Finance

5 important things happening in South Africa today

Luke Fraser

 ·30 Jun 2023

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

• SARB cools new payment system: The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) is cooling attempts from India and Russia to introduce an interlinking payment infrastructure for settlement in their respective currencies, with the aim of reducing the use of third currencies. This aligns with the BRICS initiative to lessen the dominance of the dollar. However, the SARB said that BRICS should instead focus on establishing a common vision and agree on data-exchange standards, which would lay the foundation for the interlinking system, while South Africa focuses on its interlinking initiatives in Africa. [Business Day]

• Gas relief for Western Cape: Commodities company Trafigura will provide liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to the Western Cape for the next three months. This comes after Vita Gas suddenly pulled out of a deal to provide gas to the province, which resulted in gas constraints. The import terminal operator, Sunrise Energy, said it would evaluate new proposals for using its facility beyond September. [News24]

• Joburg pothole win: Despite pothole-related incidents per 100km increasing by 29% across the country in 2022, Discovery Insure says the number of these types of claims decreased significantly in the City of Johannesburg. Discovery said that the decline follows its Pothole Patrol initiative launched in 2021, which a 26% decrease in pothole-related accidents in Johannesburg in its first year. However, the rest of Gauteng has not been so lucky, with pothole-related claims in the greater Gauteng area going up 45%. [Moneyweb]

• State capture allegations: The Democratic Alliance has submitted official complaints against Deputy President Paul Mashatile and African National Congress (ANC) Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula to the Public Protector. The complaint for Mashatile refers to allegations that he received favours from state capture-linked individuals. Moreover, the DA said that it wants to know if a loan received by Mbalula from a board member of the National Lotteries Commission was linked to the misappropriation of funds at the entity. [EWN]

• Markets: The South African rand weakened around 1% against a stronger dollar on Thursday after the release of the central bank’s quarterly bulletin and producer price index data. South Africa’s producer inflation slowed to 7.3% year-on-year in May from 8.6% in April. On Friday (30 June), the rand was trading at R18.74/$, R20.37/€, and R23.67/£. Brent crude is trading at $74.49 a barrel. [Nasdaq]