For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Halima Frost.

Making headlines: Steenhuisen warns DA about exiting GNU alliance; BLSA says electricity reform-type urgency required to save manufacturing; And, Cyclone Gezani leaves 59 dead in Madagascar, displaces more than 16 000

Steenhuisen warns DA about exiting GNU alliance

South Africa’s second-largest political party faces some internal pressure to quit the ruling coalition, but doing so would damage its growth prospects and be a “big mistake,” its outgoing leader John Steenhuisen said.

The business-friendly Democratic Alliance and eight smaller rivals joined the African National Congress-led government after 2024 elections failed to produce an outright winner for the first time since apartheid ended three decades earlier. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s new administration has made headway in addressing pressing infrastructure challenges and rebuilding investor confidence, helping fuel a rally in the nation’s assets, but the two main parties have sparred repeatedly over policy and appointments.

A bloc of conservative DA members who back the kind of policies favoured by US President Donald Trump want it to return to the opposition benches, yet doing so would diminish its appeal among a primarily Black electorate, said Steenhuisen, who will step down as party leader in April after almost seven years at the helm.

The DA won 22% of the vote in the last national elections in 2024, and its internal polling shows it now has about 30% support. Its next major test will come in municipal elections, which must be held within the next 12 months.

BLSA says electricity reform-type urgency required to save manufacturing

Business Leadership South Africa CEO Busi Mavuso says in her latest weekly newsletter that the biggest omission in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address is a plan to deal with the rapid deindustrialisation South Africa is facing.

She calls for a decisive response to the destruction of manufacturing capacity that took decades to build and remains key to employment creation.

Mavuso pointed out that the scale of this crisis is stark.

In the automotive sector, tyre manufacturer Bridgestone closed its Port Elizabeth plant in 2020, and Goodyear announced the closure of its Kariega tyre plant last year.

Component manufacturers producing safety belts, airbags and other critical parts have scaled back or closed.

She references data by industry body the National Association of Automotive Component and Allied Manufacturers in saying that 13 closures have occurred in the past two years, with more expected. 

Moreover, automaker Nissan is selling its Rosslyn plant while Volkswagen has warned of uncertainty over jobs at its Kariega facility.

Beyond the automotive sector, British American Tobacco South Africa announced the closure of its Heidelberg plant by the end of this year, following the destruction of the legitimate market by illicit cigarettes.

Mavuso determines the common thread as being competition from low-cost imports, including from China, that undercut local manufacturers. Chinese vehicle models alone now account for 22% of imports.

BLSA urges government to act with urgency in finalising a new energy vehicle policy that enables manufacturers to transition to electric and hybrid production for export markets.

And, Cyclone Gezani leaves 59 dead in Madagascar, displaces more than 16 000

At least 59 people died when Cyclone Gezani struck Madagascar last week, the disaster management office said today, as it assesses the impact of the second tropical storm to hit the Indian Ocean island nation this year.

The cyclone displaced 16 428, while 15 people remain missing, 804 were injured and 423 986 were classified as affected by the disaster, the National Bureau for Risk and Disaster Management said.

Gezani barrelled through the country just 10 days after Tropical Cyclone Fytia killed 14 people and displaced over 31 000, according to the United Nations' humanitarian office.

At its peak, Gezani had sustained winds of about 185 km per hour, with gusts rising to nearly 270 km per hour - powerful enough to rip metal sheeting from rooftops and uproot large trees.

The cyclone moved westward across the Mozambique Channel, bringing heavy winds and waves of up to 10 metres in the southern end of Mozambique, its weather service said in a statement.

The weather system has since curved back eastward over the channel, and forecasts show it looping toward Madagascar again, with a second landfall expected in southwestern Madagascar today.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

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