MONDAY, 11.30AM
ACCORDING to the latest Reserve Bank Quarterly Report, real fixed investment by local authorities and parastatals showed healthy growth in the first quarter of this year, suggesting that infrastructure growth based on the Reconstruction and Development Programme is getting under way.
The Bank’s figures ahow that public corporations increased investment by an annualised 1,5% in the first quarter, following declines ranging from 2% to 12,5% in the previous three quarters. Leading the investment drive were Eskom and Telkom, as they continued to provide essential services to underdeveloped regions. As part of a programme to electrify 2-million homes by 2002, the electricity utility has been spending R1-billion a year to electrify 1 000 homes a day. Telkom and its new strategic equity partners plan to spend up to R53-billion over the next five years to expand Telkom’s telephone network.
Local authorities, meanwhile, increased fixed investment at an annualised 4% in the first quarter, compared to 2% to 6% last year.
BUSINESS BRIEFS
OK BAZAARS STRIKES UNIONS have declared “rolling mass action” will begin on Monday at stores belonging to the national supermarket chain OK Bazaars. The SA Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union said the dispute over wages and working conditions will also be aimed at SA Breweries, which owns OK Bazaars. The dispute was initially sparked by press reports last month that a thousand workers could face retrenchment due to the company’s dire financial problems.
VIRGIN OUT OF THE SUN FOLLOWING Virgin Atlantic Airlines’ surprise weekend pull-out as a bidder for a stake in parastatal Sun Air, Virgin’s bid partner the Bhekilanga Consortium has said it will continue with its attempt to acquire a stake in the airline. Virgin pulled out of the Sun Air race to “pursue an alternative source of investment” in Southern Africa. Virgin SA GM David James refused to comment on speculation that the airline is eyeing a stake in SA Airways.
SENTRACHEM SUIT DROPPED YONBOR Nominees, a group of minority shareholders in Sentrachem led by Capital Alliance directors Larry Nestadt and Gary Burg, have abandoned plans to take a R600 000 damages lawsuit against the chemical group to the Johannesburg High Court. Burg said on Friday the case was dropped after discussions with the company in which Yonbor accepted Sentrachem’s explanation that its directors knew nothing of impending trouble in its agricultural chemicals subsidiary Sanachem. No financial settlement had been made, Burg said.
NAB STAFF SCREWED RETRENCHED New Age Beverages employees will not receive Unemployment Insurance Fund pay-outs because, according to industry sources, the Pepsi bottling company, currently in liquidation, had not paid employees’ contributions to the fund for months.