News 17:00

BULLETIN 8 October 5 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The Pension Funds Adjudicator is concerned over the continued surge in pension fund complaints
# Drought-affected farmers are advised to sell the livestock they cannot afford to feed
# And hundreds of thousands of people in Florida evacuate their homes ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton

# The Pension Funds Adjudicator, Muvhango Lukhaimane has expressed concern over a surge in pension fund complaints. The office is dealing with up to one-thousand-177 grievances lodged by workers. Many fund contributors have reportedly experienced challenges with the withdrawal of their savings component through the newly implemented two-pot retirement system. According to Lukhaimane, the non-contribution of employers to the pension funds of employees has been a major issue:

# Farmers in Limpopo facing severe drought conditions are being urged to sell livestock they cannot afford to feed. Agri Limpopo CEO Deidré Carter described the situation as dire, with commercial farmers able to buy fodder but emerging farmers struggling. Areas like Lephalale and Giyani are severely affected, with little rainfall since January. Selling livestock has been advised as a means to avoid total losses.

From the one extreme to the next: Hundreds of thousands of people in the US state of Florida are preparing to evacuate their homes ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton. State officials warned that getting to a safe location quickly will get harder the longer people wait. Hurricane Milton dipped down to Category 4 strength overnight, but it is expected to rebound to a Category 5 later today. The storm is forecast to make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Officials are warning Milton’s impact could be more severe and far-reaching than Hurricane Helene, which killed at least 200 people.

# Soccer: Barcelona is hoping to return to their legendary Camp Nou stadium, currently undergoing modernisation and expansion work, by the end of the year. The Catalan giants’ construction roadmap was presented to the media, with officials insisting the club was actively working to return to Camp Nou by the end of the year with an initial 62-thousand capacity, instead of the 105-thousand planned at the end of the work. The stadium should be completed in the European summer of 2026.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-51-cents and the euro at 19-rand-23-cents. One British pound costs 22-rand-96-cents and Bitcoin trades at 62-thousand-417-dollars-9-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-642-dollars-5-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 78-dollars-61-cents a barrel.

# And finally: Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has turned the sod at the seven-to-ten megawatts Atlantis solar photovoltaic plant. Cape Town is the first metro in South Africa to start construction on its own solar PV plant, as it moves to diversify energy resources and become future-fit. Hill-Lewis says construction on this 200-million-rand project is expected to take about a year, after which they will be able to connect the plant to a nearby main substation to feed directly to the grid:

Stay tuned for more news………….