Government

5 important things happening in South Africa today

Staff Writer

 ·3 Feb 2022

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

Coronavirus: In South Africa, there have been 4,502 new cases of Covid-19, taking the total reported to 3,612,809. Deaths have reached 95,463 (+175), while recoveries have climbed to 3,461,490, leaving the country with a balance of 55,856 active cases. The total number of vaccines administered is 30,031,894.

• Backwards: A new report from the University of Stellenbosch claims that schoolchildren in South Africa have lost approximately 1.3 years of schooling since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic – equivalent to losing six and half years of learning progress, the researchers said. The researchers tested grade 3 learners in 2018 and grade 4 learners in 2021 and found that the average 10-year-old in 2021 knew less than the average 9-year-old in 2018. They said that South Africa was on upward trajectory post-2006, but the pandemic has wiped out all progress on educational outcomes. Changes announced this week allow schools to return to full time teaching for the first time in almost two years. [News24]

• Clarity: Health experts have generally welcomed the government’s move to ease up on contact tracing and isolation periods related to Covid-19 but have criticised officials for not clarifying the reasons behind the moves, which they say will create more distrust between the people and those in charge. The regulation changes announced this week also missed the mark on key recommendations, they said – particularly around mask mandates, public gatherings, taking temperatures, and pushing for more vaccine coverage. The experts repeated the call for the end of the national state of disaster, saying that the main focus should be getting people vaccinated and treating those at high risk. [Daily Maverick]

• Disaster: More civil action groups are joining the battle against South Africa’s state of disaster, with non-profit DearSA joining Afriforum in its court bid to force the government to bring the state of disaster to an end. Following further easing of restrictions this week, citizen and business groups are increasingly belligerent over the government’s continued hold on civil liberties through Covid regulations. Business group Sakeliga is taking on Nedlac, seeking to expose the group’s role in key decisions and regulations relating to lockdown, vaccine mandates and potential conflicts of interest. The national state of disaster has been in effect for almost two full years and has allowed the government to restrict rights with no parliamentary oversight. [TimesLive]

• Scam: A SARS investigation has uncovered an alleged multi-billion rand VAT fraud scheme based on illicit gold exports. The details have emerged in a highly sensitive tax case that exposes a shadowy underworld of Krugerrands, scrap jewellery, illegal mining and fake invoice factories. The amount of gold involved was allegedly enormous, totalling more than 200 tons over a decade. The tax authority accused major players of introducing smuggled or illegally mined gold and illegally smelted Krugerrands (which attract no VAT) into the ‘legal’ gold supply chain. They do this, SARS claims, by fraudulently presenting the gold as second hand (such as from purchased jewellery) and thereby enabling fraudulent VAT refunds to be claimed. [amaBhungane]

• Markets: South Africa’s rand weakened on Wednesday as risks to the domestic economy resurfaced, with power utility Eskom announcing scheduled power cuts from Wednesday until Monday. Eskom said of its roughly 46,000 MW nominal capacity, nearly 15,000 MW was offline because of breakdowns, and 4,435 MW was offline because of a backlog of planned repairs. The outages by the utility are the latest in a series that have constrained economic growth in South Africa. On the international front, investors are monitoring the tone of central bankers for any hints about rising interest rates. On Thursday, the rand was trading at R15.39/$, R17.38/€ and R20.85/£. [Reuters]