Business

5 important things happening in South Africa today

Staff Writer

 ·2 Sep 2019

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

• Government’s pronouncement on a solution for e-tolling has been postponed by two weeks. The transport was initially scheduled to make an announcement at the end of August – this will now be mid-September. The department is looking at several different solutions, with report pointing to plans such as offering a 70% discount on current fees, introducing a new tax levy, or scrapping the system altogether. [ENCA]

• Projections by rating agency Fitch predict that government spending on healthcare will balloon to over R450 billion by 2028 because of its National Healthcare Insurance scheme. Currently public sector spend is lower than private sector spend at R220 billion vs R260 billion. Public spend is anticipated to grow at 10% per year, while private spend is expected to decline at 1.6% per year for 10 years to R224 billion, Fitch said. [IOL]

• South African banks are putting contingencies in place in anticipation of an industrial action shut-down scheduled for 27 September. Unions are threatening to shut down the banking industry in face of continued retrenchments in the sector. About 74,000 workers are said to be part of the shutdown. Banks said they will try to limit any damage, and will communicate with customers ahead of time. [Business Day]

• Shareholders in South Africa are increasingly putting their foot down over executive pay in the country, with Multichoice being the third group to have shareholders reject the company’s remuneration policy. Previously shareholders of Shoprite and Old Mutual pushed back against high levels of executive pay. Shareholders are looking for more clarity on the conditions tied to executive pay. [Moneyweb]

• A slight weakening of the rand was seen during the early hours this morning from Friday’s close, with the local unit still squarely in the broader range witnessed in the past week. The flurry of tariffs imposed by the US on China and vice versa over the weekend is due to add some pressure on the currency. On Monday the rand was trading at R15.22 to the dollar, R18.51 to the pound and R16.73 to the euro.