April 18, 2024.

For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Halima Frost.

Making headlines:

Poll says Reserve Bank to cut rates less than earlier thought in 2024

DA wants committee to investigate ‘inflated’ salary of Parliament Secretary

And, Africa’s oldest oil-rich dictatorship has a succession problem

Poll says Reserve Bank to cut rates less than earlier thought in 2024

South Africa's central bank is now predicted to deliver only 50 basis points of interest rate cuts this year, less than earlier projected as inflation is seen taking slightly longer to return to the Reserve Bank's comfort zone, a Reuters poll found.

A cut of 25 bps to 8.00% next quarter, either in July or September, is expected from the Reserve Bank, according to a survey carried out in the past week, compared with 50 bps predicted in a March poll.

The repo rate will finish the year at 7.75% instead of the 7.50% predicted last month if the central bank delivers another cut in November as the latest poll predicts.

Its predicted that although inflation will likely dip below the mid-point of the central bank's target band in the fourth quarter it may ease hesitantly.

DA wants committee to investigate ‘inflated’ salary of Parliament Secretary

The Democratic Alliance has tabled a motion for the establishment of an ad hoc joint committee to investigate allegations that Secretary to Parliament Xolile George’s renumeration package was inflated by 70%.

Reports that then-Speaker of the National Assembly Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula approved the increase, which saw George’s annual package increased from R2.6-million to R4.4-million, prompted the DA to lay a complaint with the Joint Standing Committee on Financial Management of Parliament.

Mapisa-Nqakula has since resigned from her position, following allegations that she accepted bribes during her tenure as the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans.

The DA, which also lodged a complaint with the Powers and Privileges Committee, said the matter had been met with “roadblocks”.

It wants a report on the matter tabled before Parliament ends its term on May 21. 

Africa’s oldest oil-rich dictatorship has a succession problem

Two South African engineers working in Equatorial Guinea’s offshore oil fields were preparing to return home in February 2023 when they were arrested for cocaine trafficking and thrown in jail, where they remain.

Both men, their families and their employer have declared their innocence. They were detained days after a South African court ordered the seizure of one of Equatorial Guinean vice-president Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue’s yachts.

The two incidents are linked, said people familiar with the matter who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the situation. They described the arrests — the first involving foreigners in the country’s critical oil sector — as the latest example of the vice-president’s impulsive behaviour, which threatens the long-term stability of the Central African state that has been ruled by his father for the past 45 years.

Teodorin, as he’s known, is next in line to succeed his 81-year-old father, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Once reliant on cocoa and coffee as main sources of revenue, the discovery of offshore oil in the 1990s made Equatorial Guinea—and specifically, the Obiangs—massively wealthy.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

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