Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:
- Post Office liquidation: According to Business Day, the SA Post Office is in provisional liquidation, as it owes over R4 billion to creditors. Despite receiving an over R2 billion bailout from National Treasury in the February budget, the SA Post Office was placed under provisional liquidation in February following a successful court application by a creditor who was owed money for rent. Two provisional liquidators were appointed in March and received their certificate of appointment last week. [Business Day]
- Interest rate concerns: Dawie Roodt, Efficient Group chief economist, said that the Reserve Banks’ ability to increase interest rates might be limited by electricity price increases. Roodt said that South Africans would face further financial constraints by the electricity price hike but said that it is better to get inflation under control now and focus on easing interest rates in the future when inflation declines. On 1 April, Eskom direct customers were hit with an over 18% tariff increase. [Daily Investor]
- G4S probe: Parliament’s Justice and Correctional Services Committee will begin its probe into the well-known escape of Thabo Bester later today, even if security company G4S does not attend. Last week, the Committee postponed a meeting after G4S failed to attend and explain how Bester escaped from the Mangaung prison last year. G4S said that it wanted more time to prepare and demanded parliamentary privilege. [EWN]
- Home Affairs in Court: Lawyers for the Department of home affairs will appear before the Pretoria High Court later today to defend the contentious move to end the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP) programme. Roughly 180,000 Zimbabweans use the ZEP are living and working in South Africa due to ZEPs, with some living in South Africa for over a decade. Civil society organisations said that public consultation was not followed and that the decision illustrates a breach of the constitutional rights of ZEP holders. [EWN]
- Markets: The South African rand gained against the dollar on Tuesday as the US currency fell ahead of inflation data, which could provide some clues on the monetary policy trajectory of the Federal Reserve. Shaun Murison, a senior market analyst at IG, said that today’s release of US inflation data and minutes from March’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting might cause short-term market volatility. On Wednesday (12 April), the rand was trading at R18.36/$, R20.07/€, and R22.83/£. Brent crude is trading at $85.65 a barrel. [Nasdaq]
