For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Lumkile Nkomfe.

Making headlines: Rand Water prepares for more maintenance; South African inflation inches up, leaving rate cut hopes intact; And, Malaria cases up again in 2023

Rand Water prepares for more maintenance

Rand Water is preparing to embark on its next planned water infrastructure maintenance project this week.

On Friday, the utility will start repairs of the B1/B2 pipeline leak at Zuikerbosch, which will impact the Zwartkopjes system, with pumping reduced to 70% for 36 hours from 5am.

Impacting the Eikenhof system will be the Eikenhof flexibility project, which will result in pumping reduced to 20% for 86 hours from 7am on December 13.

The maintenance project is designed to enhance system availability, reliability and efficiency.

The maintenance work is typically scheduled during periods of low demand and the timing also allows for quicker system recovery once the maintenance is completed, Rand Water said in a statement.

South African inflation inches up, leaving rate cut hopes intact

South Africa’s inflation rate crept up by less-than-expected in November, creating room for the central bank to deliver another cut in borrowing costs next month.

The consumer price index rose 2.9% in November from a year earlier, compared with 2.8% the prior month, Pretoria-based Statistics South Africa said today. That was slower than the 3.1% median of 15 economists’ estimates in a Bloomberg survey.

Forward-rate agreements, used to speculate on borrowing costs, see the South African Reserve Bank lowering its benchmark policy rate by a further 75 basis points over the next 12 months, little changed from earlier. The local currency was slightly stronger at 17.84 rand per dollar.

Food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation helped keep the headline number in check. It witnessed another sharp decline in November, slowing to 2.3% from 3.6% in October, marking its lowest rate since December 2010.

And, Malaria cases up again in 2023

There were around 11-million more cases of malaria in 2023 than in 2022, up to an estimated 263-million, according to a new World Health Organization report, marking another year of negligible progress against the age-old killer.

There were 597 000 deaths, a similar total to 2022, the vast majority among African children aged under 5 years old, the WHO said.

The disease continues to disproportionately harm people living in the African region, especially young children and pregnant women.

Malaria cases and deaths fell significantly between 2000 and 2015, but since then progress has stalled and even reversed, with a particular jump in mortality during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Case numbers are not only going up as populations grow. In 2015, there were 58 cases for every 1 000 people deemed to be at risk; in 2023, there were 60.4, nearly three times higher than the WHO’s target. There were 13.7 deaths per 100 000 people at risk, more than twice the target.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

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