5 important things happening in South Africa today

Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:

• Bad news for Koeberg: The National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) has confirmed that Koeberg Power Station’s two generating units will seldom run together for the foreseeable future. According to Peter Bester, programme manager for nuclear power stations at the NNR, the units will each face a 200-day outage following the completion of unit 2’s steam generator replacement. [MyBroadband]

• Cost of load shedding in 2023: Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said around 840,000 South Africans stand to lose their jobs due to load-shedding in 2023. The Minister explained that Medupi “stands between people’s livelihoods and prosperity” and emphasised the impact of breakdowns and subsequent load-shedding on the South African economy. He said 640,000 people lost their jobs due to elevated load-shedding in 2022. [Daily Investor]

• Fix it yourself: Civil society has banded together to try and solve major issues in the City of Johannesburg. Many residents at the meeting were infrastructure experts who have worked in both the private and public sectors and have intimate knowledge of the city’s issues and how to fix them. They are offering their services for free to help mitigate the many crises. [News24]

• Holiday season concerns for Cape Town: The water quality at a number of Cape Town’s beaches and tidal pools – including Fish Hoek Beach, Strandfontein Beach, Hout Bay Beach and both Camps Bay tidal pools – is poor, according to the city’s water quality review. The beaches have been labelled in red in the review, indicating a health risk and a high bacteria count, which is a major concern ahead of the holiday season. [Daily Maverick]

• Markets: South Africa’s rand fell on Monday as the dollar rose strongly on global markets at the start of a busy week for local economic data with gross domestic product (GDP) and current account figures due. “The rand has very much been a passenger to broader dollar moves today,” said Danny Greeff at ETM Analytics. On Tuesday (5 December), the rand was trading at R18.83 to the dollar, R23.80 to the pound and R20.42 to the euro. Oil is trading at $78.03 a barrel. [Reuters]