5 important things happening in South Africa today

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

• The Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane and president Cyril Ramaphosa now head to the next leg of their fierce battle against each other, this time with the president seeking to block her from publishing the details of his finance sources for his CR17 election campaign. Mkhwebane is trying to out manoeuvre the president using the courts as a basis to publish her evidence against him. Ramaphosa says doing so would expose sensitive and private information. [ENCA]

• Analyst say the NHI, which was detailed last week, will be extremely damaging to South Africa’s workforce, and is in effect a tax on labour – in a country were the working population is already under immense pressure. The scheme proposes a funding model through taxes, including a payroll tax. This will be borne by workers, either through reduced earnings or compensation or job losses, which is the opposite of what the poor in South Africa needs. [IOL]

• The UK High Commissioner to South Africa says that Brexit will be a good thing for South Africa, as it will allow the country and other sub-Saharan nations to negotiate with the UK one-on-one, without any EU restrictions. He said that the UK and South African markets are complementary, and the UK is not in competition with South Africa, and also has high demand for our exports. [Daily Maverick]

• Energy regulator Nersa has rejected the City of Tshwane’s electricity tariff changes, which were unlawfully implemented in July, before being reverted to last year’s fees. The tariff changes wanted to add a R56 charge to prepaid electricity users (after budgeting for a R200 charge), however this has been denied by Nersa, who is granting only a 13% increase on the old tariffs, in-line with other municipalities. [Moneyweb]

• On Friday, while SA celebrated woman’s day, the global market was anything but kind to the local currency. The rand started the day at R14.98/$, but rapidly made its way to R15.28 by the end of the US session. The rand is now testing the R15.30 mark, with all eyes still squarely on investor sentiment hinging on trade dynamics and global growth. On Monday the rand was at R15.25 to the dollar, R18.35 to the pound and R17.09 to the euro.