5 important things happening in South Africa today
Coronavirus: In South Africa, there have been 3,056 new cases of Covid-19, taking the total reported to 3,652,024. Deaths have reached 97,955 (+435), while recoveries have climbed to 3,515,196, leaving the country with a balance of 38,873 active cases and a recovery rate of 96,3%. A total of 30,858,874 vaccines have been administered.
Prasa cut offs: The City of Tshwane disconnected its services to Prasa this week due to the rail company allegedly owing the City R28.5 million for services rendered. The City reconnected its municipal services after Prasa offered to pay R15.8 million of the bill. Prasa said it was in arrears because it has not been generating revenue throughout the Covid-19 lockdown. Prasa is just one of many state-run companies that fell prey to the City of Tshwane’s fight to claim back money from debtors. According to the municipality, the arrears of national government departments stood at R46.5 million, while those of state-owned enterprises were R123.5 million. [News24]
Social grant: The South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) reports that it has cost taxpayers R45 billion to pay the R350 social relief of distress grant to approximately 10.5 million South Africans affected by the Covid-19 pandemic since April 2020. During his reply to the State Of The Nation debate, president Cyril Ramaphosa said the government is extending the R350 social relief grant for another year. However, Sassa says that it is currently unable to forecast how much the next 12 months will cost taxpayers. [TimesLive]
Shell case: Environmental lobby groups welcomed a decision by the High Court to dismiss an application for leave to appeal a ruling halting Shell’s plans to survey the wild coast with seismic blasting. The application was brought forward by Shell and the Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe in response to the interim interdict granted by the court in December, which temporarily halted Shell plans to explore the coastline for oil and gas deposits. The court said that the interdict would remain, pending the community’s application scheduled for 30 May. [EWN]
Typhoid alert: The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) says that investigations into typhoid outbreaks in the Western Cape and the North West are ongoing due to increased cases in those regions. The Western Cape currently has 64 reported cases of typhoid fever, with 18 cases in the North West and 45 cases in Gauteng. Despite the high number in Gauteng, the NICD said it is distributed quite extensively in the province and that there is no distinct or localised outbreak. [TimesLive]
Markets: Truworths said that their headline earnings per share have grown by more than 32% to a record level. This marks Truworths return to pre-pandemic levels. Truworths shares were up 8,17% to R64,21, on track for their most significant daily jump in close to nine months. Truworths declared an interim dividend of 300 cents, up 29,3%. The retailer said that the group trading and operating profit jumped 41,3% to 2,2 billion rands and 32,5% to 2,5 billion rands, respectively. The rand is currently trading at R14,97/$, R17,01/€ and R20.38/£. [Nasdaq]
This article originally came from BusinessTech