Covid-19: 25 SA deaths, 115,000 worldwide; CR, ministers chop salaries, FNB, Absa follow; Rupert R1bn SME pay-outs begin

By Jackie Cameron

  • There were 2,173 Covid-19 cases and 25 deaths from the disease in SA as of late Monday, according to the Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus resource centre. There have been more than 115,000 deaths worldwide. Italy has recorded the highest number of deaths in Europe – 20,000. The US now has the highest number of confirmed cases – with more than 500,000  – and more than 20 000, of which not far off 7,000 have been recorded in New York.
  • At the start of the Easter weekend, President Cyril Ramaphosa extended the lockdown period by two weeks and announced that he and his fellow ministers would be giving up one-third of their salaries for the next three months.  This money will be donated to the Solidarity Fund, which has as its main aim to prevent the spread of the disease by supporting measures to “flatten the curve” and lower infection rates. President Ramaphosa has called on other public office bearers and executives of large companies to make a similar gesture “to further increase the reach of this national effort”. FirstRand group bosses and Absa executives have followed suit by cutting salaries by about one-third.
  • Johann Rupert’s R1bn SME fund will start to give money to businesses from today, Business Partners MD Ben Bierman is quoted as saying. MyBroadband reports that Business Partners is administering the R1bn fund, called the Sukuma Relief Programme, on behalf of the Rupert family and Remgro. The fund was created to offer grants and loans to small and medium enterprises which are negatively impacted by Covid-19, says MyBroadband. “For formal sole proprietors, the fund offers a grant of R25,000 per qualifying business to be used to pay for overheads. Closed corporations, companies, and trusts can apply for financial aid in the form of an unsecured interest-bearing loan of between R250,000 and R1m. These loans are also coupled with a non-repayable grant of R25,000 per qualifying business.” The fund received applications totalling R2.4bn, far exceeding the fund’s R1bn in capital, says MyBroadband.
  • Wesgro, in partnership with the Western Cape Government and the City of Cape Town, has launched a tool to help businesses around South Africa to find funding. The tool, called the Covid-19 Support Finder, is aimed at making it easier for businesses to navigate the various packages available to them, says MyBroadband. “The tool asks the user five questions, ranks the answers against predetermined criteria, and provides a list of relief measures the business can apply for. While this tool was developed by the Western Cape Government, it is open to all businesses in South Africa.” The Western Cape’s Minister of Finance David Maynier is quoted as saying: “The lockdown is essential to stop the spread of Covid-19, but we know that times are tough for business.”
  • Emerging-market stocks and local-currency bonds had their best weekly performance in four years in the five days through Friday, while developing-nation currencies had their biggest weekly gain since June, reports Bloomberg. The US Federal Reserve helped by announcing an extra $2.3trn of liquidity on Thursday, says the news wire. “But, traders are bracing for one of the worst first-quarter earnings seasons in living memory as well as data showing a slump in Chinese economic output,” says the news wire. China, a major trading partner to South Africa, is set to release first-quarter gross domestic product data on Friday. The Bloomberg consensus is for a 6% year-on-year contraction. “Industrial-production data for March are also due and are expected to show a 7% contraction, while retail sales probably fell 10%. Fixed-asset investment is likely to slide 15% from a year earlier,” according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
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