Business

5 things you need to know in South Africa today

Staff Writer

 ·7 Dec 2016

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

• As of 5 December, some e-toll debt may start prescribing – but Sanral is confident that motorists won’t get away with avoiding e-toll payments that easily. According to Moneyweb, e-toll debt (that has not been acknowledged by motorists) prescribes after 3 years, and this can be used as a defence in any court action related to the collection thereof. However, Sanral says that not paying e-toll is a criminal offence (which prescribes after 20 years), and it will still come for you. The group has over 6,200 summonses waiting to go out.

• State-owned companies are holding a massive axe over South Africa’s head, having accrued over R468 billion in debt through guarantees from government over the past few years. Finance minister Pravin Gordhan said that this was the single greatest risk to South Africa’s economy. Eskom is the biggest culprit, accounting for R350 billion of these guarantees. SOEs use the money to cover international loans – if they fail to pay, government has to.

• President Jacob Zuma will once again appear before the ANC’s integrity committee – though the party is tight lipped about what happened at the previous meeting, and even more so about the new one. Despite the secrecy, the committee said that another meeting with the president was deemed necessary. It is understood that Zuma was expected to answer some tough questions about the Guptas and state capture.

• The ANC and the DA face a big problem in Gauteng – they need to work together to find a way to create 400,000 jobs a year to make any sort of dent in the province’s unemployment numbers. The province managed to create only 129,000 jobs in the second quarter, which hardly made any difference considering almost 17,000 people a month move into the province. New mayor for Joburg, Herman Mashaba has made unemployment his top priority, but faces an uphill battle.

• South Africa’s rand rallied to its firmest in nearly a month on Tuesday, brushing off a poor economic growth print as a weaker dollar and bets on improvement in commodity prices boosted appetite for emerging currencies. On Wednesday, the rand was trading at R13.67 to the dollar, R17.30 to the pound and R14.65 to the euro.