News in South Africa 29th May: 1. Scam warning: While online and contactless payments have become the norm in South Africa, major banks are reminding consumers to be aware of common scams, as the number of victims of banking scams has seen an uptick in 2023. According to the South African Banking Risk Information Centre […]
News in South Africa 16th May: 1. SA beats climate targets… due to load-shedding: South Africa is ahead of its target for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases due to ongoing breakdowns at its coal-fired power stations. The output of the climate-warming gases from the world’s 14th-biggest emitter is already falling even though its Nationally Determined […]
News in South Africa 9th May: 1. Rand remains weak: South Africa’s rand remains in a weak position as it awaits a shift in global markets, says Investec chief economist Annabel Bishop. Despite firming slightly on Monday (8 May) amid a softer dollar, the local unit has been sitting around R18.30/USD for some time. According […]
News in South Africa 8th May: 1. Close call for recession in SA: Economists say South Africa may have escaped a technical recession in the first quarter of the year, but the extreme volatility in the economic data being put out makes it difficult to call. Economists from the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) and […]
News in South Africa 24th April: 1. Eskom warning from IMF: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that South Africa’s electricity crisis poses a significant threat to the country’s fiscal health. It also said Eskom must reduce its reliance on government funding. This was said at the IMF’s Spring Meetings with the World Bank […]
News in South Africa 18th April: 1. Load shedding vs blackout hours: It’s only halfway through April 2023, and South Africa has already experienced as much load shedding (hours) as almost the entirety of 2022 – and the number of hours of blackouts you experience is worse than ever before. These are some of the […]
News in South Africa 11th April: 1. Eskom debt relief extends to municipalities: National Treasury is rolling out an ambitious plan to rid struggling municipalities of their ever-growing debt to Eskom, but only if they adhere to strict conditions to permanently change problematic behaviour at council and consumer level. If successful, the plan – set […]
News in South Africa 5th April: 1. Eskom testing new plan to cut power demand: Embattled power utility Eskom says it is piloting a national demand response programme in the small commercial and residential sectors in response to the electricity crisis facing South Africa. The programme is an expansion of the successful industrial Demand Response Programme, which […]
News in South Africa 27th February: 1. Greylisting aftermath: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) placed South Africa on its grey list on Friday. It was almost inevitable. The global anti-money laundering watchdog first warned the country of this possibility four years ago, in 2019, saying that there were severe deficiencies in our standards to fight […]
News in South Africa 22nd November: 1. Risk of total blackout: Energy expert Professor Anton Eberhard has warned that Eskom’s decision not to refuel its diesel open cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) increases the risk of a system failure. Eberhard is the director of Power Futures Lab at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of […]
