By Jackie Cameron
- As the number of Covid-19 cases heads towards 12,000, the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) has announced that its chair Dr Clarence Mini has died from complications related to Covid-19. The Council said in a statement that his passing was a sad day for the council and the medical schemes industry as a whole. Mini was hospitalised for more than a month.
- The Covid-19 loan guarantee scheme, with loans guaranteed by government for businesses with a turnover of less than R300m, has started taking applications. The National Treasury has provided a guarantee of R100bn. Participating banks Absa, First National Bank, Investec, Mercantile Bank, Nedbank and Standard Bank are ready to accept loan applications from eligible businesses which bank with them, the Treasury announced on Tuesday. Funds borrowed through this scheme can be used for operational expenses such as salaries, rent and lease agreements and contracts with suppliers. If the scheme is successful, National Treasury may increase the guarantee to R200bn. Reuters says small and medium-sized businesses will have five years to repay loans, with the interest rate set at the repo rate of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) plus 3.5%, so currently 7.75%.
- South Africa’s National Command Council, the body overseeing the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis, is considering easing lockdown rules more rapidly as the economy tanks and poverty levels soar, three senior officials have told Bloomberg. Curbs could be relaxed in some provinces or areas with low infection rates, and retained in hotspots such as Cape Town, according to two of the officials who spoke to Bloomberg on condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorised to comment.
- In other Covid-19 news making the global headlines, Wuhan will test its entire population of 11 million after the Chinese city where the pandemic began reported new infections for the first time since its lockdown was lifted. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman is the latest top official to fall ill, and Britons may not be able to travel outside the UK until September.
- With supermarkets among the few businesses allowed to operate under Covid-19 restrictions you might expect them to enjoy bumper profits. But this is not the case. Pick n Pay Stores said on Tuesday the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to hit its margins and profitability this year. The supermarket chain’s shares plunged about 14% after it deferred its dividend for the year ended March 1 to conserve cash, reports Reuters. Trading conditions for South African grocery retailers were already difficult before the new coronavirus outbreak, with low economic growth, high unemployment, rising household costs and constrained consumer spending weighing on sales, says the news agency. It highlights the new challenges of changing consumer behaviour, supply chain disruptions as well as restrictions on sales of liquor, tobacco and most general merchandise items. “These categories make up approximately 20% of our revenues, and have relatively high margins compared with basic food and grocery lines,” Chief Executive Richard Brasher told journalists during a webcast result presentation. “The general reduction of overall consumer ability to spend is also a feature here. No one got wealthier during this crisis and more people sadly are unemployed as a consequence of this lockdown,” he is quoted as saying. Pick n Pay, which competes with Shoprite and Spar Group, also anticipates additional costs from extra hygiene and social distancing measures, which are expected to hit profit in the new financial year, says Reuters.
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