News in South Africa 23rd January: 1. Interest rate decision: South Africa’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will hold its first meeting of the year to decide on interest rates on Thursday, and while economists agree that the central bank will continue to hike rates, they are split on the size of the increase. Last year was […]
News in South Africa 17th January: 1. Hardships pile up for consumers: Economists are raising red flags over higher inflation rates, which will invariably lead to more interest rate hikes from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) as South Africans continue to sit under the pressure of high levels of load shedding and a massive […]
News in South Africa 9th January: 1. New goals for government: ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa said load shedding, crime, and corruption were harming the party’s public standing and should be tackled head-on in its 2023 priorities. Ramaphosa was speaking at the party’s January 8 birthday celebrations in Bloemfontein, the Free State, on Sunday. The speech […]
News in South Africa 4th January: 1. Petrol price drop: Motorists can breathe a sigh of relief this week with petrol and diesel prices seeing a substantial drop in the price from Wednesday, 4 January. However, households will remain under pressure due to high food costs, analysts warn. Petrol prices will be coming down by […]
News in South Africa 22nd December: 1. Load shedding filled holidays: South Africans are set for a bleak, load-shedding-interrupted ‘festive’ season as Eskom’s generating output plummets to completely new lows. At Tuesday evening’s peak, it wasn’t even able to output 23 000MW in total. This forced unprecedented overnight Stage 6 load shedding so that it […]
News in South Africa 21st December: 1. Minimum wage changes: Early in 2023, South Africa could have a new medium-term target for what the minimum wage should be. But it will not be a rand amount. Instead it will be a statement of intent – and a guarantee that minimum-wage earners will never fall behind […]
News in South Africa 20th December: 1. Reserve Bank was hacked: Finance minister Enoch Godongwana recently revealed that the South African Reserve Bank suffered an attempted hack. The revelation was very late, with the attempt taking place in August (four months ago), but the media and South Africans only found out in the past week. […]
News in South Africa 14th December: 1. Expected food prices in 2023: The latest food inflation brief from the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP) shows that food prices in South Africa remain at elevated levels and that consumers should expect higher prices going into next year. Reflecting the higher levels of food inflation […]
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 […]
News in South Africa 21st November: 1. R200bn in infrastructure projects underway: SA’s infrastructure backlog appears to be getting some of the attention it needs. Some 48 strategic infrastructure projects worth R193.4 billion are currently under construction, and projects worth R87.4 billion in the procurement phase, according to Infrastructure SA (ISA), which was established by […]
