Official opposition communications spokesperson Dene Smuts says Telkom is disingenuous when it argues that its profits were not only derived from revenues but also cost savings. Telkom, which appeared before the parliamentary communications committee on Friday, argued that fixed line profits were the product of cost cuts.
Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool will have to pay back nearly a quarter of a million rand paid to him as an extra car allowance while he was the province’s finance MEC, his office said on Thursday. Meanwhile, a Democratic Alliance MPL said she had told Rasool a year ago that his allowances — as printed in the budget — seemed too high.
The last few tahrs on Table Mountain could get a reprieve if South African National Parks is presented with a viable plan for their capture and removal. However SANparks spokesperson Wanda Mkutshulwa warned on Friday that the plan would have to be ”watertight” as SANparks did not want to be exposed to further legal action.
Parliament’s special committee considering Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana’s report on the complaint by Deputy President Jacob Zuma against National Prosecuting Authority head Bulelani Ngcuka will finally get down to substantive discussions on Monday.
The June 30 deadline banks have to re-identify their clients could be extended, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel indicated on Friday. During an address to the National Assembly on his department’s budget vote, Manuel said he was aware that the ”Know you Customer” campaign had caused some controversy.
United Kingdom- and South Africa-listed Old Mutual plc is looking to improve the performance of its South African operations through a combination of strategies, including cost cutting in its back office and implementing more efficient systems, as well as boosting the numbers of its sales force, according to CEO Jim Sutcliffe.
Almost all the tahrs on Table Mountain have now been killed, South African National Parks chief executive David Mabunda announced on Thursday. ”With 109 Himalayan tahrs removed we estimate that the operation is 95% complete,” said Mabunda.
Swiss-based, South Africa-listed luxury goods group Richemont has outperformed market expectations for its financial year ending March 31 2004, analysts said on Thursday, reporting a 3% rise in fully diluted earnings per unit of €1,193 and boosting its dividend by 25% to €0,4 per unit.
African National Congress MP Ismail Vadi, who was elected unopposed as chairperson of the ad hoc committee on the public protector on Wednesday afternoon, said he undertakes to conduct his responsibility with humility and in a manner that will ”bring dignity” to Parliament.
Engen Petroleum, South Africa’s largest fuel retailer, has launched its Dynamic Unleaded fuel in South Africa, the latest in its range of fuels marketed under the Dynamic product line, the company announced on Wednesday. From Wednesday, Dynamic Unleaded will be available nationwide at approximately 900 Engen sites.
Sanlam, one of South Africa’s largest insurance and financial services groups, and the Professional Provident Society Insurance Company (PPS) have formally extended the agreement governing their relationship, with PPS reaffirming Sanlam as its preferred provider in its endeavour to broaden its range of products and services.
Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon on Wednesday called for immediate action on Zimbabwe following the latest land grab moves by President Robert Mugabe’s regime. ”It is absolutely crucial that South Africa ends the silence of silent diplomacy. There is an urgent need for both words and action on Zimbabwe’s latest economic anarchy,” he said.
Communities in the Western Cape should get traditional knowledge royalties on rooibos tea products, provincial economic development minister Lynne Brown said on Wednesday. Brown has already promised she will lead the fight to reclaim the rooibos name from the company that has copyrighted it in the United States.
KWV Limited, South Africa’s second-largest wine and spirits producer and exporter, has concluded an agreement with a broad-based black economic empowerment (BEE) consortium in the local wine industry, Phetogo Investments, for Phetogo to make a share purchase offer to acquire a 25,1% stake in the company.
South African Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota said any blurring of functions between the state arms procurement agency, Armscor, and the state arms manufacturing entity, Denel, must come to an end. He noted that he has already held preliminary discussions with the minister of public enterprises in this regard.
South Africa’s Department of Transport told MPs on Tuesday that more than 500 000 traffic accidents occur annually on the country’s roads and of these 80% are a result of driver-related offences. Furthermore, the state loses about R750-million a year in uncollected fines as only 28% of issued fines are collected.
