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The International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) Fiscal Transparency Evaluation Report has placed South Africa in the top three countries in terms of transparent fiscal practices, which National Treasury has welcomed.

In July 2023, the IMF's Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) undertook a Fiscal Transparency Evaluation, at the request of National Treasury. Interviews were conducted with Treasury senior staff, government ministries, parliamentary committees, the Reserve Bank, civil society organisations, development partners, and Eskom.

"South Africa has many elements of sound fiscal transparency practices. Based on an assessment of fiscal transparency practices against the IMF's Fiscal Transparency Code, South Africa's practices are strongest in fiscal reporting, followed by fiscal forecasting and budgeting, and weakest in fiscal risk analysis. There is room to improve South Africa's fiscal reporting, budget transparency and management of fiscal risks," the IMF report said.

Treasury noted the need to improve in specific areas and said work in these was in progress.

The IMF suggested that South Africa could improve its fiscal reporting by including other spheres of the public sector, strengthening tax expenditure disclosure, and improving adherence to audit timelines for published financial statements, all of which will align with international best practices.

Further, it urged South Africa to implement precise, time-bound and stable fiscal rules, and to enhance analysis of risks in the fiscal risk statement, regularly publish public-private partnership financial data, consolidate transfers to State-owned companies to show fiscal impact and set limits on government guarantees.

"Work is underway on all these areas. Government is committed to addressing these areas to enhance fiscal credibility and ensure continued transparency and accountability in the management of public finances," Treasury said.

Download the report here

Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) CEO Sy Mamabolo said on Tuesday that there is no basis for IEC Commissioner Janet Love to step down from her position, as there is no substantive evidence establishing misconduct on her side.

Mamabolo was giving a media briefing on the key aspects of the election timetable.

Last week, former President Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party called for Love's immediate resignation, warning that should she fail to resign in seven days, the party would pursue "all available avenues" to remove her, including approaching the courts.

"Janet Love, in an unprecedented move publicly declared nationally that President Zuma would not be eligible and couldn't be included in the MK Party's Parliamentary candidate list," the party noted.

The party accused Love of being "highly vested" in the outcomes of the May 29 elections, saying she cannot be trusted.

The MK Party justified its call for Love's removal by noting her "obnoxious behaviour" in January, before a public objection was lodged regarding the eligibility of Zuma to participate in the Parliamentary elections.

Mamabolo said the commission wants clarity in its case, in which the recent Electoral Court judgment saw Zuma win his appeal against the IEC's decision to exclude him from being able to stand as an MK Party parliamentary candidate.

The IEC has approached the Constitutional Court to appeal the Electoral Court's judgment on this matter.

"With respect to the Constitutional Court appeal, it is preferable to lodge an appeal when you have reasons because then you can follow the reasoning of the court against which whose orders you are appealing. But when an appeal is lodged, it is lodged against the orders of court not against the judgment and we have orders in this case, and on the basis of those orders we think that there is a need for clarity on a number of issues," said Mamabolo.

He said questions had to be answered for the sake of clarity for everybody in respect of the immediate case, but also in respect of future elections.

He also noted that the commission was concerned about the safety of people and the safety of property during elections. He explained that an election should never be an opportunity for people to lose lives nor an opportunity for people's properties to be lost.

"…it is rather an opportunity for the voter to record their political choices in an election that is arranged in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and the law. The security agencies in the country are responsible to secure all of us," he said.

ELECTION PREPARATIONS

Meanwhile, he said last week the Commission issued certificates to the 14 892 candidates who will contest 887 seats in the forthcoming elections.

Nominations of candidates closed on March 8 and following verification processes and objections 70 political parties, and 11 independent candidates were published as final contestants in the upcoming May 29 elections.

He explained that the list of candidates reflected that 58.14%, or 8 658, were male, with female candidates at 41.86%, or 6 234.

Candidates in the age category 40 to 49 are the majority at 4 361, followed by the 3 708 in the 50 to 59 age category and the 3 406 in the 30 to 39 age group.

"Notably, there are 15 candidates who at 18 years are also first-time voters. Of the 15, nine are female and six are male. These candidates are spread across eight political parties," he said.

