South Africa’s National Treasury will probably keep the levels of its bond auctions constant until the end of the fiscal year, even with domestic-debt issuance running ahead of target, Bloomberg News reported. The Treasury is unlikely to “adjust its in-year bond auction levels due to the short time period remaining after the presentation of the 2021 budget,” its media desk said Wednesday in an emailed response to questions, while emphasizing that the department “does not front-run the budget.” Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is due to present the national budget on Feb.

A 200 billion rand ($13 billion) loan program, one of the linchpins of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plans to shore up a South African economy devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, may not even reach 10% of its target, Bloomberg News reported. Banks have distributed 17.8 billion rand since the initiative started in May through to Jan. 16, the Banking Association of South Africa said in a statement on Wednesday. At the current rate, only 18.9 billion rand will be allocated under the plan, it said.

South Africa requires a growth friendly yet sizable fiscal effort to stabilize and lower its debt burden, reduce country-risk premiums and improve investor confidence, according to the International Monetary Fund, Bloomberg News reported.

The biggest labor group at South Africa’s Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. blamed “poor leadership” for ongoing nationwide power cuts, a discordant sign as the utility embarks on a plan to become profitable again, Bloomberg News reported. The National Union of Mineworkers is “very disappointed with the performance” of Eskom Chief Executive Officer Andre de Ruyter and the lack of a plan to prevent outages, it said Thursday in a statement. The group also continues to oppose the use of independent electricity producers, which Eskom is counting on to help increase generation.

South Africa’s state power monopoly says it will need to charge consumers more for electricity if it is to cut its debts and stave off bankruptcy, even as rolling blackouts continue to plague Africa’s most industrial nation, the Financial Times reported. Years of corruption and mismanagement under disgraced former president Jacob Zuma left Eskom with surging costs, falling revenues, a fleet of breakdown-prone coal power stations and ballooning debts.

South Africa’s biggest pot of available cash — R1.91trn ($128bn) of civil-servant pensions and unemployment funds managed by the Public Investment Corp. — is emerging as the key to rescuing the debt-stricken national power monopoly, BizNews reported. The money manager has approached its parent agency, the National Treasury, with a proposal to ease the R464bn load of obligations crushing Eskom, signaling officials are gearing up for the complex financial and political operation to convert about R95bn of Eskom debt held by the PIC into equity.

South Africa’s biggest pot of available cash -- 1.91 trillion rand ($128 billion) of civil-servant pensions and unemployment funds managed by the Public Investment Corp. -- is emerging as the key to rescuing the debt-stricken national power monopoly, Bloomberg News reported.

Administrators at struggling South African Airways (SAA) said on Wednesday they have issued a 48-hour notice to prevent nearly 400 pilots from accessing the company’s premises until they agree to new employment terms and conditions, Reuters reported. SAA entered a local form of bankruptcy protection in December of 2019 after roughly a decade of financial losses, and its fortunes worsened after it grounded flights because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Efforts to rescue the state airline face resistance from trade unions, who are at loggerheads with the government over wages.