Morning Brief: Expect another round of intense load-shedding this week

Good morning, here’s what you need to know today.

There will be more harsh power cuts this week with no end in sight, a local swimsuit model has lost her battle with Sars to recoup a R44 million tax bill, and the British army says its social media accounts have been hacked.

Brace for harsh power cuts this week in wake of strike – Business Day (for subscribers)

Eskom has warned South Africa that it should be prepared for another brutal load shedding schedule this week as it begins recovering from the labour strike that battered the power utility last week, keeping as much as 90% of its workforce from coming to work while the country was plunged into darkness.

The power utility has warned it will take several weeks for it to recover its operations from the strike action.

In a statement released on Sunday, Eskom said it would implement stage 6 load shedding on Monday afternoon and adjust to various stages as the week unfolds, depending on how much of its workforce returns to work on Monday. A full return of workers could see a lowering to stage 2 by the weekend. Read more here.

Sars doesn’t owe model Candice van der Merwe a R44 million refund on a politician’s gift, Supreme Court rules – Business Insider

During the 2014 tax year, model Candice van der Merwe said she earned R365,919 for the year, an average of just over R30,000 a month, which saw her tax bill come to just R13,807 but she also declared a curious gift.

The gift was worth R142.9 million, which Sars decided at the time was a non-taxable item. But by the following year, the tax collector was of the opinion that the gift was for services rendered and determined that R110.3 million be treated as taxable income, amounting to R44 million.

The gift came from the now-former prime minister of Lebanon Saad Hariri. Van der Merwe agreed to pay the R44 million in settlement of her tax bill but 30 months later she changed her mind and launched a legal battle.

The high court said a tax court should not have rejected her attempt to get the money back, but the supreme court of appeal disagrees. Read more here.

British army says its Twitter and YouTube accounts have been breached – Daily Maverick/Reuters

The British army confirmed that its Twitter and YouTube channels were hacked after its account, @BritishArmy, retweeted several posts relating to non-fungible tokens as of Sunday evening.

The YouTube channel was renamed ‘Ark Invest’ and began showing cryptocurrency-related content. The army said in a statement it was aware of the breach and had launched an investigation.

Currently, the accounts have 362,000 followers on Twitter and 177,000 subscribers on YouTube. Read more here.