Mamabolo explained that voters who would be away from their voting districts on election day, may give a Section 24A notice of their intention to vote at another identified voting station by no later than May 17.

He reminded voters that they may only vote at a voting station at which they are registered.

Nigeria's creaking grid collapsed for the fifth time this year in the early hours of Monday, highlighting the country's inability to provide reliable power after raising tariffs for wealthier consumers by 230% only two weeks ago.

Nigeria's electricity regulator on April 3 approved an increase in tariffs for the 15% of consumers who use the most power, as the government tries to reduce the $2.6-billion worth of subsidies for the sector.

The head of the Nigerian electricity regulator, Musiliu Oseni, defended the tariff increase saying it will mean an end to grid collapses and bring investment into the sector.

National supply data showed the supply of power via the grid fell to around 50MW early on Monday from 4 020MW the previous day.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria, which oversees the grid, has not yet issued a statement on the cause of the latest near complete halt to the supply of power via the grid and did not immediately reply to an inquiry by Reuters.

Gas shortages and vandalism have triggered grid collapses in the past.

The new rate raises the tariff to 225 naira per kilowatt hour from a maximum of 68 naira for about 15% of customers, who will enjoy a maximum of 20 hours of supply daily.

Some analysts have criticised the tariff increase because it pushes more power to wealthier consumers from the meagre 4 000MW available for distribution to over 200 million Nigerians from the grid.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, faces perennial power shortages that have contributed to years of weak economic growth.

Its electricity sector faces a myriad of problems, including a failing grid, gas shortages, high debt and vandalism. The country has 12 500 megawatts of installed capacity, but produces only about a quarter of that, leaving many Nigerians reliant on expensive diesel-powered generators.

South Africa's health regulator said on Saturday it is recalling batches of Johnson & Johnson's children's cough syrup after detection of high levels of diethylene glycol.

The affected batches were sold in South Africa, Eswatini, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria, the statement added.

The recall follows a report by the regulator's Nigerian counterpart on Wednesday, which first detected the toxin in a batch of Benylin Paediatric Syrup.

Kenya and Nigeria have already issued recalls for the same syrup, which is used in the treatment of hay fever and other allergic conditions affecting the upper respiratory tract.

Kenvue, which now owns the Benylin brand after a spin-off from J&J last year, said in a statement that it is conducting its own assessment and working with health authorities to determine a course of action.

"A review of our global safety database for the period between product release in May 2021 and up to 11 April 2024 did not identify any serious adverse events for any batch of Benylin Paediatric Syrup," it said.

High levels of diethylene glycol in cough syrup has been linked to the deaths of dozens of children in Gambia, Uzbekistan and Cameroon since 2022 in one of the world's worst waves of poisoning from oral medication.

The African National Congress (ANC) is confident, ahead of the May 29 elections, of an outright win and has not spent time discussing a coalition strategy, nor is it concerned about its former President Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party.

This was according to ANC national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri who spoke exclusively with Polity on Monday, to unpack the party's manifesto and policies set out within.

Recent polling has put the ANC's electoral support at below 50% in this election, which, if proven true, would mean the party would have to enter into a coalition to form a government. However, Bhengu-Motsiri said the ANC was aiming for an outright majority.

While other parties had been in coalition talks and had even expressed interest in a coalition with the ANC, she said the ruling party was focussing on its own campaign for an outright win.

"Our ground is seriously energised. It's almost as if its 1994. We are not thinking of other parties, we are focussing on the message of the ANC," she said.

And despite the controversy surrounding Zuma's MK Party, this issue is not top of mind for the ANC.

When asked about whether the ANC was concerned about the former ANC President's MK Party in the election fray, Bhengu-Motsiri stressed that Zuma was suspended as an ANC member.

"There's no worry about the MK Party. The 29th of May will be the defining moment and we are looking forward to that," she said.

CADRE DEPLOYMENT AND CORRUPTION

Bhengu-Motsiri noted that while the ANC may have had or currently has corrupt members, the party itself was not corrupt.

She punted the party's renewal programme as a way to improve the way the party connects with South Africans.

