Cape Town —
Reserve Bank Plans For 'Improbable But Not Impossible' Power Grid Collapse
South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) senior economist Herco Steyn says the central bank and the Financial Sector Contingency Forum (FSCF) are planning for the "improbable but not impossible", scenario of a complete national electricity grid shutdown or another potential systemic event, TimesLive reports. The central bank released its Second Edition 2023 Financial Stability Review on Wednesday November 29, 2023. The review was released amid the escalation of rotational power cuts (load shedding) to stage 6 last week, which later settled to stage 4 by Tuesday. "The Sarb, through the FSCF, continued to plan for the improbable but not impossible scenario of a complete national electricity grid shutdown or another potential systemic event," the report says. "The domestic economy continues to face a number of headwinds. Fiscal constraints remain a concern, while economic growth continues to disappoint, weighed down by electricity generation constraints, as well as rail and port infrastructure bottlenecks, among others," the review said.
City of Joburg to Spend R2 Million on Glitzy Staff Party
The City of Johannesburg plans to spend R2.6 million on a year-end event for long-serving employees incurring costs inflated by as much as 766% for goods and services for the ceremony, such as R40 000 for flowers, R300 000 for jackets, R769 000 for watches and R171 000 for service fees. Writing in an exclusive News24 report, Azarrah Karrim reports that the event, which would honour City employees who served 40 years or more, seemingly goes against National Treasury cost containment regulations. The event has seen the reallocation of R2 million from the City's locomotive savings to supplement the original council-approved budget, according to documents News24 has seen.
Roads Agency to Readvertise 86 Construction Tenders
The SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) is readvertising 86 road construction tenders, collectively valued at R7.2 billion, that were among those cancelled because of a legal challenge to its new preferential procurement policy (PPP) scoring system. Moneyweb reports that Sanral says its aim is to fast-track the adjudication of the 86 tenders to get these projects back on track as speedily as possible. The SA Forum of Civil Engineering Contractors (Safcec) welcomed the advertisement of these tenders. However, a construction company that did not want to be named highlighted the potential negative impact of advertising so many tenders in such a short period because of the capacity constraints in the construction industry.
