- Political parties, including the DA and ActionSA, have slammed President Cyril Ramaphosa for blaming “vaccine apartheid” for Covid-19 deaths. Leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance John Steenhuisen says President Ramaphosa’s administration has failed spectacularly in delivering vaccine rollout. Steenhuisen’s strong condemnation of government failures on vaccine rollout come after President Ramaphosa has been crowing about deals for vaccines being signed and the start of manufacturing J&J vaccines by Aspen in the Eastern Cape. Steenhuisen points out that benchmark countries such as Chile and Rwanda have achieved rates of 300,000 and 70,000 doses administered per day, respectively. Israel has already covered 55% of its population and the US, UK and Chile 25%. The ANC government is trying to spin it otherwise, but there is no national rollout by government, says Steenhuisen. The only rollout so far has been the expansion of the Johnson & Johnson trials, run by trial scientists around existing trial sites, using other countries’ leftover J&J trial vaccines, he says. The J&J vaccine has not even been approved yet by the health products regulatory authority SAHPRA for general rollout in South Africa. This attack comes amid warnings that socialising over the Easter weekend could spark a third spike in Covid-19 cases.
- Coca-Cola is weighing options for its bottling business in Africa, including a sale or initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter. Bloomberg reports that the soft drinks giant holds 66.5% of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa and is speaking with potential advisers about its exit options, the people said, asking not to be named as the details aren’t public. A sale or IPO of the stake could value the African business at about $6 billion, the people said. This could change depending on the level of buyer interest, the people said. A year of global Covid-19 lockdowns at restaurants, amusement parks and stadiums have disrupted Coca-Cola’s global businesses. Organic sales fell 3% in the quarter ended Dec. 31 amid ongoing challenges from the pandemic. Still, the drop was less severe than analyst forecasts and Coca-Cola has predicted high-single digit revenue growth for 2021 as more of the world’s population gets vaccinated.
- South Africa’s rising long term bond yields and the related cost of government borrowing remain a concern, ratings firm S&P Global said in its second quarter economic outlook for emerging markets, reports Reuters. The yield on South Africa’s benchmark 2030 government bond hit a record-high above 13% in March 2020 at the height of the financial crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. Yields came down as the central bank slashed lending rates and launched a bond-buying programme. But they have started rising again in 2021, to near the 10% mark, as climbing Treasury yields in the United States lured away lenders. The Reserve Bank (SARB) last week resisted raising lending rates following hikes by other emerging market central banks, saying the inflation outlook was benign. The bank said it had little control over long-term bond yields. S&P said in the report the increasing divergence between the US rebound and the rest of the world could “force central banks to implement defensive interest-rate hikes” to compensate for the growing yield differential, especially those countries with large fiscal deficits like South Africa.
- The Automobile Association (AA) says it expects a further hefty hike in fuel prices in April with 95 ULP heading into record territory when the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy makes the official adjustment next Wednesday. The AA was commenting on unaudited month-end fuel price data released by the Central Energy Fund. “This means that the fuel price for April will be in the region of R17.32 a litre for ULP 95 inland, comfortably surpassing the previous high of R17.08 set in late 2018,” says the AA.
- South Africa opened up a telecommunications contract to supply 1.2 million government employees, allowing arch rivals MTN and Vodacom to share in the state business, reports Bloomberg. The contract was previously exclusively held by Vodacom and was worth R5bn ($335m) when first agreed upon, people familiar with the matter said at the time. The move helps to level the playing field in South Africa by sharing around one of the largest contracts available in Africa’s most industrialised economy. Vodacom is the country’s market leader with about 44 million customers, compared with MTN’s 29 million.
- South Africa’s trade surplus widened to R28.96bn ($1.96bn) in February from a revised surplus of R12.42bn in January, data from the revenue service showed on Wednesday, reports Reuters.
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