5 important things happening in South Africa today
Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:
As South Africa waits to hear whether ratings agencies Moody’s and S&P Global will plunge the economy into full junk, Fitch has kept the country at sub-investment grade, with a stable outlook. Fitch downgraded South Africa to junk earlier this year. The ratings firms are expected to make their announcements this evening.
The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) says it will be suing the Gupta family’s Oakbay Resources & Energy for failing to meet its demand to pay R293 million, following claims that the group’s stock price was manipulated ahead of its listing in 2014. Oakbay reportedly has no money to pay.
Black Friday has hit South Africa, but was off to a rocky start, after several online stores were taken offline due to traffic volumes. South Africa’s biggest online store, Takealot, went down minutes after its Black Friday sale launched at midnight, and has had intermittent uptime.
Financial statements reveal that SARS number two, Jonas Makwakwa, received a bonus of almost R1 million – while he was suspended. Makwakwa is under intense scrutiny for questionable payments of R1.2 million into his personal accounts. Makwakwa was suspended, but recently reinstated after SARS cleared him of wrongdoing.
South Africa’s rand was weaker against the dollar on Thursday ahead of ratings decisions that could see the country’s debt downgraded to junk and kicked-out of global indices, triggering a massive selloff of local assets. On Friday the rand was at R13.90 to the dollar, R18.48 to the pound and R16.48 to the euro.
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