Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:
- Eskom bringing in ex-employees: Eskom is bringing in ex-employees as it does not have the skills to maintain its plants. The power utility also plans to bring in the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to conduct maintenance on parts of its plants where its own engineers and artisans are having difficulty. [News24]
- State of emergency: The government’s national advisory body has called for a wide-ranging intervention to alleviate South Africa’s load shedding crisis, including a declaration of an energy emergency. The National Planning Commission (NPC), chaired by minister in the presidency Mondli Gungubele, said declaring an energy emergency would help rid the country of red tape that is making it difficult to bring in new generation capacity. [BusinessDay]
- Return to parliament: The opposition Democratic Alliance has called for parliament to be reconvened early so that politicians can tackle the multitude of issues currently facing the country. The National Assembly is currently on an eight-week constituency period until August, however the DA said urgent meetings need to be held around the country’s stage 6 load shedding record petrol price increases and various government scandals. [EWN]
- Tax hitches: South Africa’s personal income tax filing season is off to a slow start after several technical issues with the electronic tax filing platform (eFiling) caused delays. Filing season started on Friday and ends on 24 October for non-provisional taxpayers who have not been auto-assessed and on 23 January 2023 for provisional taxpayers and trusts. [Moneyweb]
- Markets: The rand slumped to its weakest level against the dollar since 2020 on Tuesday as fears mount that major economies will slide into recession this year as inflation soars. The rand is currently trading at R16.76/$, R17.10/€ and R20.02/£. The price of Brent crude oil today is $101/barrel. [BusinessTech]