Priorities included "…to go back to what our founding fathers, including Nelson Mandela and countless others have left us, and the directives they have left us with, making sure that all of those things are attended to and one of those is addressing the demon of corruption and clarifying that the ANC is not a corruption organisation. We may have had, we may have, members that are corrupt but it is not the ANC that is practising corruption," she said.

And to underscore that fact, she said the party had embarked on several actions to emphasise its renewal agenda, one of which was the party's integrity commission, which was able to enforce the step-aside policy if an ANC member was convicted of wrongdoing.

"Those are interventions by the ANC to make sure corruption is being dealt with. We are modernising the work we are doing to ensure that ethics and integrity management is upheld in the organisation," Bhengu-Motsiri assured.

She noted that the party would continue with its cadre deployment policy, but stated that it would be improved upon.

She pointed out that cadre deployment was practised across the world and was not unique to South Africa.

"Once people have given you the mandate to govern by voting for you, surely it is not expected that you go in there blind [sided] without the human capital that understands the policies of the party that has been voted in. So we don't see anything untoward about our cadre deployment policy, we will continue to practise it and we will improve it…," she said.

Discussing how the party would keep its proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) safe from corruption, she said she did not understand the narrative that it would attract corruption.

She accused opposition parties, particularly the Democratic Alliance (DA), of being ideologically opposed to the NHI and not for reasons relating to corruption.

"[The NHI] will not attract corruption because it enjoys huge support from the people of South Africa that are going to be impacted positively by this policy. I don't understand where the idea of corruption comes from. [The DA] are opposed to it on the basis of the fact that they don't think that the poorest of the poor and those currently not covered by health policies deserve to have that access," she stated.

ENERGY

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The uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party on Friday called for the immediate resignation of Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) commissioner Janet Love, warning that should she fail to resign in the next 7 days, the party will pursue "all available avenues" to remove her, including approach the courts.

The party accused Love of being "highly vested" in the outcomes of the May 29 elections, saying she cannot be trusted.

The MK Party said the Electoral Court's judgment, which saw former President Jacob Zuma win his appeal against the IEC's decision to exclude him from being able to stand as an MK Party parliamentary candidate, underscored a defeat against President Cyril Ramaphosa's African National Congress and "all its treacherous allies".

The party said it also showed Love's "prejudicial conduct" as commissioner.

The IEC has since approached the Constitutional Court to appeal the Electoral Court's judgment.

The MK Party justified its call for Love's removal by noting her "obnoxious behaviour" in January, before an objection was lodged regarding the eligibility of Zuma to participate in the Parliamentary elections.

"Janet Love, in an unprecedented move publicly declared nationally that President Zuma would not be eligible and couldn't be included in the MK Party's Parliamentary candidate list," the party noted.

The party said that this pronouncement was not only premature and unwarranted, but that it was also in direct violation of the rules which stipulated that such declarations could only be made following an official objection.

The MK Party pointed out that at the time of Love's statement, no objection had been filed, which the party said made her actions irregular and prejudicial.

"What made things worse is that, even after the obviously orchestrated objection which was launched by a member of the ANC, she still presided within the committee responsible for deciding on President Zuma's eligibility, instead of recusing herself. Despite the clear conflict of interest," the party explained.

The MK Party added that this "rogue of arrogance", has clearly undermined the credibility of the IEC and its capacity to administer free and fair elections, which the party said could not afford to harbour any sense of bias and should be beyond reproach.

Political analyst and African National Congress (ANC) insider Oscar van Heerden is predicting that the ANC's electoral support will not fall below 50% in the upcoming May elections, while hoping for an outright majority win for any political party, rather than the eventuality of a coalition government.

Van Heerden was speaking exclusively with Polity to discuss his latest book Is the Party Over?, when he hedged that if there was significant voter apathy then perhaps the ANC could dip below 50%, but even then he imagined support would not fall below 47% or 48%.

Support for the ANC is plunging, and the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party backed by former President Jacob Zuma may become the country's third-biggest after next month's election, a new opinion poll showed.

