The merger between Harmony Gold Mining and Patrice Motsepe’s ARMgold — to create South Africa’s largest and the world’s fifth-largest gold producer — had to happen.

The battle for media and investments group Nail took a new twist this week when the scales tipped away from the Johncom consortium in favour of its Investec-led rival, Tiso consortium.

South African youth are fortunate to have many respected leaders who can inspire them to help a developing country adjust to globalisation and the hectic pace of business in the 21st century.

The contraversial revision of inflation figures will not lead to a drop in administered prices, nor necessarily result in the haemorrhaging of foreign funds from South Africa’s financial markets. But it will widen the gap between employers and workers over pay.

The African National Congress will wait for the outcome of the appeal by its disgraced former chief whip Tony Yengeni before taking action against him. This emerged after Yengeni was sentenced to four years in prison for defrauding Parliament.

The City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Council will for the first time disclose a R1,5-billion unfunded pension liability and faces a court battle over its benefit obligations to former employees. The liability stems from apartheid-era discriminatory conditions of service.

A coalition of NGOs working in the area of violence against women and children has called on the government to recognise the scourge as a hindrance to development and to establish a special fund to fight it. The fund is to be located in the Department of Trade and Industry.