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Cape Town - A roundup of Tuesday's top economic and finance reads on Fin24.
Eskom announces five hours of load shedding for Tuesday evening
A spokesperson for Eskom has announced the power utility will institute load shedding on Tuesday evening for five hours between 17:00 and 22:00.This is the first time in a month that Eskom has resorted to planned rotational power outages in a bid to keep the grid stable.
The decision comes in the wake of warnings by the power utility, both on Monday and earlier on Tuesday, that the power grid was severely constrained.
Shock rise in SA unemployment as manufacturing bleeds jobs
The official unemployment rate increased by 0.5% to 27.2% in the second quarter of 2018, up from 26.7% in the first three months of the year.
The increase in the unemployment rate was due to a decline of 90 000 people in employment, as well as an increase of 102 000 people who became unemployed. Additionally, the number of discouraged job seekers rose to 2.9 million people, between the first and second quarters of 2018.
Cabinet to discuss VAT, fuel hike report
The economic cluster ministers tasked with considering a package of measures to alleviate the Value Added Tax (VAT) increase and fuel hikes on consumers have submitted their initial report to President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The recommendations will be discussed at the upcoming mid-year cabinet lekgotla scheduled for Wednesday to Friday, according to Presidency spokesperson Khusela Diko.
At the same time, the independent panel tasked with reviewing and evaluating the impact of zero-rated items is expected to hand over its report on Tuesday.
Rand marginally weaker after poor job stats
The rand lost some of its gains against the dollar in the early afternoon on Tuesday, after Stats SA announced that SA’s unemployment rate had increased.
The local currency opened at 13.15/$ and reached an intra-day high of R13.08/$, before starting to weaken.
At 14:55 it was trading at R13.12/$, up 0.26%.
Three VBS execs provisionally sequestrated, Vele liquidated
Provisional sequestration orders have been granted against three businessman in the VBS Mutual Bank fraud saga.
Vele Investments, VBS's main shareholder, has also been liquidated.
The sequestration and liquidation matter, which is ongoing, is being heard in the South Gauteng High Court on Tuesday.
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