Work is afoot on reconfiguring the South African electricity sector by addressing challenges faced by Eskom, with the board of the first subsidiary of the power utility to be appointed by mid-2019, Treasury said on Wednesday.

National Treasury has revised down the South African economy’s growth to 1.5% in 2019.

Minister Tito Mboweni’s 1st Budget is likely to be a “tough” budget, with economic weakness constraining revenues along with a seemingly endless list of urgent spending priorities, some bordering on crises, giving him little room to manoeuvre.

London Stock Exchange listed Grit, the only listed Africa-focused income distribution group to offer international property investors access to high growth opportunities in thriving African economies outside of South Africa, today announced robust interim results for the period ending 31 December 2018, despite challenging retail market conditions.

Reacting to the President’s address, Yael Geffen, CEO of Lew Geffen Sotheby’s International Realty, said South Africa was the living embodiment of the “good news, bad news” paradigm.

Rudi Botha, CEO of SA’s leading bond originator BetterBond, says the SONA was very wide ranging and covered a huge number of initiatives, but that there were definitely some highlights for the real estate market.

Berry Everitt, CEO of the Chas Everitt International property group, says that the very detailed State of the Nation Address dealt with all of the economic and social issues that are currently of concern to the real estate industry, including the need to rebuild investor and consumer confidence in SA, stimulate economic growth, accelerate job creation and eliminate widespread corruption.

A highlight on South Africa’s political calendar kicks off tomorrow at 17h00.

The Atterbury Theatre has undergone a major revamp after almost eight successful years and 2,450 performances, productions and features enjoyed by some 731,630 people.

After an unexpectedly tough 2018, but with the welcome announcement that the repo rate remains unchanged following this first MPC meeting of the year, the outlook for 2019 is somewhat brighter.