Government

5 important things happening in South Africa today

Staff Writer

 ·7 Jan 2020

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

• A total of 98.82% of pupils passed the 2019 Independent Examinations Board (IEB) National Senior Certificate exams. 89.51% of students qualified for entry to study a degree, while 7.91% qualified for entry to study a diploma and 1.4% for studying at the Higher Certificate level. [News24]

• Stage 6 load shedding is likely to become a far more common occurrence as Eskom’s plant breakdowns remain at dangerously high levels. In Gauteng, where load-shedding intervals last four hours, Eskom customers could be without electricity for an average of 10 hours a day. [BusinessDay]

• New Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter will have to hit the ground running as he deals with these outages and oversees a government plan to split state-owned Eskom into three units. De Ruyter had been due to start work on 15 January, but the sense of crisis surrounding the firm, which has been leaderless since July and imposed the latest in a long run of power cuts at the weekend, persuaded him to take the helm early. [Al Jazeera]

• A new petroleum bill will help create an uncertain foundation for South African oil and gas production. While the bill aims to attract foreign investment, the big drawbacks are the ownership terms, which feature a minimum 10% black ownership clause and a 20% free carry for the state. [Daily Maverick]

• Positive data from the EU yesterday saw the euro gain some ground against the dollar, with the rand tracking the euro stronger. The local unit has also been lent support by a gold price which reached its highest levels since 2013. On Tuesday the rand was at R14.19 to the dollar, R18.68 to the pound and R15.88 to the euro.