5 things you need to know in South Africa today
·28 Sep 2016
Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:
- SABC head of corporate affairs, Hlaudi Motsoeneng may feel positive about his chances to be COO once again, however the office of the Public Protector says it will take legal action against him once again, should it find that he was appointed to his new position without following due process. Motsoeneng could not answer questions of who he had replaced in his new position, and where the person went.
- ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe has admitted that the ANC’s problems are coming from the party’s leaders – and that all will be rectified at the elective conference to be held next year. The SG was trying to allay investor fears about South Africa’s stability, saying that it was a “trust deficit”, not political instability, causing the problems. Mantashe also admitted Nenegate had destroyed the economy and rand value.
- Capitec Bank is set to launch its credit card offering in mid-October, with plans to offer insurance products in 2017. The bank has shown exceptional growth over the last few years and is quickly becoming the country’s third largest bank in terms of client numbers. The bank added over 650,000 customers in the past 6 months, taking its client base to 7.9 million.
- The Passenger Rail Service of SA (Prasa) owes Transnet and municipalities R796 million in unpaid accounts, with R317 million of that amount being outstanding for over 180 days. According to the minister of transport, as long as the group has cash flow problems it will be unable to pay. Prasa has racked up over R14 billion in irregular expenditure, and is currently being investigating in a far-reaching probe.
- South Africa’s rand firmed on Tuesday as risk currencies were lifted by Hillary Clinton’s performance against Donald Trump in the first debate between the U.S. presidential candidates. But stocks soured in line with global peers on worries about European banks. On Wednesday, the rand was trading at R13.43 to the dollar, R17.49 to the pound and R15.06 to the euro.
In other news: MTN is facing more problems in Nigeria, as lawmakers accuse the company of illegally moving as much as R190 billion out of the Nigerian market. The Nigerian senate announced it would be investigating the matter, which caused MTN’s share price to take a knock.
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