There’s always a crisis in Finance Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana’s professional life. Russia invaded Ukraine after the occasion of his first budget speech, and Israel and the US launched the still escalating war with Iran a couple of days after his latest budget speech – and that war is making everything messier.
In the weeks leading up to October’s Medium Term Budget Policy Statement, the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) posted its highest profits yet, up 47% to R7.8-billion.
The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), meanwhile, sank to a net loss of R4.7-billion from a R329-million profit the year before. To be fair to the IDC, the company did report a R2.3-billion profit, but it was the group that lost R4.7-billion.
A big part of that was Mozal Aluminium, which was placed under care and maintenance in March 2026 — ahead of Eskom’s sudden appetite for smelter deals. In all, it was a final tally of a R2.6-billion loss on its 25% shareholding.
Getting money-wise
IDC funding demand shifted from large expansionary industrial projects toward resilience-enhancing investments (embedded generation, process automation, cost-reduction technology) because of weak domestic demand and negative fixed investment growth.
But the big news heading into results season was that the IDC entered into a formal strategic partnership with the DBSA to co-finance energy security and decarbonisation initiatives across Special Economic Zones (SEZs).
From 1 October 2026, City Power is officially “ringfenced”. So says a letter to customers dated 21 September 2026 from the utility’s acting CEO, Charles Tlouane. But in reality it’s ringfencing in name only.
Read the letter closely, and it describes something quite different. The City of Johannesburg (CoJ) will carry on collecting every rand that customers pay for electricity. It will keep 30% off the top. The remaining 70% will be passed to City Power within 48 hours.
That is not ringfencing. It is a first charge by the shareholder on the gross revenue of a company that already cannot cover its costs.
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