Official South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) regulations prevent employees from pursuing private business interests without the prior written permission of group CEO Dali Mpofu. Yet the Mail & Guardian has established that Mpofu is himself a director of no fewer than nine private companies outside the public broadcaster.
In the clearest indications yet that talks brokered by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), aimed at resolving the crisis in Zimbabwe, will not meet opposition demands for a new constitution, President Robert Mugabe this week pushed ahead with plans to amend the existing Constitution to allow him to hand-pick his successor.
Africa’s east coast could go from having no undersea broadband cables to four. The planned East Africa Submarine System, touted as the solution for the bandwidth-starved continent, has been plagued by political squabbles that have resulted in it splintering into four mooted cable projects.
Self-conscious and Edgars-chic, The Black Hotels have stormed on to Jo’burg’s live music scene, writes Lloyd Gedye.
Icelandic pop princess and noise terrorist Björk is dancing to a tribal beat, writes Lloyd Gedye.
South Africa’s mobile operators are stretched to capacity trying to meet the rapidly increasing demand for voice and data services and are laying their own fibre-optic networks. Until now, MTN and Vodacom have relied on Telkom to provide their fibre network needs but, with Telkom unable to meet the increasing demand quickly enough, the mobile giants are taking matters into their own hands.
In a damning 59-page catalogue of policy advice to the Zimbabwean government, Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono spells out his repeated attempts to persuade the government to change course and save the country from imminent economic collapse and ruin. The Mail & Guardian is in possession of the document.
While the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) shouts and stomps its feet after having lost the rights to the drawcard that is Premier Soccer League football, industry insiders accuse the public broadcaster of double standards and insist that its showing of public bravado is just sour grapes.
The White Stripes get their hands dirty on their latest release, writes Lloyd Gedye
In a rapidly converging telecoms sector, the big question on everyÂbody’s lips is when Telkom will sell Vodacom and who it will partner to re-enter the mobile market. MTN might seem a perfect fit with its large African footprint, but analysts feel the price tag of between R250-billion and R300-billion is too costly for Telkom. The deal would be unlikely to get approval from the competition authorities.