News in South Africa 17th November:
1. Technical recession avoided:
South Africa’s economy is likely to have averted a technical recession in the third quarter despite record power outages, key data indicates.
Better-than-expected mining and manufacturing output are set to outweigh relatively soft retail sales data, suggesting Africa’s most industrialized economy returned to growth in the third quarter after contracting 0.7% in the prior three-month period.
Mining and manufacturing make up about a fifth of total gross domestic product, while trade, which includes the retail sector, accounts for 13%.
“It’s going to be close, but we do escape a technical recession,” said Sanisha Packirisamy, an economist at Momentum Investments, whose GDP tracker implies quarterly growth of 0.1% to 0.4%.
“Growth is reasonably soft, and load-shedding has been one of the main factors driving that together with increased headwinds that the consumer is facing,” she said.
GDP data for the third quarter, due 6 December, is expected to show how state-owned power company Eskom’s inability to produce enough electricity to meet demand is weighing on output.
The South African Reserve Bank and National Treasury both predict the economy will expand by 1.9% in 2022, though the former may revise its forecast on 24 November, when it’s due to announce its final interest-rate decision of the year.
2. D-Day for Treasury:
It’s D-Day for National Treasury to respond to the Public Servants Association of South Africa (PSA) and health professionals union Hospersa’s wage demands.
The two public service unions submitted a memorandum of demands to National Treasury during last week’s strike in Pretoria.
They gave the government a seven-day ultimatum to respond to calls for a 10% wage increase across the board.
At last week’s strike, the public service unions affiliated with Fedusa drew a line in the sand, threatening that if National Treasury fails to respond to the wage demands by public service unions, then they may have to deal with the impact of another national shutdown.
While the government has been clear that it cannot exceed its offer of 3% on the baseline, civil servants have also refused to back down from their double-digit demands.
In fact, the pressure applied by the PSA and Hospersa is expected to be amplified by Cosatu-affiliated unions who are also threatening to take to the streets.
3. Eastern Cape battling water crisis:
In the midst of a worsening drought, the Eastern Cape’s remote villages are sourcing drinking water from solar-powered panels that draw moisture from the air.
The Eastern Cape is battling a dire water crisis, compounded by poor rains and infrastructure problems. While water restrictions in Nelson Mandela Bay attempt to stave off Day Zero, rural communities in the Eastern Cape’s OR Tambo District embark on arduous journeys to rivers and streams.
The water they find is sometimes contaminated and unsafe to drink. Water infrastructure in these rural villages is almost non-existent.
Cutting-edge technology is bringing fresh, drinkable water to the doorsteps of these communities and schools.
Atmospheric water generators, or AWGs, extract water from humid ambient air. The problem with these devices is the demand for energy, which, in South Africa, is an ongoing challenge and, in rural parts of the country, is a dealbreaker for this kind of technology.
A company headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, has solved the power problem by incorporating its AWG system with a solar panel, allowing the equipment to produce clean water while completely detached from the grid.
Billionaire philanthropist Patrick Soon-Shiong, who launched a massive Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing plant in South Africa, was born in Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape. Now, he has “turned to solving his home country’s water crisis”, according to SOURCE, with the CSSF funding the project.
4. Post office needs R3.4b bailout:
The SA Post Office (Sapo) asks the government for a R3.4 billion bailout.
It needs funding of R1 billion before end-March 2023 to meet its cash flow deficit and R2.4 billion more to roll out its new strategy, says the department of communication & digital technologies.
Sapo’s total liabilities sit at R8.2 billion, and without this cash injection, the auditor-general doubts the technically insolvent company can stay afloat.
5. Flights to Kruger from Germany:
In a major tourism coup for Mpumalanga and South Africa’s world-renowned Kruger National Park, German airline giant Lufthansa Group’s leisure-carrier Eurowings Discover on Wednesday commenced direct international flights between Frankfurt and the province.
This represents the first ever scheduled long-haul international air service to Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport (KMIA).
Eurowings Discover will operate up to three weekly return flights between Germany’s financial capital and Mpumalanga with a year-round service.
Its inaugural flight touched down at KMIA in Mbombela just after 2pm on Wednesday, after a short stopover in Namibia’s capital Windhoek.
According to Lufthansa Group, Eurowings Discover has a strong commercial focus on leisure destinations on the African continent.
“Kruger Mpumalanga is the seventh destination offered by Eurowings Discover on the continent after already starting services from Frankfurt to Mombasa, Zanzibar, Mauritius, Windhoek, Victoria Falls and Kilimanjaro,” it notes in a statement.
He said the new route would make it “easier for travellers from all over Europe to experience the beauty and diversity of this stunning nature and wildlife reserve, which is particularly popular with holidaymakers from Germany”.
Welcoming Eurowings Discover’s direct flights to the province, Mpumalanga MEC for Finance, Economic Development and Tourism Nompumelelo Hlophe, said: “We are very excited about the landing of the first ever direct flight from Germany.”
All information sourced from articles posted by: BusinessTech, EWN, Business Insider, BusinessLive, and Moneyweb.
