South Africans eager to get housing could learn a lot from the way Afrikaners used co-operatives, argues James McGregor All of South Africa’s citizens are aware of the challenge ahead in aiming to house the nation’s lower- income population. The recently published White Paper quantifies the problem: 40% of all households earn less than R800/month; […]

Stefaans Brummer BOTSWANA authorities are reviewing charges of trust fund embezzlement against South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Safety and Security, Joe Matthews — who skipped bail there in 1985 — and may ask for his An official in the Botswana attorney-general’s office this week said charges against Matthews “have not been withdrawn, neither have they […]

The government is threatening to use the law against=20 tax advisers who come up with fancy avoidance schemes,=20 reports Reg Rumney THE first Budget of the new Government of National=20 Unity studiously avoided gnashing its teeth at anyone=20 other than those who use dodgy tax avoidance schemes. Finance Minister Chris Liebenberg took these schemes to=20 […]

Weekly Mail & Guardian Reporter The total tax burden in the 1994/95 financial year is=20 Total tax revenue will amount to 24,8 percent of gross=20 domestic product (GDP) in 1995/96 — almost the same as=20 the actual 1994/95 figure. Direct taxes remain the most important contributor to=20 total tax revenue in 1995/96 at 52,6 percent […]

So far the battle between the Zulu king and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi has been a war of words — now it’s headed for the courts, writes Ann Eveleth INKATHA Freedom Party (IFP) leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s new power base in kwa-Zulu/Natal, the controversial House of Traditional Leaders, came under a double-edged legal sword this week following […]

Critical Consumer Pat Sidley CONSUMERS needing glasses and looking for cheaper or quicker alternatives to traditional optometrists may have noticed a growth in new and different forms of doing business among some optometrists. They’ve been at it a while — and hassled by officialdom for doing it. But their type of practice appears to be […]

Estimated expenditure for the Office of the President,=20 which includes President Nelson Mandela’s salary,=20 amounts to R16,3-million, an increase of R272 000 from=20 last year, according to the 1995/96 Budget. This is a miniscule 1,7 percent increase over last=20 year’s Budget’s expenditure. Expenditure for the office of Deputy President Thabo=20 Mbeki is estimated at R8,8-million, […]

The SANDF has come clean on covert links with African countries during the 1980s, writes Stefaans Brummer THE National Defence Force has owned up to a secret mid-eighties project to help build a military base in the West African state of Gabon — part of Pretoria’s efforts to forge covert links with African states whose […]

While Chris Liebenberg announced the long awaited=20 scrapping of the discriminatory tax on married women,=20 he said child rebates would be abolished.=20 However, to lessen the burden on lower income earners,=20 who are most affected by the loss of the child rebate,=20 the primary rebate would go up by R400. The middle classes were the […]

This week, the Weekly Mail & Guardian presents a simple lesson in how to prevent corruption among Members of Parliament and provincial legislatures. We publish below the ANC’s Code of Conduct, which sets out the rules the organisation has set down in a bid to prevent its members from being corrupted. Much has been said […]