Johannesburg – The implementation of stage four load shedding, which allows for up to 4000 megawatts of the national load to be shed saw the rand tumble 1.5% yesterday with more weakness in the local currency expected today.
Eskom yesterday send shockwaves throughout the country when it ramped up power cuts from stage two to stage 4 rolling outages due to depleted emergency generation reserves.
Andre Cilliers, Currency Strategist at TreasuryONE, said the increase in blackouts is unsettling the local market.
“The rand finally gave back some of its recent gains late yesterday on some position squaring ahead of today’s US CPI data. The local currency fell 1.5% to close at R13.75 last night and is trading unchanged this morning. A break above R13.78 could see further weakness up to R13.85 in the short term. The move by Eskom to stage 4 load shedding is further unsettling the local market,” he said.
Eskom said on Thursday said the country should expect stage three power cuts from 8am until 10pm and that it will revert to stage two power cuts from Friday.
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