5 important things happening in South Africa today
Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:
Social unrest warning: Organised labour union leaders of Cosatu, Saftu, Fedusa and Nactu met with President Cyril Ramaphosa yesterday (12 September) and read the riot act to the government in response to what they called “National Treasury’s shocking proposals to impose ill-considered cuts across the state”. Unions have threatened to strike over the proposals, adding that the government has spread panic and invited “anarchy” with its poor communicaiton. [Business Day]
Transnet skills crisis: Transnet employees say the utility is suffering from a shortage of skilled personnel, inexperienced executives, and extremely low staff morale. This has resulted in hundreds of engineers, financial managers, project managers, and train drivers taking early exit packages. In response to questions from Business Times, Transnet said 5% of its total workforce took voluntary severance packages. [Daily Investor]
SAA selling price under review: The purchase price of SAA is under review by new valuations of both operations and the assets, said Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan on Tuesday (12 September). There has been much controversy over whether Takatso, which signed a sale and purchase agreement to buy 51% of the state-owned airline over two years ago, would pay a fair value, which at the time was determined to be R51. Although a sale and purchase agreement was signed in June 2021, the transaction has not been finalised as Takatso wants all SAA’s historical liabilities to be cleared, which has not yet happened. [News24]
All-day stage 6 is back: Power utility Eskom says that load shedding will be escalated to stage 6 for the rest of the week. Due to further delays in returning units back to service, Eskom said that load shedding will be permanently set to stage 6 until further notice. The group’s unplanned outages are sitting at almost 16,800MW, while planned maintenance is up to around 5,000MW. [BusinessTech]
Markets: The South African rand weakened against the dollar on Tuesday as markets await U.S. inflation data on Wednesday that could shed light on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate path. “With no high impact South African specific data scheduled throughout the week, U.S. and Chinese influences will play a major role,” said DailyFX analyst Warren Venketas in a research note. On Wednesday (13 September), the rand was trading at R18.91/USD, R20.34/EUR and R23.64/GBP. Oil is trading at $92.29 a barrel. [Reuters]
Loading ...