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South Africa's inflation dropped more than expected in July, falling to within touching distance of the central bank's target and cementing analysts' expectations that the bank will cut interest rates next month.

Headline consumer inflation fell to a more than three year low of 4.6% year on year in July from 5.1% in June, statistics agency data showed on Wednesday, whereas analysts had forecast annual inflation of 4.9% last month.

The South African Reserve Bank likes to see inflation around 4.5%, the midpoint of its 3% to 6% target range, but it has been above that level since mid-2021.

Before the latest inflation print, most economists in a Reuters poll had predicted the SARB would reduce its main policy rate by 25 basis points in September, and a cut now looks more certain.

"The SARB has definitely run out of excuses to not cut interest rates ... and might have to consider a bigger cut," independent economist Elize Kruger said.

In month-on-month terms, inflation was at 0.4% in July compared to 0.1% a month before.

ActionSA's Nobuhle Mthembu is the new Speaker of the Johannesburg Council, with a promise to residents that she will instil accountability and transparency in the City.

Mthembu's appointment comes as a result of Margaret Arnolds' immediate resignation as Speaker.

Arnolds is now Finance MMC, as announced by newly elected Mayor Dada Morero.

Mthembu noted that Wednesday "marked the beginning of a new era", which she said was focused on restoring the City to its former glory, "where service delivery will take centre stage".

"This is an era in which we will instil a culture of accountability and transparency, and where, at every turn, we will work together to ensure that the best interests of our residents anchor our efforts," she said.

"We are in rebuilding mode, and the residents of Johannesburg simply cannot be expected to wait any longer for the effective delivery of frontline services - from reliable electricity and water to functional traffic lights, refuse removal, and pothole repairs. I have made it clear that rejuvenating the inner city and getting Johannesburg back on track as a hub of investment and opportunity will be a central focus."

Mthembu highlighted that she was committed to pursuing every effort to ensure that the Council delivered a functioning City for residents.

Mthembu promised to prioritise work to resolve the billing crisis, and ensure that the City had the resources to provide public services and the rejuvenation of the inner city.

She wants to tackle corruption, patronage and wastefulness in the use of resources, as well as ensure strict enforcement of City bylaws, particularly around illegal trading and dumping.

Mthembu said she will ensure that accountability is entrenched in a "collaborative environment" for the effective service delivery and the restoration of good governance.

She promised Johannesburg residents that her office would function solely to protect and advance their interests, and said the new administration represented a "much-needed shift" towards stabilising governance and prioritising service delivery.

"We must all recognise that the City has deteriorated over the past years, but to save it, we have one option, and that is to act now," she said,

She said the City must be relentless in driving a sustained programme of action, backed by political will and the abandonment of patronage and wastefulness in the use of resources.

"…this must be a City where lawlessness is met with swift action, where our bylaws are not merely suggestions but are strictly adhered to and enforced, and ultimately where the safety of our residents is protected," Mthembu highlighted.

South Africa plans to complete a framework for private companies to use State-owned port and rail infrastructure within six months, Transport Minister Barbara Creecy said, a move that could help the government solve severe logistics constraints that have hit economic growth.

The framework will serve as a guide on how the government works with third parties, and will pave the way for it to call for interested companies to make proposals, she told reporters Tuesday in Johannesburg.

"I'm pushing that it has to be concluded within the next six months," said Creecy, who took the job in July under South Africa's new multiparty administration. "We can then go ahead and look at the introduction of third-party participation in different forms."

South Africa's rail network and ports are creaking after years of underinvestment, corruption scandals and vandalism. That costs the economy billions of dollars yearly as bulk mineral exports from coal to chrome and iron ore are stranded.

The nation's cabinet late last year approved the principle of third-party participation in port and rail, and the private sector participation framework will lay out how this will work.

On Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa will officiate the signing of the second Presidential Health Compact, despite criticism and an objection lodged by Business Unity South Africa (Busa).

The event, which was initially scheduled to take place on August 15, follows the 2023 Presidential Health Summit, which was built on the 2018 inaugural summit that brought together a range of invested parties to develop sustainable and inclusive solutions to challenges in the national health system.

