Business

5 important things happening in South Africa today

Staff Writer

 ·13 Jul 2021

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

Coronavirus: In South Africa, there have been 11,182 new cases of Covid-19, taking the total reported to 2,206,781. Deaths have reached 64,509 (+220), while recoveries have climbed to 1,943,513, leaving the country with a balance of 198,759 active cases. The total number of vaccines administered is 4,390,891 (+154,173).

• Anarchy: Violence and looting continued on Monday night, despite president Cyril Ramaphosa’s call for calm, and the deployment of some 2,500 SANDF soldiers to assist police in restoring order. Law enforcement officers reported being spread thin across Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal, with malls and major shopping chains remaining vulnerable to attack. Community ‘militias’ have formed to try and stop looting, but criminals have continued to attack homes and even healthcare workers on their rampage. The situation has been made worse by the spread of fake news via platforms like WhatsApp, with misinformation spreading, causing confusion. [News24]

• Vaccines: South Africa’s vaccination rollout has already been hampered by violent riots and looting, with almost 40,000 fewer shots being administered on Monday than expected, and more delays to come. The country had slowly managed to ramp up daily shots to 200,000 but only managed 154,000 on Monday. Vaccination destinations such as Dis-Chem were forced to close amid the rioting, while pharmacies were looted by criminals. Discovery has alerted customers that its outlets will also be closed today due to the ongoing violence. Over 1,100 drug stores have been looted and trashed, according to Independent Community Pharmacy Association. [ENCA]

• Alcohol ban: Liquor store owners and producers are under siege on two fronts – the first from the ongoing alcohol ban implemented by the government, and the second from looters and rioters who have raided stores and stolen stock, leaving destruction in their wake. Industry bodies have been alerted to raids on warehouses in other provinces, far from the violence in Gauteng in KwaZulu Natal, with some stores reporting millions of rands worth of stock being stolen, and the property being destroyed. The Liquor Brand Owner’s Association said that the bubble of frustration over the liquor bans has popped, and criminals are using the riots as an excuse to target liquor stores. [Daily Maverick]

• Reserved: The Constitutional Court has reserved judgement in the latest bid by Jacob Zuma to have his prison sentence rescinded. Zuma’s legal team argued that it was not in the best interests of justice to arrest an old man just for “snubbing” it. The president did more than “snub” the court – he directly and deliberately defied a Constitutional Court order, and also dared the court to arrest him. In response to Zuma’s arguments, lawyers for the state capture commission reiterated that the position Zuma finds himself in was always his choice and that he was given ample opportunity – more than most – to avoid jail. [EWN]

• Markets: The rand continued to lose ground against the major currencies in morning trade on Tuesday, amid ongoing violence and looting in areas of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. While the riots have created negative sentiment towards South Africa for investors, the rand is impacted by more than that, with the weak economy and fundamentals like unemployment, power supply etc also factoring in. Unfortunately for South Africa, most of these factors are also not in a great place, with global economic recovery and other outside factors being the only boon. On Tuesday, the rand was at R14.39/$, R17.07/€ and R19.98/£.