THURSDAY, 6.30PM:
THE Zimbabwean government appears to have wrested charge of Air Zimbabwe’s privatisation process from the airlines management, an official said on Thursday.
“It now seems Air Zimbabwe management has no voice over the running of the company.” an airline official said.
Transport and energy minister Enos Chikowore, however, said he feels government intervention is necessary to stop further unrest by workers.
An estimated 1600 airline workers downed tools in June demanding to know their fate when, with the enactment of the Air Zimbabwe Repeal Act, all employees technically ceased to be employed by the airline.
Chikowore, however, ordered the airline’s chief executive Brendan Donohoe to reinstate all the workers, saying privatisation does not equate with retrenchment.
Justifying his taking further charge of the process, Chikowore said: “We helped to extinguish fire between the workers and management … so they need us.” He added that the decision to privatise a national asset is taken by the government, and no-one should be allowed to undermine it.
BUSINESS BRIEFS
44% OF LESOTHO BUDGET TO SALARIES
SOME 44% of Lesotho’s 1998/99 budget expenditure is to be spent on salaries for civil servants, Minister of Finance and Development Planning Leketekete Ketso said on Thursday. “This is unacceptably high by international standards,” he admitted in announcing his budget in the National Assembly. The budget also detailed that the government awarded a 10% inflation adjustment to civil servants and is to implement a new pay and grading system. The budget provides for R2372,8- million in revenue and grants, and total expenditures of R2808,6-million, representing a deficit of R435,8-million. Some 46% of the country’s revenue continues to be derived from Lesotho’s share of the receipts from the Southern African Customs Union.
PUNT SCOUTING FOR BUYERS
BFS Capital, one of indebted Punt Geselsradio’s major shareholders, is reportedly willing to negotiate a restructuring deal to save the Afrikaans talk radio station from closing down, a spokesman said on Wednesday. Holding company Punt Media closed the radio station down on Tuesday night and said it is to apply for volunatary liquidation after announcing the station is R26-million in debt. Punt Geselsradio’s 170-strong staff and management, however, decided to fight the decision and turned up for work on Wednesday morning. Punt Media stopped carrying the cost of broadcasting on Tuesday night.
MADIBA SPOKE FOR SOL
PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela helped open the doors for casino king Sol Kerzner to gain tax breaks and other concessions from the Bahamian government for his Atlantis casino, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The Journal reports that Mandela vouched for Kerzner’s “democratic” credibility in September 1992 when he met newly elected Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham and his predecessor Lynden Pindling. Two months after Mandela’s meeting with Ingraham and Pindling, Kerzner’s concessions were approved and he bought the Paradise Island property from Resorts International for $125-million. Mandela’s spokesman Parks Mankahlana on Wednesday dismissed the report as untrue, and said a similar report had been carried in the local media three years ago.
SAA REVIEWS PAY RISE
NEW South African Airways chief executive Coleman Andrews on Wednesday said SAA is planning to review an arbitration handed down that morning that gives its pilots a 17% pay increase. Pilots last year accepted a wage freeze in light of SAA’s financial difficulties. This year SAA called for a further 15% pay cut despite a longstanding agreement to offer its pilots a competitive salary. It moved its demands to another wage freeze, despite pilots’ calls for a 25,7% increase to make up for the backlog in pay. A three-week arbitration found in favour of the pilots, tempering their demands to a 17% pay rise. Within hours of the award, however, Andrews and executive manager of flight operations Peter Cooke put out a statement that, considering SAA’s financial plight, “we will probably take the award under review”.
AUTONET RESULTS TO DROP
RESTRUCTURING at Transnet’s passenger-transport arm Autonet is estimated to reduce Autonet’s annual earnings by 40%. Autonet’s earnings, due to be released next week, are expected to fall to R14-million from R23-million, despite a 5% rise in turnover to R515-million. Much of this loss, however, is attributed to losses of around R11-million at subsidiary Transtate.