Daily Podcast – June 25, 2020

25th June 2020 By: Sane Dhlamini - Creamer Media Senior Contributing Editor and Researcher

Daily Podcast – June 25, 2020

For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.

Making headlines: Almost 1 000 people in strict quarantine as Covid-19 'peaks' in the Western Cape, Mboweni says ANC leadership supports talks with IMF for a loan and, Cosatu slams budget while opposition parties are left uninspired

 

Almost 1 000 people in strict quarantine as Covid-19 'peaks' in the Western Cape,

Almost 1 000 Western Cape residents are in quarantine, Premier Alan Winde has announced.

The province has 41 quarantine and isolation facilities - comprising both public and private facilities - housing 948 people.

Winde said some people who might have had contact with someone who was Covid-19 positive - and who needed to be quarantined - have refused to be quarantined.

To date South Africa has recorded 111 796 cases.

 

Mboweni says ANC leadership supports talks with IMF for a loan

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has said he has the backing of the ANC's leadership in approaching the International Monetary Fund for financial support to partly fund the country's response to Covid-19.

Tabling of the special adjustment budget, which modifies the main budget of February with allocations for Covid-19 response measures, the minister explained that the IMF's staff will approach its executive board early in July to present the South Africa's request for support.

Mboweni said it is critical to understand that in these "borrowing arrangements" nothing has been done to "undermine" national sovereignty. He said that would have been "unsmart".

 

Cosatu slams budget while opposition parties are left uninspired

While opposition parties were generally uninspired by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni's supplementary budget he delivered on Wednesday, his most strident criticism came from within the tripartite alliance as the Congress of South African Trade Unions expressed its disillusionment with the budget.

Cosatu's parliamentary co-ordinator, Matthew Parks said it was "extremely disheartened and disillusioned by the uninspiring and timid supplementary budget presented by Minister Mboweni and his technocrats"

Parks added Cosatu had hoped for an imaginative budget, but received one that would only entrench the current economic stagnation.

 

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

Don’t forget to follow us on twitter @polityZA