5 things you need to know in South Africa today
·9 Sep 2016
Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:
- ANC officials in Tshwane are allegedly facilitating a ‘land grab’ to make life difficult for the new DA administration. The Times ran an investigation which implicated the ANC Women’s League, where a piece of land was sold for just R100, and people were instructed to ‘build their shacks’ and return after authorities evicted them. At least 9 other ANC officials have been implicated in the plot, according to various sources.
- Gupta-owned Oakbay Resources says it will again reach out to South African banks which blacklisted the company to implore them to reverse the decision. The group said it still does not know why its accounts were closed, as none of the banks have given them a list of reasons. Absa, Standard Bank, FNB and Nedbank all shut down Oakbay accounts in April after KPMG and Sasfin dropped the group over ‘state capture’ concerns.
- Futuregrowth is trying to douse a fire ignited by its public declaration that it would not longer finance several state-owned companies due to governance concerns. CIO, Andrew Canter said the group was not getting involved with politics, but was just speaking from a typical investment point of view, and conceded that it should have engaged better with SOEs before making careless public statements.
- Sanral has rubbished a statement by Outa claiming that all paying Outa members would be safe from prosecution over e-tolls until a test case had been run through the courts. The road agency said that, while it had agreed to such an arrangement in principle, nothing was finalized. The statement was nothing more than a fund-raising exercise by Outa, the group said.
- South Africa’s rand gave up earlier gains against the dollar on Thursday, with traders expecting it to trade sideways for some time as nervous investors kept an eye out on possible moves against Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan. On Friday the rand was trading at R14.13 to the dollar, R18.83 to the pound and R15.93 to the euro.
In global markets: Asian shares extended losses on Friday following reports North Korea had conducted a nuclear test, while global stocks and bonds slid on uncertainty over the prospect of further easing from the European Central Bank after it left policy unchanged.
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