Shaun Harris The idea is certainly appealing – a luxury yacht, available for your use every year at an international location of your choice, hedged against the rand and returning hard currency earnings and tax benefits. Sounds like much more fun than putting money into a global unit trust fund. That’s the concept behind Sunsail, […]

Aaron Nicodemus, Marianne Merten and Mungo Soggot The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is planning to bankroll the legal defence of three white farmers who are being sued for allegedly blinding and torturing an Mpumalanga farm worker. The farmers belong to the Wakkerstroom Commando, one of the civilian army units set up countrywide under […]

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni It’s Tuesday afternoon in Bochum, Northern Province. Inside a filthy classroom, also used as a staffroom, a teacher is typing a document on an old typewriter. Goats roam the schoolyard, while pupils watch a passing cart through the broken windows of an overcrowded classroom. This is Sekgoni High School in Diepsloot. […]

John Matshikiza WITH THE LID OFF ‘Who steals my purse steals trash,” says Iago to Othello: “’tis something, nothing; ’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands: but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed.” Theft takes all sorts […]

trusts Shaun Harris Only R0,5-billion flowed into foreign unit trust funds over the past quarter – a figure that does not represent the huge appetite local investors have built up for offshore investment. Over the previous quarter, R2,2- billion was invested in international funds. The reason for the slowdown is many of the funds listed […]

Ivor Powell Two legal firms with connections to the former claims executive of the Road Accident Fund (RAF)were given large volumes of legal work contracted out by the fund. Former RAF claims executive Johan van Oudtshoorn – who was appointed internal audit executive for the fund after August 1998 – was involved in contracting out […]

Mercedes Sayagues One of Africa’s most pristine coastal areas may soon be lost if the Mozambican government carries out its plan to build a deep-sea port just south of the Maputo Elephant Reserve. The project is a $515-million partnership recently approved between the state railways Caminhos de Ferro de Mocambique (CFM) and the firm Porto […]

Phillipa Garson CLASS STRUGGLE It is refreshing to be confronted with a whirlwind of action in the form of Minister of Education Kader Asmal. His civil servants, who have grown used to grabbing on to their hats every time he blasts past, affectionately refer to him as “Papa Action” nowadays – no allusion to his […]

Robert Kitson in London Rugby World Cup Like one of those artworks that Rolf Harris used to specialise in, the Rugby World Cup remains a strangely dislocated blend of coloured dots, splashes and drips as it pauses for breath. Not much shape to anything, unless you count that ominous black streak running through the middle, […]

Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH We were at the end of the interview on BBC World TV. We’d been talking about Julius Nyerere. To round off, the interviewer asked, me, “So what would you say was his one great legacy to Africa and the world?” I couldn’t answer the question! “You can’t credit him […]