Good morning. We have a special edition of the Morning Brief as we bid farewell to 2022 and look forward to a (hopefully) fantastic 2023.
South Africans are a resilient bunch of people. We don’t have to convince you of this because the evidence is so obvious when you consider all that we must put up with in our daily lives.
This year alone we’ve had to deal with a cost-of-living crisis that has included rising inflation, food and fuel costs, and soaring energy prices, though we have no electricity. A president who was on the brink of resigning weeks ago yet somehow came out of the Phala Phala scandal stronger than before. We haven’t even made mention of the tragic Boksburg explosion, which claimed the lives of 26 people just this past week.
There’s always a glimmer of hope that the next twelve months will be better than the preceding dozen but the outlook thus far for 2023 is bleak.
Globally, inflation continues to rise, the world’s central banks continue to hike interest rates to tame said inflation, and Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, which has flipped the world’s economies on its head.
Just yesterday one of the greatest footballers of all time, the Brazilian ledged Pelé, who won an unprecedented three World Cup titles, died, capping off an annus horribilis.
Locally, our load-shedding outlook for the foreseeable future looks ominous and some form of permanent power cuts could likely become our new normal.
But, as we said, there is always hope for a brighter future and a new dawn.
The National Prosecuting Authority is set to carry out its mission of bringing the State Capture culprits to book, which includes the Gupta brothers. President Cyril Ramaphosa will likely reshuffle his cabinet early next year and remove the bad apples from the basket now that he has more allies around him in the ANC’s Top 7 and national executive committee.
He may even have the political capital to push forward with the reform agenda that he has been touting for the past five years yet has hardly implemented.
And perhaps, independent power producers will be emboldened to provide Eskom with the much need energy generation capacity to keep the lights on.
Internally at SAccess, we will also undergo change and reflection as we continue to build the best business and financial news service there is to offer. Our mission for 2023 is constant improvement and perfection as we continue to maintain our loyal reader base and grow it further.
We’re keen to hear from you and look forward to your ideas, comments, and criticism of SAccess. Please feel free to get in touch with us via contact@saccess.co.za.
Thank you for being part of the journey thus far. We wish you a prosperous and happy New Year from the SAccess team and we look forward to serving you the news in 2023.
