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5 things you need to know in South Africa today

Staff Writer

 ·1 Dec 2016

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

• Finance minister Pravin Gordhan is pushing full steam ahead with a clamp-down on South Africa’s state-owned enterprises that are sucking the national coffers dry. Gordhan, through National Treasury, is launching probes into ten Prasa, SAA, Eskom, Transnet and the SABC. In a Parliamentary response to questions about the probes, Gordhan has also revealed that the SOEs are not cooperating.

• The DA is not happy that Matshela Koko has been appointed as acting CEO of Eskom – saying that it was just more of the same, and that government was recycling a board that should not have been there in the first place. Koko was appointed to act as CEO after current CEO Brian Molefe announced he would resign at the end of the year. Molefe is stepping down amid allegations he has an improper relationship with the Gupta family.

• Economist Azar Jammine says that the ANC’s decision to back president Zuma yet again means that it is likely that the president will see out his full term – and does little to stabilise the economy and political unrest. This could also be the final straw that will push South Africa to junk. Zuma might be pushed into action against those who oppose him – which is bad news for the economy. But so too is keeping a divisive government in play. It’s a no-win situation, Jammine says.

• Prasa’s new R3 billion trains will be kept off the tracks due to irregularities. According to Group acting CEO Collins Letsoalo, one of the many reasons the trains cannot be used is because there is no contract for how they were procured, making them part of the R14 billion in irregular expenditure at the SOE. The trains also do not fit South Africa’s tracks, and the company is still in the process of trying to claw back R2.6 billion from the company it bought them from.

• South Africa’s rand weakened on Wednesday as traders tread cautiously ahead of major data releases late this week, with Standard & Poor’s the last of three main rating agencies to decide on the country’s debt. Oil prices, and energy shares swept higher on Thursday after OPEC agreed to cut crude output to clear a glut. On Thursday the rand was at R14.05 to the dollar, R17.61 to the pound and R14.92 to the euro.