5 important things happening in South Africa today

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

Feels like a cover-up: Opposition parties and anti-corruption groups feel like something is off regarding the Reserve Bank’s findings on the controversial $580,000 Phala Phala saga. The SARB concluded on Monday that since the transaction in question was never completed, Ramaphosa nor the game farm had anything to report to the authorities. Corruption Watch said the SARB’s statement left more questions than answers and felt like a cover-up. [News24]

Job shedding: The South African manufacturing sector lost jobs in the second quarter of 2023, shedding 96,000 quarter-on-quarter. The last time the sector grew employment was in the fourth quarter of last year. Stakeholders in the industry said this is due to load-shedding, weak demand, rising costs, industrial action, and poor municipal services – making job cuts inevitable. [TimesLive]

Greylisting starting to pinch: Standard Bank CEO Sim Tshabalala noted that the financial greylisting of South Africa is now significantly impacting Standard Bank’s operations on the continent. He said it makes it more challenging to do correspondent banking with global partners as “we are getting more and more questions”. He added that it has become more complex to do regular trade transactions as partner banks require more forms and more paperwork – making these transactions less efficient and significantly more expensive. [Daily Investor]

Skills crisis: The Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (Irba) warns that South Africa is facing an alarming shortage of auditors that is exacerbated by low maths literacy, significantly reducing the student pool, and a number of push-and-pull factors such as political and socioeconomic instability that on the one hand pushes emigration, and on the other pulls our highly skilled and in-demand professionals to alleviate global shortages. [Business Day]

Markets: The South African rand eased on Monday, at the start of a week when Johannesburg hosts the BRICS summit of emerging market economies and the government releases monthly inflation figures. The rand has fallen over 6% against the US dollar this month and nearly 12% this year. On Tuesday (22 August), the rand was trading at R18.96/USD, R20.68/EUR and R24.21/GBP. Oil is trading at $84.36 a barrel. (Reuters)