However, Van Heerden dismissed election polling as problematic, explaining that it reflected how a small sample of people felt on the day. He referred to some of the polls as "ridiculous".

He admitted that the ANC, at the moment, was "not the favourite party", noting that "everyone hates the ANC" and that people "talk bad about the party".

However, he highlighted that looking at the trends of the last few elections, the ANC's support had been waning but consistently, with a drop of about 3% to 4% per election in electoral support.

"When you stand at 67.5%, to suggest that the ANC is going to lose more than 10% of their support base, the ANC would have to have really done badly," he noted.

Van Heerden said "the truth of the matter is" that 30 years into democracy most black South Africans, are "far better off" than they were pre-1994. He said people now had rights, including a right to vote.

Although there were still challenges with poverty, unemployment and inequality, he said this was something that could not change overnight.

COALITION GOVERNMENT

Van Heerden expressed concerns with coalition politics, saying it seemed as though the country was not getting it right.

He said should the ANC fall below 47% or 48% of support, then it would have to form a coalition with smaller parties, which he said was likely to be the Inkatha Freedom Party "because the politics of KZN must be satisfied".

He acknowledged that the newly formed MK Party led by Zuma would also play a role.

He predicted a small coalition, where the ANC was still the dominant ruling party nationally. However, he foresaw problems in KZN and Gauteng.

"I will rather want any particular grouping to outright win, I am not saying it must be the ANC but I think that will be a more stable factor than having coalitions at national level," he said.

He highlighted that the electorate wanted stability and familiarity, predicting that if the ANC won the elections, he did not think President Cyril Ramaphosa would retain Paul Mashatile as Deputy President.

He said Ramaphosa might bring in someone new.

"…someone no one thought it could be. And he is basically sending a message that this is the future of the party once I leave," Van Heerden said.

IDENTITY POLITICS

Meanwhile, he believes that citizens are "not getting it right" in terms of building a cohesive society, noting that people are not voting for the party whose policies they believe in, but rather for the race or religion the parties represent.

He highlighted that people still voted according to identity politics, explaining that Gayton Mackenzie's Patriotic Alliance was getting more attention from the coloured community, because "he plays the nationalist coloured card".

Van Heerden pointed out that Afrikaans farmers and Afrikaans speakers were voting for the Freedom Front Plus, while English speaking people were predominately voting for the Democratic Alliance (DA). He said Muslims were voting for the Al Jama-ah party and Christians were voting for Kenneth Meshoe's African Christian Democratic Party.

He noted that race was still very much present in the country and pointed out that while the DA argued that there were problems with affirmative action and black economi...

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said on Friday it has approached the Constitutional Court to appeal the Electoral Court's judgment which saw former President Jacob Zuma win his appeal against the IEC's decision to exclude him from being able to stand as an uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party parliamentary candidate.

The IEC argued against Zuma's eligibility to stand as a candidate owing to his 15-month prison sentence for being in contempt of court, in 2021.

The IEC wants the matter of the latest appeal finalised before the May 29 election.

"The Commission believes there is substantial public interest in providing certainty on the proper interpretation of section 47(1)(e) and its interplay with the powers of the Commission to adjudicate objections to candidates. Such clarity is important in the present matter because of a live issue but also for future elections. It is furthermore important that such legal clarification is obtained from the highest court in the land which has constitutional-matter jurisdiction. Hence, a direct appeal to the Constitutional Court," it explained.

The IEC stressed that its court action did not mean it was trying to become politically involved but rather to ensure that constitutional rules were upheld and understood for a free and fair election.

South Africa is heading into unchartered political terrain and investors are growing increasingly anxious.

The rand slumped 0.9% against the dollar on Wednesday immediately after an opinion poll by the Social Research Foundation showed support for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) falling to just 37% before next month's election, down from 57.5% five years ago.

Six out of seven other surveys conducted since last year also show the party losing the parliamentary majority it's held since apartheid ended three decades ago, albeit by a smaller margin.

Failing to get at least 50% may force the ANC into a coalition to govern. The question is whether that would be with smaller parties who'd keep the ANC - with whom investors are already familiar - fully in charge.

