5 important things happening in South Africa today

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

• Sanral conundrum: Sanral has stunned SA’s embattled construction industry by awarding three of the five tenders it cancelled in June to Chinese firms. Among these tenders, the R4 billion Mtentu Bridge on the Wild Coast went to China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), and the construction of the EB Cloete Interchange in Durban went to Chinese firms Base Major and CSCEC at R5 billion. [News24]

• Koeberg project risk: A report by Eskom has warned about the impact of a delay on the multi-year project to extend Koeberg’s life by a further 20 years. Unit one is scheduled to be taken offline soon to replace its three steam generators and is expected to be offline for at least eight months. A similar prolonged outage is planned for unit two at the end of 2023. Eskom says any delays in the refurbishment could exacerbate the power supply constraints, leading to massive amounts of unserved energy. In practical terms, there will be a shortfall of 1 860MW of capacity, equivalent to two stages of load shedding. [Moneyweb]

• COP27 submission: South Africa has officially handed over its just transition plan to the international partners’ group that pledged $8.5 billion. At this year’s climate finance negotiations, President Cyril Ramaphosa pushed for wealthy nations to fulfil their obligations to support poorer countries in a way that does not worsen their debt burdens. Over the weekend, Ramaphosa launched the country’s five-year, R1.5 trillion investment plan to fund its move away from coal, saying that the $8.5 billion pledged to a good start to SA’s just transition. [News24]

• Gauteng metros dire finances: Gauteng told a SA Local Government Association (Salga) that the Johannesburg metro alone had eroded an opening balance of R409.4 million at the beginning of September to a negative balance of R835.5 million. The Ekurhuleni metro, which opened with R1.8 billion in its coffers, was in the red by R1.44 billion during the same period. This equated to a combined negative balance of R2.276 billion, which could result in the metro struggling to pay salaries for its 32,000 staff in two months if no additional funding was received. [BusinessLive]

• Markets: The South African rand gained on Monday (7 November), supported by risk-on sentiment across markets, while stocks on the Johannesburg bourse ended slightly higher. Analysts at Investec said the SARB was “increasingly expected to deliver a 100 basis point hike, which would bring the cumulative size of South African and U.S. interest rate hikes in line in the current cycle”. On Tuesday (8 November), the rand was trading at R17.78/$, R17.79/€ and R20.43/£. Brent crude is trading at $97.45 a barrel. [Nasdaq]