Last week, Busa CEO Cas Coovadia said the organisation could not support a policy that explicitly endorsed the National Health Insurance (NHI) Act in its current form, noting that it had written to the Ramaphosa to express its concern.

Coovadia said the draft of the Compact that was shared with Busa promoted the NHI in its current form as the foundation underpinning healthcare reform.

He noted serious differences between business and government as to the appropriateness of the NHI Act.

"…let alone its feasibility as a legislative instrument to underpin universal health coverage," he said.

The Presidency said on Tuesday that the stakeholders involved in the Presidential Health Compact are integral to supporting the Department of Health in improving the country's health system.

"[The Compact] has a monitoring and evaluation component where roles and responsibilities are assigned to a broad range of stakeholders to support health systems strengthening and preparation for the implementation of the National Health Insurance," the Presidency explained.

The signing will take place at the Union Buildings and will include signatories such as the Independent Community Pharmacy Association, the South African National AIDS Council, the South African Medical Association Trade Union, the Democratic Nurses of South Africa, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Campaigning for Cancer, the South African Medical Research Council, the South African Pharmacy Council and the National Unitary Professional Association for African Traditional Health Practitioners of South Africa.

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) researcher Avi Moodley on Tuesday highlighted that the 2024 national and provincial elections created more negativity when compared with other elections, with social media posts undermining the credibility of the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).

Moodley was speaking during a multi-party information-sharing webinar hosted by the CSIR, Trinexia, Government Communication and Information Systems and Africa Check.

He highlighted that CSIR's data analyses looked at a high-level analysis of the 2024 South African elections focused on uncovering latent themes and sentiments from the public expressed on the X platform. He said the analysis covered topic modelling, sentiment analysis, emotional tendencies and geographical breakdown of the information landscape over the election period.

Moodley noted that the Council collected about 50 000 tweets a day, with 1.3-million tweets collected since April.

He pointed out that there was a lot of negativity after election day and before results were released, with a significant number of tweets related to people's feelings towards the IEC.

Moodley pointed out that some of the tweets questioned whether the IEC had enough budget for the elections. He said there was also some misinformation related to vote rigging and ballot stealing.

He said the elections saw a lot of anger and negativity directed toward the IEC over the experience that the public had in terms of long queues, and dissatisfaction with things that transpired during the elections, which people blame the IEC for.

Moodley noted that during elections, for data the CSIR relied on audiences who tagged the council on social media, and also closely followed public figures.

He said it was challenging to effectively manage fake news on social media platforms, noting South Africa's various literacy languages.

He referred to WhatsApp as being one of the main propagators of misinformation.

"…but when it comes down to what we can do, [we suggest] education and rewiring people's mindsets on what is misinformation and how to detect it," said Moodley.

He explained that the creation of a framework on educating people with a human-centric approach could be a "nice baseline" for an educational campaign, as well as improving the CSIR's efforts to detect fake news.

He pointed out that there were non-governmental organisations and industry partners tackling problems of fake news, however, he said one of the challenges was not having enough support from different sectors to help in this initiative.

Trinexia national account manager Byron Davel noted a combination of AI-powered content analyses to detect patterns, key words and phrases that were commonly associated with misinformation or fake news.

Individuals could also analyse the sentiment, tone and language use in those posts, while image and video analyses could be used to detect manipulated images or deep fakes on the technology side.

"…but through technology, behaviour analytics and repetitive patterns and constantly detecting information, you may not always be able to detect all fake news, however, you can change the attack behaviour, and you can change the way attackers and false information spreaders go about spreading information. You keep protecting it, you keep blocking it, you keep reporting it and you keep removing it. It changes attackers' behaviours," he explained.

Davel urged individuals to remove fake news quickly from social media before it caused damage.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Knysna on Monday tabled a motion to dissolve the Knysna Municipal Council and allow for fresh elections to be held in the municipality.

DA constituency head Knysna Ryan Smith said his party "considered every potential configuration" under the current Council make-up, and felt there was no pathway to a stable majority government for Knysna.

