Critics have called for a restructuring of the Universal Service Agency (USA) following the resignation of CEO Sam Gulube this week, citing the Department of Communications parastatal’s inability to deliver affordable communication to under-serviced areas.
The Government is set to kick gas-guzzling cars into touch with widespread reforms aimed at promoting fuel economy and reducing emissions. The new measures are in line with international best practice where fuel economy and emissions labelling on every car is compulsory.
It is a long way from a tiny Lebanese mountain village of 5Â 000 people to a boardroom in Johannesburg, but that is the story of Cell C CEO Talaat Laham. Laham heads a company in flux. Having captured a 10% market share in the South African mobile sector in the past four years, Cell C is positioning itself to take full advantage of the regulatory and technological changes that are set to shake up the sector in the next three years.
South African Airways’s cost structure, twice that of budget airlines, prevents it from competing against low-cost carriers, meaning that its stated intent of entering this market will ultimately be at the taxpayer’s expense. SAA will enter the budget market, which has grown 44% in four years, by year-end.
President Thabo Mbeki has bounced the Icasa Amendment Bill back to Parliament, striking a blow in support of the independence of South Africa’s telecommunications regulator. The Bill was the subject of heated debate after amendments that stakeholders accused of undermining the regulator’s independence were passed by the National Council of Provinces.
Attempts by industry regulator the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa to bring more competition to the telecommunications market, by making radio spectrum available for low-cost mobile phones, are being resisted by state-owned telecoms company Sentech.
Irish raider Numbersixvalverde won the Grand National in Liverpool on Saturday giving jockey Niall ”Slippers” Madden victory with his first ride and Ireland their fifth win in the world’s most famous race in the last eight years. The Martin Brassil-trained 11-1 shot beat home last year’s winner and topweight Hedgehunter (5-1) while Clan Royal (5-1) was third and Nil Desperandum (33-1) fourth.
The charge sheet implicating five businessmen in a R213-million pension-fund fraud details an elaborate scheme aimed at profiteering from surplus money generated by the funds. Four businessmen were arrested last month in a criminal case relating to that being brought against Australian Peter Ghavalas, who was arrested in September last year.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is gearing up for a strike in July over the multibillion-rand Gautrain Rapid Rail Link, which the federation complains will service only Gauteng’s elite. Cosatu’s Gauteng provincial secretary, Siphiwe Mgcina, said the federation had lodged a notice of a planned socio-economic strike under Section 77 of the Labour Relations Act.
African universities have banded together to challenge high Internet bandwidth access costs by investing in the development of the new undersea cable on the east coast of Africa. Last August, universities from Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda and South Africa formed a collaborative regional body, in an attempt to lobby governments and gain access to low-cost bandwidth on the EASSy cable.