If the ANC's loss of support is severe, it might choose to ally with the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), or a new party led by former President Jacob Zuma. It could also go in the other direction and form a government with the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), which says it's pro-business.

The cost of hedging against rand declines over the next two months is hovering at a 10-month high as the election moves into traders' focus.

Two-month implied volatility, which covers the May 29 poll, has jumped about 270 basis points after hovering around a four-year low in March. And the hedging is heavily skewed toward rand weakness, with the USDZAR risk reversal doubling since late February.

The poll by the SRF - the methodology of which was questioned by some analysts - showed the EFF's share of the vote holding at 11%, unchanged from 2019, although another survey published by Ipsos last month indicated it could go as high as 18%. Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe Party, or MKP, was projected by the SRF to pick up 13%, with the DA on 25%.

The SRF findings should be "taken with a pinch of salt" and probably underestimate support for the ANC, though it's a stark illustration of the ruling party's vulnerability, said Oxford Economics Africa analyst Louw Nel in a research note.

Africa's most-industrialised economy has stagnated over the past decade, with power cuts and logistics snarl-ups curtailing output while poverty, unemployment and crime remain rife. But investors don't relish the prospect of the policy uncertainty and political wrangling that would likely accompany a coalition government.

The EFF is vying to boost its sway in next month's election and party leader Julius Malema sought to assure the business community that it would offer investors clarity, consistency and transparency - something he said the current administration has failed to do.

"What any investor wants is a clear policy as to what the policy is, and not government speaking in forked tongues," he said in an interview at Bloomberg's office in Johannesburg on Wednesday. "Investors leave politics to politicians because they know they'll still make money if they know and are assured about security and policy.

'Fearmongering'

Senior ANC leaders say they're confident of winning the election outright, and aren't considering coalitions at this juncture. Malema played down "fearmongering" about what it would mean for businesses and private ownership if the EFF formed part of the next government.

The nationalisation of mines, for example, would be a controlled process and would take lessons from neighbouring Botswana - which last year struck a deal with De Beers to sell about 30% of the diamond output from its Debswana joint venture with the company, with an agreement for that share to eventually rise to 50%.

"We are not going to take land the Zimbabwean-style or anything of that sort," he said, referring to often-violent land seizures in the neighbouring country that resulted in more than 4 000 farmers losing their farms. "No one is going to be taken to the sea. No one is going to be killed. No one is going to lose his property on the basis of colour."

He acknowledged that foreign investors might be sc...

South Africa's central bank won't cut interest rates this year because of persistent inflation and there's even a risk it could raise them, bets in financial futures markets show.

The shift, which followed a hotter-than-expected reading on US consumer prices for March, now indicates investors pricing in a slight prospect the South African Reserve Bank will increase rates at its meeting next month.

The repricing on Thursday was in response to a sharp change in sentiment on how quickly and by how much the Federal Reserve will start cutting rates, after US consumer inflation failed to slow as expected.

That's prompted traders to erase bets on monetary policy easing in South Africa. Forward-rate agreements used to speculate on borrowing costs show traders are now pricing in an about 20% chance of a quarter-point interest rate hike at the central bank's May 30 meeting.

That compares with no change expectations at the start of the month.

Economists view the SARB as being wary of moving before the Fed from fear it weakens the rand, which would tend to push up import prices and pressure inflation. Central bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago, though, says policymakers watch the Fed but don't just follow it.

Inflation expectations have surged over the past two days, adding to the expectations of higher-for-longer in South Africa.

The nation's breakeven rate - the difference between the nominal yield on five-year sovereign bonds and the inflation-linked yield - climbed 9 basis points Thursday to 5.93 percentage points. The reserve bank's target inflation is between 3% and 6%.

Yvonne Mhango, Bloomberg's Africa economist, said the SARB will maintain its restrictive policy stance well into 2025.

"Reducing the inflation rate - currently at 5.6% - to the mid-point of the SARB's 3%-6% target is taking longer than anticipated," she said in a research note. "We don't expect this target, where the SARB would like to see prices anchored, being reached until the second half of 2025, keeping the central bank on hold until then."