"The only way to rescue Knysna is for fresh elections to be held where a clear DA-majority can be elected that will no longer be vulnerable to instability as a result of the political opportunism and self-interest of unreliable coalition partners," he added.

Smith said Knysna was too fragmented to elect a stable majority government under the current Council configuration.

He said the DA submitted its motion as "the only remedy" to the over-fragmentation of the current Council make-up, which he said had rendered it impossible to elect and sustain a stable majority government in the interests of Knysna residents.

He said the motion was intended to bring an end to the current African National Congress/Plaaslike Besorgde Inwoners/Patriotic Alliance/Economic Freedom Fighters coalition which the DA believed had ushered in the rapid "collapse of service delivery in Knysna, inflicting untold damage" on its residents and the surrounding environment.

"A dramatic drop in water quality and supply, electricity outages, the collapse of refuse removal and sewerage and wastewater management, have placed the very lives of Knysna's residents at peril," Smith said.

He pointed out that over the past weeks, the levels of E-coli in the Knysna lagoon had exponentially surpassed acceptable levels owing to the unchecked flow of raw sewerage into Knysna's lagoon and estuary.

"With pollution levels so elevated, it is likely that Knysna will lose its blue flag status ahead of the 2024 high season, severely impacting the once thriving local tourism economy," he explained.

Furthermore, Smith noted that the collapse of Knysna's refuse removal services in December 2023 warranted a full-scale intervention by the DA-led provincial government to "rescue the municipality from drowning in its own rubbish".

He attributed the challenges to "the incompetent, unqualified, and unsuitable appointments" made by the current coalition government since September 2022, which the DA had had successfully declared unlawful and reversed through successive court action.

Smith explained that the party has "done everything to constructively engage" the Mayor, municipal manager/s, and senior officials to ensure that Knysna is "salvaged from further collapse".

Instead, he said efforts have been met with constant excuses of infrastructure collapse and sabotage, and no will or desire to action effective long-term plans to address the town's rapid collapse.

As the Democratic Alliance (DA) prepares for the upcoming parliamentary debate on high electricity prices, it is urging South Africans to stand with it and voice their opposition against the "unjustifiable" electricity price hikes through its petition.

DA spokesperson on electricity and energy Kevin Mileham said that as of Monday, over 12 000 South Africans have signed its petition to Parliament against a proposed 40% electricity tariff increase by Eskom.

"This is the start of an overwhelming response and demonstrates widespread public concern over the effect that the proposed tariff increases will have on household incomes, businesses and the economy," noted Mileham.

He pointed out that the petition had become all the more important after the Speaker of the National Assembly Thoko Didiza acceded to the DA's request for a debate on the escalating costs of electricity on consumers.

He highlighted that should the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) grant Eskom's request for a 36.15% tariff increase in 2025, in addition to the 4% that it wants to levy on consumers through its Regulatory Clearing Account, he stated that many households would be priced out of the electricity market and forced to abandon electricity use altogether.

Mileham said the DA's practical action would push back against the "rapidly rising" cost of electricity.

Last week, mayors in DA-run municipalities submitted written objections to Nersa on Eskom's upcoming tariff demand, with Mileham saying these "out-of-control tariffs" would be devastating to local economies and could lead to job losses, further exacerbating the unemployment crisis.

"With the ever-increasing cost of living, double-digit tariff increases will keep inflationary pressures high and force consumers to choose between keeping the lights on or putting food on the table," he added.

The DA believes that the burden of Eskom's operational inefficiencies should not be passed on to "hard-working South Africans".

President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday the successful national and provincial elections held in May and the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) have positively affected business confidence.

Ramaphosa wrote in his weekly letter to the nation that the progress government has recorded in its reform process has also contributed to the improved sentiment.

He highlighted that the latest Business Confidence Index published by the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry pointed to an increase in business confidence since the elections.

Ramaphosa said this sentiment was evident in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange's All-Share Price Index, which he noted had increased by about 8% between May and July.

"This is welcome news, particularly in light of the most recent employment figures released by Statistics South Africa, which show that unemployment remains extremely high at 33.5%," he said.

