News 14:00

BULLETIN 8 May 2 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# Former chief justice Raymond Zondo questions Parliament’s anti-corruption efforts
# Moody’s cuts South Africa’s 2025 growth forecast to 1.5-percent
# And Qatar Airways brings Starlink wi-fi to its Cape Town route

# Former chief justice Raymond Zondo has expressed doubt over Parliament’s implementation of anti-corruption measures following the state capture commission’s recommendations. Speaking at the 15th Commonwealth Regional Conference for Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa, Zondo questioned whether Parliament has enacted reforms to prevent future corruption. He emphasised the need for stronger oversight and accountability mechanisms to address systemic corruption and restore public trust in governance:

# Moody’s has revised South Africa’s GDP growth forecast for this year down to 1.5-percent, a 0.2-percentage point downgrade from its February projection of 1.7-percent. It cites global policy uncertainty and rising trade tensions. Local economists believe even this projection is optimistic, suggesting National Treasury may lower estimates further in the budget. The downgrade reflects ongoing domestic economic challenges and a weakening global environment. Moody’s global outlook predicts the world economy will grow by 1.9-percent this year, and 2.3-percent next year.

# Education activist Hendrick Makaneta says budget cuts continue to jeopardise the Department of Higher Education and Training. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme has given considerably less financial support to private service providers for student accommodation in this academic year. Makaneta is urging government to prioritise sufficient funding for student accommodation to ensure that students can focus on their studies without the burden of accommodation insecurity:

# Qatar Airways has announced that from June 1st, it will operate one of its weekly Doha to Cape Town flights using a Boeing 777, offering passengers complimentary ultra-fast Starlink wi-fi. The airline, already boasting the world’s largest Starlink-equipped 777 fleet, is also the first to fit the system to Airbus A350s. Celebrating 20-years in South Africa, Qatar Airways says the move deepens its regional ties, alongside chef recruitment, African cuisine on board, and investment in Airlink. It currently flies to 29 African cities weekly.

# Soccer: Coach Ruben Amorim has insisted he wants to keep Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes despite interest from Saudi Arabia. Amorim labelled the Portuguese international one of the top players in the world. The 30-year-old playmaker scored two goals in last week’s 3-0 Europa League semi-final first-leg win at Athletic Bilbao. The build-up to today’s return fixture in Manchester has been dominated by talk that Saudi club Al-Hilal is poised to make a big-money offer for Fernandes.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-20-cents and the euro at 20-rand-55-cents. One British pound costs 24-rand-19-cents and Bitcoin trades at 99-thousand-832-dollars. Gold sells at three-thousand-345-dollars-52-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 61-dollars-83-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….