5 important things happening in South Africa today
·27 Jul 2017
Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:
- Salim Essa the major shareholder in Trillian Capital, has announced that he will be selling his stake in the company amid ongoing links to the controversial Gupta family. Trillian came under fire after it was reported it had received almost half a billion rand in payments from Eskom, apparently as a subcontractor to McKinsey.
- The ongoing Gupta scandal is likely to put a number of state projects on hold according to statistician general Pali Lehohla. Releasing Statistics SA’s capital figures on expenditure by the public sector for the year 2016 on Wednesday, Lehohla said the continuing scandals related to parastatals that had questionable business transactions could create “a negative image”.
- After posting its first-ever loss in 2016, the group has indicated that its coming interim results will show headline earnings per share of between 210 cents and 230 cents. MTN said its poor performance last year was because of non-recurring costs, mainly the fine in Nigeria which hit the company for 474 cents per share, as well as the ‘professional fees’ that went with it.
- The Afrikaner stronghold of Orania in the Northern Cape is planning its own “digital currency”, reportedly with the help of economist Dawie Roodt. The town already has its own un-sanctioned currency, the ora, which it hopes to now take to smartphones as a purely digital transaction. It operates as a ‘voucher’ backed by the rand.
- South African stocks scaled a 27-month high on Wednesday, buoyed by further gains by bourse heavyweight Naspers, while the currency firmed to reverse a run of two straight sessions of losses. On Thursday the rand was trading at R12.89 to the dollar, R16.93 to the pound, and R15.13 to the euro.
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