5 important things happening in South Africa today
·22 Aug 2017
Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:
- The Guptas will be lending Mzwanele Manyi the R450 million he needs to buy the family’s media assets. The value of the deal is also massively beyond fair estimates, analysts have shown, pointing to a fair value assessment of the groups in 2015, where total equity in The New Age and ANN7 were placed at R41 million.
- Vodacom says it will reimburse customers for a “technical error” which resulted in disappearing data on mobile phones. The group said that out of bundle airtime used will be refunded and data reinstated. The disappearing data “error” happened amid widespread complaints about pricing abuse from mobile operators by their customers.
- Naspers investor, Allan Gray will vote against the media giant’s remuneration policy – primarily because it is not aligned to any business performance outside the group’s stake in China’s Tencent. Despite Naspers’ strong performance, shareholders are arguing that, with Tencent stripped out, the group is making a loss. This is not reflected in executive pay.
- Media reports on Sunday saying that the ANC’s Luthuli House was set to go on auction to repay a R20 million debt has been revealed to be based on false information. The Sunday Independent, which ran the story, has issued an apology to the ruling party, and has suspended three journalists, including a freelancer, who were involved.
- South African President Jacob Zuma on Monday signed in to law the Financial Sector Regulation Act, know as “Twin Peaks”, which will establish a prudential regulator and a separate, dedicated market conduct regulator. On Tuesday, the rand was trading at R13.15 to the dollar, R16.94 to the pound and R15.52 to the euro.
Loading ...