President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that government would amend schedule two of the Electricity Regulation Act to raise the exemption threshold from 1 megawatt to 100 megawatts.
Cosatu wants the South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) to further lower the repo rate by 50 basis points when its monetary policy committee next meets, and for commercial banks to “come to the party” in helping make credit affordable.
Stats SA announced today that South Africa’s economy grew by just 1.1% in the first three months of this year.
Stats SA on Tuesday released the latest gross domestic product (GDP) figures, which showed that the economy grew by 1.1% in the first three months of this year.
Stats SA said that the finance, mining and trade sectors were the main drivers on the production side of the economy, while household spending and changes in inventories helped spur growth on the demand side.
Hill-Lewis, who was speaking at the Black Business Council's 2021 Summit on Thursday morning, said almost everyone in the country agreed on areas that required reform but that this had been hampered by slow progress.
Replying to the debate on the Presidency’s budget vote in the National Assembly on Thursday afternoon, Ramaphosa cited a string of indicators that show signs of a rebound in the economy, which was already in trouble before being ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stats SA said that the number of employed people in the country remained almost unchanged at 15 million between the fourth quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021. The official unemployment rate increased slightly to 32.6% in the first quarter of 2021.
Speaking during a parliamentary question and answer session, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that government was prioritising job creation. Ramaphosa also said that infrastructure investment was another key area government wanted to use to grow the economy.
President Cyril Ramaphosa answered questions in the National Assembly on 6 May 2021. During the session, Ramaphosa said that while government still had to tackle apartheid’s damaging legacy, it also had to confront its own weaknesses such as corruption and mismanagement.
In his weekly newsletter, the president said that because of what we had lost due to the coronavirus pandemic, the country needed to forge a new economy in a new global reality.
This comes as the country battles record unemployment of around 32.5%.
Ramaphosa said women had consistently shown that if given the opportunity, they could play an important role in the country’s development.
Magashule was in Soweto leading Gauteng’s celebrations on the life and times of struggle icon Charlotte Maxeke.
This week marks the first anniversary of the lockdown, which saw the president shutting the country's borders, schools and most economic activity only permitting essential services to operate.
The agency faced backlash for continuing with the annualised rates since the second quarter of 2020 when the data showed the GDP had contracted in half following the initial hard lockdown.
The indicators accompanied the release of the fourth-quarter GDP data, with an increase of 1.5% in the fourth quarter of last year.
Stats SA said that eight industries contributed to the 1.5% economic growth rate and 6.3% annualised GDP increase.
