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/ 20 February 2004
Budget 2004 was "growth-friendly", without necessarily acting as a direct spur to economic growth, a key economic analyst said on Thursday. Iraj Abedian, chief economist of Standard Bank, observed that growth was ultimately driven by forces like the global economy.
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/ 20 February 2004
Although the Budget provides for an increase of 5% in further education and training (FET) spending per province, independent researchers believe that the money remains inadequate to deal with the challenges facing the sector. Details of the education vote suggest that most of the increased support will benefit schools, not colleges.
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/ 20 February 2004
Over the past few years the Treasury and the government have improved in making information on the Budget, the allocation of state resources and programmes available to the public timeously and in detail. However, we should not confuse this effusive sharing of information with public participation in the Budget and fiscal policy formulation.
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/ 20 February 2004
The government will be hard pressed to meet its land restitution deadline of 2005 with the Cinderella budget Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel awarded to the Department of Land Affairs, a land reform expert told the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>.
Ruth Hall, from the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape, called the allocation disappointing.
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/ 20 February 2004
The implementation of South Africa’s inflation policy needs a more pragmatic approach by the National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank and should be coupled to growth and employment targets for the country. Only then can we talk about the inflation targeting policy being good for the poor, argues Lumkile Mondi.
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/ 20 February 2004
About 10% of those who play golf worldwide are women. This is a favourite statitistic of the men who have controlled the sport for decades. This week Laura Davies became the first woman to play on the European men’s tour. But can golf shed its sexist image?
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/ 20 February 2004
Kaizer Chiefs and Ajax Cape Town made a statement of intent this week, in more ways than one. Both teams began the task of garnering points from the backlog of games they have to play by beating their opponents Golden Arrows and Jomo Cosmos respectively on Wednesday night.
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/ 20 February 2004
The saga of Mpumalanga public works minister Steve Mabona continued this week with the appearance of Mabona’s head of department, William Mthombothi, in the Pretoria Regional Court on charges of fraud.
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/ 20 February 2004
Without doubt the African Cup of Nations’s best young player, Karim Hagui was simply a revelation. The 20-year-old’s form at right-back was so good that Tunisia’s best player, Ajax’s half-fit Hatem Trabelsi, was not really missed and, even when he did come on as a substitute, Hagui showed he is just as comfortable in midfield or at left-back.
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/ 20 February 2004
After South Africa’s first limited overs match against New Zealand last week some Kiwi commentators suggested that Robin Peterson looked like an ordinary club player. No doubt they said it with an Antipodean superciliousness that for many South Africans is like a bamboo-shoot under the fingernail.