Business

5 important things happening in South Africa today

Staff Writer

 ·19 Jul 2019

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

• President Cyril Ramaphosa says that no one is above the law – not minister Pravin Gordhan, not EFF leader Julius Malema, not even himself. However, he lashed out at Malema and his party’s campaign against Gordhan, in which they moved to physically threaten him, saying that even though he will be held to account, processes are in place to determine that. In particular, there are court proceedings underway, he said, and action will be determined once they play out. [IOL]

• Businesses are being deterred from investing in South Africa because of a slow economy, policy uncertainty and a volatile political climate, new research shows. These were the issues most cited by businesses in new research conducted by Absa and the Bureau for Economic Research. The last time South Africa faced such levels of uncertainty was in 1993 and 1994 when the country faced a major shift, the researchers said. [Moneyweb]

• The South African government has become proficient at creating problems and then charging South African tax payers for the solution, the Free Market Foundation says. This extraction is done through taxes for situations that the government is directly responsible for – with things like the carbon tax, sugar tax and others siphoning more of the increasingly meagre earnings of tax paying citizens. [City Press]

• The South African Defence Force has finally moved in on gang territories in Cape Town after initially being deployed last week. The army has accompanied police forces on raids in gang-hit areas, and several hundred soldiers will be deployed to gang strongholds from July to October. Gang violence in the Cape has escalated this year, with thousands already murdered in the area. 3,674 murders were recorded last year. [Reuters]

• South Africa’s rand rallied against the dollar on Thursday and bond yields fell after the central bank cut its main lending rate by 25 basis points in a widely expected move to counter floundering economic growth. On Friday the rand was at R13.85 to the dollar, R17.37 to the pound and R15.60 to the euro.