Analysts say while a technical recession was expected -- the contraction is far bigger than previously anticipated. This comes as figures released by Statistics South Africa show that the country's economy shrank by one-point-four percent in the fourth quarter of 2019 -- following a contraction of zero-point-eight percent in the third quarter of 2019. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth in a year.

Excluded from evacuation plans, South Africans in other parts of China are making their own arrangements to return to the country. This after the inter-ministerial committee on SUNDAY announced that only citizens in Wuhan City, the epicentre of the CoronaVirus, are being brought home. 151 citizens are expected to be repatriated in the next few days, and will be quarantined for 21 days as a precautionary measure.

Refugees have gathered near the Cape Town Central Police Station to hand themselves over for arrest. This, after the sheriff of the court gave them options either to get into buses that will take them to their homes, or face arrest for trespassing. They chose to be arrested.

Close to 300 foreign nationals have been removed from the street outside the Central Methodist Church in the Cape Town CBD. They have been living on the pavement along Burg and Longmarket Streets since October last year. A large group of law enforcement officers loaded the personal possessions of the foreign nationals onto trucks.

At least 151 South Africans, out of 201 - living in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the corona virus are expected to be repatriated by government in about ten days after the completion of the logistics. The inter-ministerial committee which includes the ministers of Health, Home Affairs, briefed the media on how the repatriation process will happen.

Passenger Rail Association of South Africa (Prasa) LAST NIGHT confirmed that train operations had returned to near normal. This after thousands of commuters were left stranded yesterday when Eskom cut off power to all metro-rail operations in Cape Town. PRASA says Eskom disconnected power to metrorail as a result of an overdue payment.

Finance minister, Tito Mboweni, in his budget speech on Wednesday, warned Religious Organisations to operate within the strict boundaries of the law to continue enjoying its tax exempt status. Mboweni highlighted that they will be keeping a close eye on non-compliance by some religious and public benefit organisations.

Insurance companies say they have picked up an increase in claims over the last few months. While the South African Insurance Association says they cannot pin this increase on loadshedding, the rise in claims has coincided with the re-introduction of loadshedding a few months ago. City Power also says only 10 claims they have had so far, were due to loadshedding.

Cosatu has accused Finance Minister Tito Mboweni of being irresponsible and reckless on his proposed cuts to the public sector wage bill. This came at a media briefing in Johannesburg following the conclusion of its Central Executive Committee meeting. The labour federation was responding to the minister's budget votes presented in Parliament on Wednesday and other issues affecting workers.

Debt servicing costs are among government's top four expenditure items in the 2020/21 budget allocations. This receives about 25 percent of the total expenditure, pushing it into fourth position on the list of allocations.