gordhan backed Ramaphosa as the man to do the job.

• SAA has been left in the lurch following government apparently dropping plans to sell state assets to bail it out, however for clarity on the plans for the failing airline will be revealed at Malusi Gigaba’s mid-term budget speech next week.

• South Africa’s rand raced to a two-week high on Thursday as investor appetite for riskier but high-yielding emerging markets assets improved and data eased concerns about the domestic economy. On Friday the rand was trading at R13.45 to the dollar, R17.84 to the pound and R15.93 to the euro.