Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Ups and downs of the week that was
FROM the Viceroy Research report on Capitec’s lending practices to Matshela Koko digging in his heels and President Jacob Zuma facing his umpteenth motion of no confidence in Parliament, this was by all accounts an eventful news week.
It all started with Viceroy Research releasing a damning report on Capitec which, among other things, accused the bank of effectively being a loan shark. The report shone a spotlight on the its lending practices, saying the JSElisted bank was overstating its financial assets and income by “refinancing delinquent customers” and called on the SA Reserve Bank and Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba to immediately put Capitec into curatorship.
But in what could be described as saving the day for Capitec, whose share price plunged to lows of R 700 upon the release of the report, the National Treasury and the Reserve Bank rallied behind the bank, saying in no uncertain terms that its operations were above reproach.
The Treasury went further in dismissing the report as reckless and Capitec’s share price later rose to trade at highs of R900.
Meanwhile, the EFF objected to a decision that its request for a motion of no confidence against President Jacob Zuma be scheduled for February 22, the day after the budget speech. The decision reportedly took into account the National Assembly’s busy programme, including the State of the Nation Address and the tabling of the national budget.
Eskom finally lit the way for Koko’s removal from the power utility after it placed him on suspension on Wednesday, pending an investigation of new charges against him. Koko, who is Eskom head of generation and former acting chief executive, is accused of awarding a contract worth about R1 billion to a company of which his stepdaughter was a director.
Good news is that the 995 mineworkers who were trapped under ground at Sibanye’s Beatrix Mine – 30km from Welkom in Free State – resurfaced on Friday morning.
Not everyone was happy, however. The unions berated the mine management for the manner in which it handled the crisis.
They accused the mine of not caring enough for employees, saying their lives did not matter.
The mineworkers were trapped following an electric cable failure caused by a heavy storm on Wednesday night.
DA deputy spokesperson on mineral resources advocate Hendrik Schmidt welcomed the successful rescue operation, but said “the DA is concerned that the incident exposed glaring shortcomings in Beatrix mine’s emergency and rescue contingency plans” and that “Sibanye must provide answers on why shaft 4, where the miners were trapped, did not have alternative escape routes (and) why the emergency evacuation system malfunctioned and they had to borrow a generator from nearby Harmony Gold mine”.
Schmidt said the DA would write to the Mining Health and Safety Inspectorate, which falls under the Department of Mineral Resources, requesting that it certifies Beatrix mine’s emergency and contingency plans before mining operations can resume.