📉The official South African unemployment rate climbed to 32.9% according to StatsSA

Unemployment according to the expanded definition stood at 41.9%,

🇿🇦 Controversial "Universal Health Bill" Signed Into Law

✍️ South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the controversial National Health Insurance Bill into law today. The NHI is a proposed healthcare reform aiming to provide universal health coverage in South Africa.

▪️With the signing of the NHI bill, Ramaphosa pledged to end "health-care apartheid."

▪️ The legislation provides a framework for the provision of universal care through a state-run fund and will ban the private sector from financing treatment covered under the plan.

▪️While there is a widespread support for reform of a system that sees a multibillion rand private health-care industry servicing 16% of the population and the balance relying on overburdened public facilities, critics of the NHI bill argue that the government’s proposals haven’t been properly costed, are unconstitutional and could be successfully challenged in court.

💸 According to some analysts, the state-run fund requires an estimated R1 trillion to pay for the scheme with the bill entirely footed by the overburdened and shrinking South African taxpayer base.

📝 "The irony of this bill is that South Africa already has a free public health care system, but it was destroyed by the ANC over the last 30 years just like every other state-run facility. In essence, the NHI will create a massive pool of funds that the ANC can loot while removing access to private health care primarily paid for and used by whites."

🇿🇼 Zimbabwe Says 1,300 White Farmers Who Lost Land Seek Payouts

About 1,300 White Zimbabwean commercial farmers, whose land was seized in the early 2000s, have signed up to receive compensation and those who qualify will be paid in 10-year treasury bills, a government official said.

“We now have to go through the process of vetting them and confirming the amounts that they are owed,” Andrew Bvumbe, head of debt management in the Ministry of Finance, said in an interview on Friday. “With these 1,300, we want to move as quickly as possible. Maybe by the end of the third quarter of this year we want to get this out of the way.”

Under an accord signed in 2020, the government agreed to compensate 4,000 White farmers whose land was seized by state-backed militants, but it has repeatedly missed payment deadlines. It expects the compensation deal will cost it $3.5 billion over 10 years.

Payouts will be made for improvements that were made to farms, rather than the land itself, Bvumbe said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-17/zimbabwe-says-1-300-white-farmers-who-had-land-seized-seek-payouts

https://archive.ph/6Rh58

🇿🇦🗳 Just in: Constitutional Court Blocks Zuma Candidacy in Election

South Africa’s Constitutional Court ruled that former President Jacob Zuma can’t run as a candidate for parliament in this month’s elections.

The decision by the nation’s top court raises the risk that supporters of Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party will foment unrest in the run-up to the May 29 vote or contest the outcome. Party leaders have vowed to destabilize the ballot if Zuma is barred from competing.

South Africa’s constitution bars anyone sentenced to more than 12 months in jail from being a member of parliament.