Government

5 important things happening in South Africa today

Staff Writer

 ·22 Apr 2022

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

• Empty promises: The latest construction industry forecast report published by Industry Insight shows that the South African government has failed on its infrastructure delivery promises. The report notes that in July 2020, 62 mega construction projects at R360 billion in combined value were said to be “fast-tracked”, “shove-ready” and “bankable” by the minister of public works and infrastructure. Industry Insight said that the rollout has been slow with no signs of a meaningful uptick over the last 12 to 18 months. [Moneyweb]

• Near-miss meltdown: Fruitless negotiations to get the Postbank to pay for a key part of the financial software and systems that it uses resulted in grant access for roughly 120,000 beneficiaries – amounting to R204 million – being shut down. Investigative group amaBhungane revealed that over 2021, the multi-billion rand social grant system almost stopped functioning more than once. This comes after the Postbank was meant to provide the same services as the service provider internally by upgrading its own capabilities. [amaBhungane]

• KZN economic wipeout: The Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry has estimated that, thus far, the severe flooding has cost the city’s economy R737 million, excluding the replacement value of properties. The chamber highlighted that the government needs to restore water to key business nodes or else it could lead to economic collapse. This follows President Cyril Ramaphosa saying that the floods could not have come at a worse time, after the July 2021 riots left 2 million people unemployed, wiping more than R50 billion from the economy. [News24]

• Covid case increase: The latest numbers of daily Covid-19 infections saw a sharp rise of positive cases at 4,406 in the latest period under review. This marks the highest number recorded in recent days at a 15.8% increase. 65 deaths have been reported bringing the total to 100,276 deaths. Analysts have warned that this could be the start of the fifth Covid wave in the country – though there is no indication that a new variant is in circulation displacing Omicron. [BusinessTech] [SACoronavirus]

• Markets: The South African rand endured deepening losses on Thursday as severe power cuts and damage caused by deadly floods weighed on the economic growth outlook. The state utility Eskom reduced scheduled power outages from “Stage 4” to “Stage 2” however investor worry remains as the outages could persist into the winter months. The rand is currently trading at R15.42/$, R16.72/€ and R20.08/£.  [Nasdaq]