South Africa’s Advertising Standards Authority has ruled in favour of retail group Pick ‘n Pay regarding a complaint from a member of public that the company’s Hypermarket marketing campaign was misleading by claiming Pick ‘n Pay is "always cheaper". The authority found that the "always cheaper" slogan is backed up by independent research.
A South African NGO, the Social Change Assistance Trust was on Monday placed on the shortlist for the $1-million Alcan Prize for Sustainability by The Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum. Of almost 500 entries received from 79 countries around the world, only 12 organisations made the shortlist.
When he turns his telescopes towards the sun on Tuesday, Boland skywatcher Willie Koorts will be at least partly fulfilling the wishes of a long-dead astronomer. He will be observing the transit of Venus, an event so rare that no person alive today has witnessed it, and doing so from almost the same spot in his home town Wellington as an American scientific expedition in 1882.
New National Party Gauteng leader Johan Kilian has resigned from the party but says it has nothing to do with weekend talks the party held with the African National Congress. Kilian, who has been with the party for 24 years, said he is leaving politics to return to the business world.
Listed South African retailer Edgars Consolidated Stores (Edcon) is optimistic that it will attract good investor interest, as well as a lower price, for its second securitised debt issue from its OntheCards securitisation programme, based on its customers’ store card debt, according to CEO for group services, Mark Bower.
The ambiance at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 14th annual Africa Economic Summit, which took place in Maputo last week, was markedly more relaxed than previous gatherings in Durban, as participants and the media fell under the spell of the Mozambicans’ slower but friendly pace of life and took advantage of the city’s excellent food and nightlife.
As Venus tracks slowly across the face of the Sun on Tuesday, it may be fitting to remember one of the most unlucky astronomers in the history of the science. The Frenchman Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean-Baptiste Le Gentil de la Galaisiere risked death in the 18th century to travel half way across the world to observe a pair of transits of Venus.
A claustrophobic aircraft passenger consumed liquor with a tranquilliser before causing mayhem on an South African Airways flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town, the Bellville Magistrate’s Court heard on Friday. Defence counsel Charles Simon told the court his client, Colin Barnett (29) of Milnerton near Cape Town, consumed the liquor and tranquilliser because of his fear of flying.
The affair of the mystery donor Hans that has plagued the Democratic Alliance for two years was ”100% unsatisfactory”, Democratic Alliance spokesperson Helen Zille said on Friday. She was speaking on Cape Talk radio after the announcement earlier in the day of a secret settlement with the trustees of fraudster Jurgen Harksen’s estate.
The success of the Democratic Alliance and its emergence as South Africa’s second-largest party is partly attributable to the fact that the New National Party, the architect party of apartheid, has embraced the liberation of all South Africans, said President Thabo Mbeki on Friday.
Both the ruling African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance have named their members who will serve on an ad hoc committee to consider the public protector’s probe into a complaint against the national director of public prosecutions.
The Democratic Alliance has agreed to make an undisclosed payout to the trustees of convicted fraudster Jurgen Harksen’s estate to settle a donation to the party by the mysterious ”Hans”. The trustees were to have taken the DA to the Cape High Court next week over the DM99 000 (about R450 000) which they claimed was part of more than R1-million Harksen said he gave to the party and its former Western Cape leader Gerald Morkel.
The National Prosecuting Authority is guilty of discrimination if it does not prosecute the 37 African National Congress leaders who were refused amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but continues to prosecute other citizens, says the Freedom Front Plus.
Total South Africa has issued a warning to its dealers nationwide over the sale of loose cigarettes, telling them they could face heavy penalties. The Tobacco Products Control Amendment Act bans the sale of any tobacco product not ”in a package” with the mandatory health warning and tar and nicotine content.
Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota’s views on the difficulties of achieving racial representivity were both welcomed on Wednesday and dismissed as having missed the point. Lekota told the National Assembly’s defence committee on Tuesday there would have to come a point when South Africans stopped being black, white, Indian and coloured and were merely South Africans.
‘It’s a difficult thing, transformation’
The South African Revenue Service (Sars) customs division has raked in R200-million in extra revenue from the oil industry in the past financial year, MPs were told on Wednesday. There has been limited auditing of the oil industry’s accounts but this has now changed considerably.