(Bloomberg) — Parts of Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic hub, are being subjected to renewed water-supply cuts as ongoing electricity shortages disrupt pumping operations.
A power failure at Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station, which supplies reservoirs in several high-lying areas of Johannesburg, resulted in critically low levels of supply, the municipality said on Twitter on Monday. While repairs have been completed, it warned that time is needed to replenish the storage system. Alternative sources of water have been arranged for hospitals.
State-owned utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., which provides 90% of all of South Africa’s electricity, is unable to meet demand for power from its mostly old and poorly maintained plants, and has instituted rolling blackouts to keep the national grid from collapsing. There were record outages last year and they show no signs of abating.
The power rationing that can last for hours at a stretch is taking an ever-increasing toll on the economy and disrupting manufacturing, mining and farming. Cape Town, the country’s main tourist hub, partially shut several beaches during the height of the holiday season late last year after wastewater pumps broke down.
Read more: Why Blackouts Are Still Crippling South Africa: QuickTake
Municipalities must ensure sanitation infrastructure, sewer-pump stations and generators are maintained and continue operating to ensure there aren’t sewage spills, according to the Department of Water and Sanitation. It confirmed that the power cuts were, however, reducing the reliability of water supply to consumers, with the effects varying between different areas depending on the capacity of their back-up generators.
“The stop and start process at the water-treatment works negatively impact on water quality,” the department said in an emailed reply to questions. “The power cuts also negatively affect the treatment process at the waste-water treatment works, resulting in poorly processed discharge from the treatment plant. The storage capacity at the sewer pump stations were not designed for long durations without pumping. That also increases the risk for possible spillages.”
Crime and vandalism has also impacted negatively on Johannesburg’s water supply: thousands of water meters, manhole covers and hundreds of water tanks were stolen over the past year, according to the municipality.
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
