Business

5 important things happening in South Africa today

Staff Writer

 ·12 Jul 2021

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

Coronavirus: In South Africa, there have been 16,302 new cases of Covid-19, taking the total reported to 2,195,599. Deaths have reached 64,289 (+151), while recoveries have climbed to 1,922,601, leaving the country with a balance of 208,709 active cases. The total number of vaccines administered is 4,236,718 (+11,697).

• Evidence: Alcohol producers are challenging the government over the extended ban on alcohol, applying for an urgent PAIA for the NCCC, seeking the scientific evidence used as a basis to keep the ban in effect. The government has long stated that the ban on alcohol was to prevent trauma cases from flooding hospitals during the pandemic; however, the alcohol industry says it has never been presented with this evidence in all its consultations with officials. Instead, it has always been identified that the biggest problems – causing most of the infections and pressure on hospitals – are large gatherings and people refusing to wear masks. [News24]

• Vaccines: Trade union Solidarity is again calling for the privatization of the vaccine rollout in South Africa, with the group blaming the government for the slow delivery of vaccines so far. It said that the government is a bottleneck for procurement and that the rollout could accelerate and spread much faster if the private sector were able to procure and deliver vaccines themselves. Allowing private procurement would also give people a choice in which vaccine they can get. While all vaccines work to prevent serious illness, some are more effective than others. The union said that it is evident that the government lacks both capacity and capability in rolling out efficiently. [TimesLive]

• Zuma: Jacob Zuma will be back at the Constitutional Court today in a bid to have his 15-month prison sentence reviewed. He will be arguing for the sentence to be rescinded on two groups – the first being his poor health, and the second being the belief he has that the highest court made a mistake in letting the state capture commission approach it for direct access, arguing the process should have been argued through lower courts first. The former president started serving his sentence on Wednesday, after being convinced to hand himself over to the police instead of resisting arrest. He failed in his high court bid to have the arrest set aside. [ENCA]

• State capture: Further investigations into the flow of money in the Gupta business network reveals exactly how the family used the ill-gotten funds to purchase Optimum Coal mines from Glencore. Through its network of shelf companies and financial trickery, the family ‘mobilised’ just over R1.8 billion for the purchase – however, it turns out that they ended up paying very little, with most of the funding covered by ‘advance payments’ for coal from Eskom, money stolen and laundered from Transnet and money that was then recycled back to Gupta enterprise. Ultimately Eskom covered R1 billion of the purchase. [Daily Maverick]

• Markets: The South African rand traded rangebound for most of last week, sticking to a broad range of R14.20 and R14.40. At the latter end of the week, however, the rand traded in the lower range of R14.40 against the greenback. The dollar strengthened, after minutes from the Fed’s June meeting indicated that asset purchases tapering would be met somewhat earlier than policymakers had anticipated. On Monday the rand starts that week at R14.30/$, R16.97/€ and R19.86/£.