He acknowledged low levels of business confidence over the last few years, and said government was now seeing a growing confidence among investors, businesses and citizens about the prospects for the country's economy.

"Business confidence was negatively affected by the prolonged electricity crisis, State capture, concerns about corruption, the decline of State-owned enterprises and the manner in which law enforcement agencies had been compromised," he said.

He noted investors' concerns about obstacles to growth, such as delays in the release of broadband spectrum, inefficiencies in ports and rail operations, and regulations that have slowed down licensing processes.

Ramaphosa said government had shown its determination to tackle corruption, noting that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and Special Investigating Unit as well as the reinvigorated Hawks, had brought several high-profile cases to trial.

He explained that the permanent establishment of the NPA's Investigating Directorate had given further impetus to the fight against corruption and that crime was being tackled.

"We have now [also] had more than 140 consecutive days without loadshedding. There has been a huge increase in new power generation capacity. Investors have seen the growth opportunities in the far-reaching energy reforms we are undertaking. Just last week, I signed into law the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act, which will enable the establishment of a competitive electricity market," he explained.

With the progress in the electricity sector, Ramaphosa is confident that government can also overcome the freight rail and ports challenges.

Transnet's recovery plan is showing progress, he said, with the private sector providing significant technical support and resources.

He said changes were also made to immigration regulations that make it easier to attract skills, investment and tourists into the country.

"We have also significantly speeded up approval processes for water use licences and energy projects, and released broadband spectrum to unleash the potential of our telecommunications industry," he said.

Ramaphosa pointed out that last week government held a meeting with business leaders, saying business expressed optimism about the recovery and growth of the country's economy.

South Africa's rand is on a winning run not seen in 13 years.

The ninth consecutive day of gains in the currency, often seen as a bellwether for the outlook of emerging markets, marks its longest streak since January 2011 as well as a five-week high on a closing basis. As of Friday morning, it was the best-performing currency against the dollar among the 150-or-so global currencies tracked by Bloomberg.

South African assets have won investors' favour since a business-friendly coalition took power two months ago and the country's economic data began improving. Inflation has fallen since February, relieving the pressure on the central bank to keep interest rates high. The expected start of Federal Reserve rate cuts next month could open the door for policymakers to follow suit, said Marek Drimal, a strategist at Societe Generale SA.

"The one-off move higher in USD/ZAR during the market rout in early August offered investors a very good entry point to buy South African assets," Drimal said.

This gains extend beyond the currency. The government's rand bonds have handed investors total returns of 2.7% this month, outperforming the emerging-market benchmark which has given them 1.5%.

However, with traders pricing in rate cuts in South Africa, the rand rally may face headwinds. Forward-rate agreements see at least 50 basis points of easing this year.

"It's unlikely the rand rally has still legs," Drimal said.

For the rand to secure long-term, fundamental-driven gains, "delivering reforms aimed at structural improvements of the South Africa economy and growth potential is crucial," he said.

The University of Johannesburg (UJ) is ranked number three in South Africa and number four in Africa, according to the 2024 edition of the Academic Rankings of World Universities (ARWU).

The University is said to be the only one in the country that has improved its position in the latest global rankings, in what it says is a demonstration of the "robustness and impact of its academic and research programmes".

ARWU said this is a significant achievement for a university that has only been around for less than 20 years.

UJ Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Letlhokwa George Mpedi noted that the University remained steadfast in its commitment to addressing societal challenges through research and knowledge production.

"Our progress is not just about numbers and figures; it's all about the positive and lasting impact we have on our students and the broader society," he said.

UJ has, in the process, surpassed Stellenbosch University (SU).

UJ is ranked joint number three with SU in the 401-500 band, however, UJ has achieved a higher overall score than SU in South Africa based on the overall score calculation.

UJ is now ranked among the top 500 universities, moving up from the 501-600 band it was ranked in 2023, to the 401-500 band this year.

ARWU ranks more than 2 500 universities every year, and only the best 1 000 are published. Only eight universities from South Africa were ranked.

The latest news comes after UJ achieved its highest-ever position in global rankings, after being ranked number 36 in the world in the Times Higher Education Rankings, released in June 2024.