On Tuesday the retail giant disappointed investors and lenders by disclosing that it was unable to give details on the extent of the alleged fraud at the company.

Business leaders are expected to react to Ramaphosa being voted into the governing party's new leadership during the next breakfast briefing this morning.

The local currency was already up by 3% at the close of trading on Friday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Stats SA announced that CPI slowed to 4.8% in October in line with expectations.

The local currency hit an 11-month low after Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba painted a bleak picture of the country’s finances.

The local currency lost more than 1% of its value against the dollar on Tuesday.

The rand has now firmed by about 7.5% against the US dollar since it weakened to R13.93 at the beginning of this month.

A rating downgrade does not bode well for the country’s ability to borrow money and is expected to have negative effects on South Africans in the long term.

Earlier this morning the local currency lost as much as 2.5% to the dollar as it rose through the R13 barrier.

On a month-on-month basis, inflation rose to 1.1% from 0.6% previously.

The rand continues to trade at its best levels in 20 months against the US dollar.

Since the start of the year the rand has been trading at between R13.82 and R12.86 against the dollar.

EWN's Mashudu Masutha makes sense of of the latest year-on-year car sale figures, which have seen in increase for the first time in three years.

Statistics South Africa announced earlier that consumer inflation rose to 6.8% in December, up from 6.6% in November.

The largest positive contributor to growth was mining and quarrying, which rose by 5.1%.

The currency weakened after Fitch lowered its outlook to negative from stable but it has since recovered.

The South African Reserve Bank has left interest rates unchanged at 7% since March this year.

Stats SA says consumer price inflation has increased to 6.4% in October from 6.1% in September.