South Africans can now track government’s progress in economic and employment growth with up-to-date information on the new Operation Vulindlela dashboard, launched this week. Operation Vulindlela was launched last year as a joint initiative of the Presidency and National Treasury to unlock key economic reforms and to fast-track the trajectory of South Africa’s policy reforms.
In a surprise move, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Thursday that the licence-exemption cap on self- or distributed-generation plants would be increased from 1 MW to 100 MW to help address the country’s electricity crisis, which has been weighing down economic growth and confidence for more than a decade. The increase, which would be facilitated by an amendment to Schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act “within the next 60 days or sooner”, exceeds calls made by organised business and labour to increase the threshold to at least 50 MW, as well as allows the so-called embedded-generation plants to both wheel that electricity through the grid and sell it to nonrelated offtakers.
A coalition of investors overseeing a combined $41-trillion of assets have called on world leaders to set more ambitious greenhouse-gas emissions targets and end support for fossil fuels. DWS Group, Legal and General Investment Management and Pacific Investment Management Co were among 457 investors that wrote a joint letter to heads of State ahead of the Group of Seven (G7) leaders summit that will start on Friday in Cornwall, England.
Business Unity South Africa (Busa) has warned that, despite optimism generated by recent gross domestic product (GDP) numbers, this growth “has been rolled back” by the load-shedding implemented by State-owned power utility Eskom in the past two weeks, which escalated to Stage 4 on June 9. First-quarter GDP growth for this year grew by 1.1% compared with the last quarter of 2020, but the recent bouts of load-shedding has had a devastating impact on businesses in all sectors of the economy and is introducing hardship for citizens.
The Hawks have uncovered a well-organised syndicate selling illicit prepaid electricity on a large scale, costing Eskom millions in revenue, and arrested seven suspects. The Hawks pounced on the suspects, aged 28 to 67, in the early hours of Wednesday in Gauteng.
Sudan and Egypt agreed on Wednesday to coordinate efforts to push Ethiopia to negotiate “seriously” on an agreement on filling and operating a giant dam it is building on the Blue Nile, a joint statement said. The two countries, which are downstream from the dam, issued the statement after African Union-sponsored talks remained deadlocked.
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