5 important things happening in South Africa today
- President Jacob Zuma is said to be facing a bid to oust him at this week’s first ANC NEC meeting for the year. The party’s NEC will meet on Wednesday, where the 86 voting members will likely discuss Zuma stepping down. The sitting will also show how much support new ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa holds in the national executive, after a marginal victor in December.
- Steinhoff has taken another blow, as the latest bond listing by the European Central Bank showed that it had completed divested from the group. It has been estimated that the ECB divested at less than half the rate of its initial investment, opting to cut its losses than suffer through.
- AYO Technology successfully listed on the JSE this week, with a market cap of R14.7 billion. AYO is a black-owned ICT group, previously known as Sekunjalo Technology Solutions. The group holds reseller or supplier agreements with principles such as Nokia Siemens Networks, Cisco, Microsoft, and IBM among others.
- Confusion around South Africa’s free tertiary education policy remains, as universities maintain they will take no walk-ins, and the EFF pushes for prospective students to go ahead and storm institutions if they must. Meanwhile the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) as called on government for urgent answers on how things will work, and where money will come from.
- South Africa’s rand weakened more than 1% on Monday, succumbing to a resurgent dollar and some profit-taking after seven weeks of gains sparked by leadership changes in the ruling party and a rally in global commodity prices. On Tuesday the currency was at R12.39 to the dollar, R16.81 to the pound and R14.83 to the euro.
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