5 important things happening in South Africa today

·1 Feb 2023

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

Government helping Eskom: Officials in the Presidency are calling ministers and departments daily to remind them to sign key approvals and exemptions for Eskom, allowing the embattled power utility to add more generation capacity to the grid. Rudi Dicks, an official in Ramaphosa’s private office, said that National Energy Crisis Committee’s (NECOM) attempts to help Eskom will bypass the regulatory mess that has blocked essential interventions. This comes in the wake of stage 6 load shedding. [News24]

Reduce water consumption: Cape Town residents are being urged to reduce water consumption, as dam levels are 25% lower than they were at the same time last year due to below-average rainfall. The City of Cape Town said that 949 million litres of water were being used daily over the last week, but the city wants to reduce that number to 850 million litres a day. Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said that water restrictions might have to be introduced in the future if the water-saving target is not met. [BusinessDay]

Surgery backlog in Gauteng: Over 35,000 people in Gauteng are on the waiting list for surgeries in the province’s public hospitals – with over 10,000 patients on the waiting list at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital alone. Gauteng Health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko said that load shedding, backlogs due to Covid-19, and delays in filling critical posts have exasperated the issue. Nkomo-Ralehoko added that patients could wait up to five years for surgery. [City Press]

Mayor lives to see another day: eThekwini Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda will remain in office after a no-confidence motion was removed from a council meeting on Tuesday due to concerns that the ANC was inflating its numbers over a virtual meeting. The motion was previously proposed by the Active Coalition Citizen party (ACC), which accused Kaunda of failing to provide basic services to the municipality. The date of the no-confidence vote is yet to be announced. [EWN]

Markets: The South African rand was little changed on Tuesday as the country continued to struggle with rolling power outages. South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) wants to employ disaster management legislation that was used to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic to help end crippling power cuts, a top party official said on Tuesday. On Wednesday (1 February), the rand was trading at R17.40/$, R18.91/€, and R21.43/£. Brent crude is trading at $84.49 a barrel. [Nasdaq]

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