A weakening rand lifted the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa off its lows on Friday, although the bourse remained in the red in noon trade. Dealers said that the bourse had initially taken its cue from world markets, but the currency was now
providing some support.
An application challenging the constitutionality of regulations obliging doctors to acquire special licences to dispense medicines was dismissed with costs in the Pretoria High Court on Friday. Doctors contend that the regulations infringe on their constitutionally protected rights and those of their patients.
Doctors may appeal ruling
Eskom and the National Research Foundation have set aside R4,8-million for a programme aimed at developing black researchers, the power utility announced on Thursday. The programme, launched on Thursday night, arose out of a concern about the increasingly declining number of experienced researchers in science, engineering and technology.
Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana on Friday stated that the South African government’s approach to the country’s labour market policy aims to forge a middle road between the extreme advocated by those in favour of unqualified labour-market flexibility or deregulation of the labour market and those advocating a more rigorous market regulation.
South African motor retailers on Friday applauded the increase in passenger vehicle sales, as reported by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa. McCarthy Motor Holdings chairperson Brand Pretorius noted that the strong upsurge in new vehicle sales also continued.
A spacecraft the size of a small bus ended a seven-year, 3,2-billion kilometre journey and began a new era of exploration on Thursday morning as it sped over gas giant Saturn, and sent back the first closeups of the rings which have tantalised astronomers for four centuries.
Councillors in Mpumalanga’s second biggest municipality, Enhlanzeni District, must be especially relieved that the Municipality Finance Management Act only came into operation on Thursday and is not retrospective. Last week the M&G revealed that the municipality’s mayor Jeri Ngomane’s two wives won council tenders totalling almost R2-million while Ngomane was in charge.
Most informal jobs are a form of concealed unemployment, cautions the National Labour and Economic Development Institute (Naledi). These jobs do not raise sufficient income to support a family, promote the acquisition of skills or increase productivity. ”Yet [these] are the only options available to millions of unemployed,” Naledi notes in its draft South Africa country report for the Global Poverty Network Development Study
Provincial education budgets this year show a stark and widening gap between government policy aims and available funding. This is the main finding of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa in its analysis of these budgets. As a result, apparently priority areas such as early childhood development, adult education and education for learners with special needs will be especially hard hit.
The battle for the control of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) at its national congress in Pretoria has been firmly won by its left wing. At the congress in Pretoria this week, incumbent president Vusi Nhlapo lost the vote to former vice-president Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya, 136 votes to 243.