5 important things happening in South Africa today
·22 Mar 2019
Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:
- Eskom has moved back to stage 2 load shedding during the day, following more than a week of stage 4 load shedding, which disrupted businesses and households. Stage 2 will commence from 09h00 to 23h00, though could again escalate should the utility run into any trouble. [Eskom]
- The cancellation of a boiler heath assessment contract 18 months ago has been identified as one of the causes of Eskom’s power station maintenance backlog. However, a tender process for the contract that was supposed to be finalised this week has now been cancelled due to irregularities. [M&G]
- Former president Jacob Zuma says that the R1 trillion nuclear deal with Russia would have prevented South Africa’s energy crisis. Experts have said that the deal would have crippled South Africa. Opposition to the deal also resulted in the firing of 2 finance ministers which crashed SA’s markets. [BusinessLive]
- New details about an alleged VBS looter showed how he received over R35 million from the bank, which he spent on luxury cards, a house and his business – and now he’s claiming that the bank owes him R21 million more. A VBS investigation found the payments to him were irregular. [Daily Maverick]
- South Africa’s rand firmed nearly 1% on Wednesday, shrugging off the electricity crisis, as investors bet the US central bank will maintain a dovish stance. Markets were closed on Thursday for the public holiday. On Friday the rand was at R14.21 to the dollar, R18.67 to the pound and R16.16 to the euro.
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