Pretoria News 2022-05-17

THE RAND FELL to its lowest level in six months yesterday as risk-off sentiment gripped the markets on the back of global economic growth concerns and rotational power cuts in South Africa. This comes as China’s retail sales fell the most in two years in April, declining by 11.1 percent from April last year as consumption deteriorated amid widespread Covid-19 cases and strict restrictions in several key areas, including Shanghai and Beijing. Eskom also ramped up its rotational power cuts and implemented Stage 4 load shedding after Unit 2 of the Kusile Power Station tripped, taking 720MW of generating capacity with it. These developments saw the rand weakening by nearly 1 percent to R16.29 to the US dollar during early morning trade, the lowest since November 26, before…

SOUTH African consumers can expect to be hit by the spectre of further price hikes in bread and flour products among other food products as the wheat supply chain got more constrained after India banned the export of the crop. Neil Wilson, the chief market analyst at Market.com, said yesterday: “More stress in commodities with Indian banning wheat exports, which sent prices limit up 6 percent this (yesterday) morning to the highest in two months. “After the late-February and early-March volatility there has been some calm restored to global commodity markets over the last month or so, albeit prices have remained elevated. India’s export ban betrays the underlying stress that resides in the commodity space.” Agricultural Business Chamber (Agbiz) chief economist Wandile Sihlobo said yesterday that further price hikes…

AUDIT firm KPMG South Africa has been roped in to clean up the struggling Ubank’s balance sheet as the bank’s capital resources are on the brink of drying up. The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) yesterday placed the Ubank under curatorship with immediate effect while the finance minister appointed KPMG as the curator. Ubank Group Limited is owned by Teba Fund Trust and administered by the National Union of Mineworkers to service the unserved and underserved market. It operates in the microfinance sector which mainly targets lower- income blue-collar workers in the mining industry, with more than 4.7 million active accounts. SARB governor Lesetja Kganyago said Ubank has had significant challenges over the years. He said the SARB’s Prudential Authority had been monitoring corporate governance concerns at Ubank…

POWER utility Eskom, which upped load shedding to stage 4 yesterday, is now locked into a wage dispute with organised labour, which chief executive Andre de Ruyter dismissed offhand yesterday, insisting on a 1.5 percent handshake. At yesterday’s briefing, De Ruyter said the utility would not be entertaining the demands of organised labour, which he said was being unethically broadcast in the media, saying that the 2018 agreements for an 8 percent increase for workers still stood. “We cannot respond by giving double digit increases, we have an agreement that gave employees 8 percent compounding over three years and last year we gave a 1.5 percent increase at the bargaining council. “Given the position we are in, we cannot give more than we have already,” De…

INFRASTRUCTURE development and construction supplier Raubex has nearly doubled its final dividend to 54 cents a share for the full year period to end February, boosted by high government spend in its South African market while the Australian unit also top performed. Raubex is expecting to finalise the Beitbridge Border development project in Zimbabwe. This bodes well for its rest of Africa division – where it has operations in Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia and Namibia – which grew revenues by 172 percent to R1.5 billion. The Australian division contributed about 18 percent to Raubex’s operating profit, with the company saying it “continues to gain market share” in the West Australian region. The final dividend payout for the year to February has resultantly jumped from 29c a share…

CLAIMS that some powerful members of South Africa’s governing party are in bed with the country’s banks cannot go ignored, considering there has been no effort made to create a state bank, despite widespread complaints about the behaviour of the mainstream banks. Just two years ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed support for a legislative amendment to create a state-owned bank and break the monopoly of the big four commercial banks in South Africa. “We need to move away from the monopoly of just four banks in our country and create more banks so there is more access to funding,” Ramaphosa said in May 2018, during his quarterly question-and-answer session in Parliament. “In fact, we should really be looking at creating more banks in our economy … that should make money…