Cape Times 2022-04-22

ZIMBABWE is tightening the screws on financial institutions in the country – closing down two monetary companies and suspending one bank – as the government starts acting on President Emerson Mnangagwa’s threats to punish businesses undermining the local currency through promoting dominant use of foreign money. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe on Wednesday night suspended Metbank, closed down a popular mobile money service, Innbucks, and halted bureau de change operations of Rolink Finance. The monetary authority recently partially liberalised Zimbabwe’s exchange rate regime after allowing banks to negotiate exchange rates on a willing buyer/willing seller basis with their clients. But this has failed to provide some respite for the local unit of exchange and now central bank governor John Mangudya is turning the screws on the financial services sector. The…

AS ESKOM yesterday said it was stepping down from stage 4 load shedding to stage 2, the power entity detailed a new plan to procure engineering and maintenance services from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the coming months to supplement its skills base at its ailing power stations. The utility announced that a generation unit each at the Majuba, Ma- timba and the Arnot power stations have returned to service, while a single unit at Tutuka power station was shut down for repairs. Two more units are set to return to service. Chief executive Andre de Ruyter said yesterday that Eskom was canvassing labour and the government on the plan to deploy personnel from the OEMs for maintenance of its equipment in plants prone to malfunction, but that the “boots…

SOUTH Africa’s labour market could continue experiencing high levels of long-term unemployment among the youth as the economy fails to create jobs on the back of a skills shortage. The country’s unemployment rate currently stands at 35.3 percent or 7.9 million of the working age population, the highest in the world, with youth unemployment remaining at a staggering 65.5 percent. The Labour Market Dynamics in South Africa 2020 report, released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) yesterday, showed that the incidence of long-term unemployment increased by 5.2 percentage points to 70.4 percent over the period 2015 to 2020. Long-term unemployment is defined as the number of people who have been unemployed for more than 12 months. The report showed that the number of unemployed persons…

WHEN JOHN Bredenkamp left the hallowed chambers of the Court of Appeal in 2010, he must have been as flummoxed as all the people who heard the thud of the gavel as it pronounced the fate of his banking account. He had a few options, none of which were easy and practicable. By now, arguably, he would either have long applied for and opened his own commercial bank or ever so hurriedly, departed from the planet of the ordinary. Worse still, bereft of other reasonable choices, have moved to Zimbabwe. His confusion, not limited to him alone, liberally spread and quickly reached a multitude of innocent others. In its stride, the judgment fostered two broad strands of interpretation of the musings of the learned ones. They quickly ossified into two…

TRANSNET National Ports Authority (TNPA) said yesterday that it had received a favourable response from industry on its plans for a liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal at the Port of Richards Bay and would issue a request for proposal “within weeks”. The project comes as the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy’s Strategic Plan for 2020-25 focuses on the development of the gas market as an alternative source of energy to meet limited and depleting energy supply in South Africa, as Eskom battles to keep the lights on. The country’s Integrated Resources Plan too has a gas power generation target of 3 000MW by 2027. “Approximately 19 companies responded to the RFI (request for information). The response included major developers and operators of gas infrastructure in South Africa, Europe,…

ANGLO American and its subsidiary, Kumba Iron Ore, yesterday lowered their production guidance downward amid operational challenges, which saw their share prices take strain. In late trade Anglo’s share price was 6.41 per- cent lower at R741.27, while Kumba’s share tumbled 14.82 percent to R563.87. Operational challenges, the Covid-19 pandemic and heavy rain in South Africa and Brazil led to a decline in production in Anglo American’s first quarter to end-March, the globally diversified mining company said yesterday. The mining giant said production fell by 10 percent and adjusted downward its full-year guidance for platinum group metals (PGMs), iron-ore, and metallurgical coal production. Anglo owns Africa’s largest iron ore miner, Kumba…