The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has again urged South Africa to implement its economic reforms “ambitiously”, while arguing for priority to be given to reforms in the electricity and logistics sectors that pose binding constraints to higher growth. An IMF staff mission visited South Africa from November 11 to 25 for the 2024 Article IV annual consultation, and a report was published on November 26 that included an IMF growth forecast of 1.1% for this year and 1.5% for 2025.
Power utility Eskom says it has successfully completed its prepaid meter Key Revision Number (KRN) rollover project, but has set a new deadline of December 13 to assist paying customers who are still experiencing challenges and an estimated 1.7-million zero buyers that are yet to complete the upgrade. Eskom points out that it started off with a customer base of 6.91-million prepaid customers, while a data cleaning exercise fully updated the incomplete details of 341 000 customers, taking the customer base to 7.25-million.
State-owned power utility Eskom has welcomed the decision by international ratings agency S&P Global Ratings to upgrade Eskom’s ‘B’ long-term global-scale foreign and local currency ratings to positive from stable. The ratings agency also affirmed Eskom’s ‘B’ issue rating on the group’s senior unsecured debt and the ‘BB-’ foreign currency issue ratings on the government guaranteed debt.