5 important things happening in South Africa today

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

• Alarm over NHI process: business organisations have written to the presiding officers of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) with an urgent appeal to stop the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill from being passed by Parliament’s second house on Wednesday. According to the letter, the committee had ignored the constitutional issues raised by four provinces and a wide range of stakeholders, and blindly pushing it through in its current form will have dire consequences. [News24]

• VW isn’t leaving: Volkswagen SA Spokesperson Andile Dlamini said that VW has no plans to exit from South Africa and that CEO Thomas Schaefer merely voiced concerns over the lack of speediness with regulations towards energy-efficient models. “Volkswagen is still fully committed to South Africa, where it has been manufacturing vehicles for over 72 years,” he said. [SABC News]

• Eskom bailout not enough: S&P Global Ratings analysts have warned that the government’s debt relief package for Eskom is not enough to make it a financially sustainable company, stacking up pressure on the public enterprises department to speed up the break-up of the troubled state power utility. The rating agency lifted Eskom to a B rating last week, five notches below investment grade. [Business Day]

• Eskom will get a new CEO soon: Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said Eskom will have a new CEO before the end of 2023 after the utility has been without a permanent chief executive for nearly an entire year. Former CEO Andre de Ruyter resigned in December 2022, and left in February 2023. Ramokgopa said the utility’s newly appointed chair confirmed that the board had complied with all the requirements of the Memorandum of Incorporation and had given Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan three names to choose from. [Daily Investor]

• Markets: The South African rand was stronger on Monday, helped by the dollar falling at the start of a week laden with major global and domestic economic data releases. On Tuesday (28 November), the rand was trading at R18.63 to the dollar, R23.53 to the pound and R20.41 to the euro. Oil is trading at $80.12 a barrel. [Reuters]