MONDAY, 11.30AM THE Gauteng housing department is reviewing proposals by the mineral and energy affairs department that suggest savings of billions of rands a year could be achieved by using “passive solar” designs for low-cost housing.
Energy department figures suggest that R1-billion could be saved annually in health and energy costs if only half of Gauteng’s new low-cost housing developments follow passive solar principles. Passive solar design involves criteria such as direction houses face, relative window sizes and positions, insulation and roof overhang, in an attempt to minimise excess sunlight in summer while maximising light absorption and heat retention in winter.
The designs have the potential to reduce the amounts of energy expended to warm spaces in poor households, thereby reducing pollution and increasing disposable income. The mineral and energy affairs department aims to build 3 200 houses to passive solar designs, ranging in size from 20 sqm to 60sqm, in order to publicise the benefits.
BUSINESS BRIEFS
LIFEBOAT PROBE?
FORMER Volkskas director Hennie Diekericks, who has waged a long campaign against Absa, wants a state inquiry into the Reserve Bank’s “lifeboat” to Absa in the early nineties, on which no tax was paid.
SWISS LOAN TO TANZANIA SWITZERLAND has given a grant of $10,8 million to Tanzania, and signed co-operations agreements on road building and dairy farming. The Swiss will help to rehabilitate the road network in Morogoro to make the transport of agricultural goods more efficient, and will help subsidise the incomes of dairy farmers in Iringa and Mbeya.
SATRA CONSIDERS TELKOM
COMPLAINTS lodged with the Competition Board against Telkom’s internet activities will now be considered by the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Satra). Satra chairman Nape Maepa said the authority will meet interested parties shortly in an effort to “stabilise the industry as quickly as possible”.