5 things you need to know in South Africa today
·22 Sep 2016
Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:
- The SABC says that if Hlaudi Motsoeneng can’t be its COO as courts have ordered, it wants him to be its acting-COO, a new controversial proposal shows. The proposal, seen by TimesLive, will be submitted to Communications Minister Faith Muthambi for approval. According to the SABC, ‘any senior employee’ can be appointed as acting COO.
- Wits students are decrying the “militant” and heavy-handed approach by police, as protesters take to the streets of Johannesburg in their fight for free education. Police officers have been using rubber bullets and stun grenades, trying to push students back to the Wits campus. Injured students say that there is now no turning back, and protests will increase.
- Former Barclays CEO, Bob Diamond, has hit a hurdle in his bid to buy a controlling stake of Barclays Africa (Absa), with one of the big players in the proposed consortium bidding for the company pulled out. Carlyle Group pulled out of the deal – but Diamond’s Atlas Merchant Capital and Mara Group will proceed bidding without it.
- The South African Reserve Bank is expected to leave interest rates unchanged after consumer inflation for August fell back within the bank’s range at 5.9%. However, the bank is still projecting that South Africa’s economic growth for the year is be little-to-nothing, and inflation will remain a concern.
- South Africa’s rand firmed to its highest in four weeks against the dollar on Wednesday, helped by strong appetite for high yielding emerging market assets as investors anticipate low U.S. interest rates low for longer this year. On Thursday, the rand was trading at R13.91 to the dollar, R17.87 to the pound and R15.29 to the euro.
In global news: Asian shares rallied on Thursday, taking their cue from Wall
Street, after the Federal Reserve left U.S. interest rates unchanged and slowed the pace of future hikes, knocking the dollar and lifting commodity prices.
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