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/ 2 December 2005
An investment company that had former Eskom chairperson Reuel Khoza as executive chairperson benefited to the tune of R65-million after IST Holdings, a JSE-listed company in which it held a 28% stake, was awarded a R260-million contract by Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty) Ltd.
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/ 2 December 2005
There is light at the end of the tunnel for South African consumers who are frustrated by excessively high broadband Internet costs and having to wait months for their service to be connected. New draft regulations published this week by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa are set to shake up broadband service delivery.
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/ 2 December 2005
The City of Tshwane is testing the delivery of broadband Internet and voice services on its new fibre-optic tele-communications network that blankets the entire metro. The city has rolled out a backbone network that stretches from Midrand in the south to Hammanskraal in the north, Mamelodi in the east to Hartbeespoort dam in the west.
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/ 25 November 2005
The City of Johannesburg is saving millions of rands through the use of its own high-speed wireless telecommunication network, which connects more than 500 municipal buildings. So dramatic are the cost savings that the capital costs of establishing the network have been paid in just three months.
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/ 11 November 2005
South Africans, on average, buy 2,2 pairs of shoes a year, but only make 0,6 of a pair (a bit more than a single shoe) locally. Compare this with Poland, for instance, where 2,2 pairs of shoes are bought each year, on average, but which manufactures 1,8 pairs of shoes (almost three shoes) annually. Brazilians buy slightly more shoes: 2,6 pairs on average, of which they make 3,5 pairs.
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/ 7 November 2005
Cement prices have more than doubled in the past seven years and, with production capacity currently "under pressure", could rise even higher, placing the government’s infrastructure rollout in jeopardy. Monthly cement price increases, supplied by the Bureau for Economic Research, show that prices have increased by 143% between February 1998 and February this year.
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/ 31 October 2005
The next time you are sitting in one of Johannesburg’s regular traffic jams, look around and imagine how much quicker it would be if one in every two vehicles was not there. In the past five years, the number of cars on Gauteng’s roads has almost doubled. At the end of July this year Gauteng had almost three million registered vehicles, up from 1,6-million in 2000.
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/ 21 October 2005
There was a brief 10 days this year when BP ran the show at the Department of Minerals and Energy, until Sasol once again took over. An observer at the Competition Tribunal hearing into the proposed Sasol/Engen merger could easily have come to this conclusion after hearing how lawyers for British Petroleum (BP) had drafted the department’s original application as an intervention against the merger.
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/ 17 October 2005
Staff at the Universal Services Agency, which is charged with rolling out information communications technology access to poor communities, say that the agency unfairly backs Microsoft’s proprietary software rather than non-Â proprietary open source software.
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/ 10 October 2005
A controversial new partnership between the South African government and the world’s leading software company, Microsoft, is at the centre of a heated debate about the best way to roll out IT access to poor communities. The memorandum of understanding aims to roll out free Microsoft software and training to telecentres in all 284 municipalities over three years.
Growing anger over lack of telecommunications access is mobilising poor communities who say they have sat and waited for long enough. Earlier this month at least 400 people from around the country came together at the People’s Forum on Communication Rights hosted by the Freedom of Expression Institute.
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/ 30 September 2005
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), the country’s communications regulator, may face stiff challenges to its independence if the Icasa Amendment Bill is promulgated in its current form. This is according to a range of stakeholders in the sector.
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/ 30 September 2005
Union officials from the clothing, textile and footwear sector are blaming the government for the massive increase in Chinese imports since 2003, and calling for protective measures like those implemented by the European Union and the United States.
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/ 27 September 2005
After 15 years of living in the city, Gcina Mahlatashana says his three months at the new Brickfields residential complex in Newtown has been his best inner-city-living experience yet. "In comparison to the buildings I have experienced living in, this is much better," he says, staring out across the Brickfields car park. The <i>M&G</i> investigates the various options available to those who are keen on inner-city living.
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/ 23 September 2005
Details of how three senior Saambou officials set up elaborate operations involving a string of companies that received payments and loans to buy shares and improve Saambou’s capital position are contained in the charge sheet against the three. These transactions were initiated after Saambou was unable to secure funding in the marketplace to cover bad debts.
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/ 23 September 2005
In a surprise announcement, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) says it will pay R1,67-billion for the 20% stake in Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) previously held by international airports company ADR. Acsa’s annual results released last week showed profits before tax up 22% to R593,2-million.
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/ 16 September 2005
A Durban denim-clothing manufacturer is among the first to have a writ of execution issued against it as a result of rulings made in favour of the industry bargaining council by the South African Labour Court. Hein van der Walt, the director of the Confederation of Employers of Southern Africa (Cofesa), says there are another 877 manufacturers who are to have writs issued against them.
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/ 12 September 2005
Prepaid cellphone users, who are generally lower income consumers, are paying up to twice as much as middle and high-income contract subscribers in South Africa. This is according to the communications regulator discussion document on mobile phone pricing.
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/ 5 September 2005
Petrol would be on sale tomorrow at a saving of up to 35c a litre if Kempton Park garage owner Dean Grant could get his way. Grant, at the forefront of discounting diesel for the past 18 months, offers discounts of between 27c and 30c a litre. Grant is able to do this because the retail price of diesel, unlike petrol, is deregulated.
With preferred tender-bidders identified and enrolment set to begin in January next year, will the roll-out of the Government Employees Medical Scheme address disparities in the healthcare sector or merely provide civil servants with top-quality medical care? The Department of Health argues that, more public servants will pay for healthcare in public hospitals, generating income for improved services.
BHP Billiton’s investment in growth projects, coupled with China’s sustained demand for raw materials, higher commodity prices and the performance of emerging economies, has delivered record profits for the world’s largest diversified miner.
Three of De Beers Consolidated Mines’ underground Kimberley operations, that together are forecast to deliver a loss of R150-million for 2005, are to be closed. Recently De Beers confirmed an "in-principle" decision to close the Wesselton, Dutoitspan and Bultfontein mines.
The government’s Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) paid out more than R2,1-billion last year to 500Â 000 unemployed people, but has little grasp of the skills challenges the country faces. The now self-funding UIF uses a database to match the skills of unemployed people with those of vacancies but does little or no follow-up.
Johannesburg authorities responsible for the power supply have clashed over who is to blame for the frequent outages in the city. City Power says that insufficient funding provided by the City of Johannesburg before the 2003/04 financial year had tied its hands in the upgrading of the aging network.
The South African anti-retroviral industry is booming, with market leader Aspen Pharmacare seeing its share price rise by more than 1 000% since it listed on the JSE Securities Exchange in 1998. Aspen, founded in 1998 by businessman Stephen Saad, produces generic ARVs among a number of other pharmaceuticals.
Swazi civil servants took to the streets this week in a strike organised by the national association of civil servants, who were demanding a 4% wage increase as well as housing allowances. This follows strikes by teachers and nurses which have taken place in the past few weeks. The Swaziland government maintains that its wage bill is already eating deep into its pockets.
In stark contrast to the draft black economic empowerment Codes of Good Practice released two weeks ago, the draft health-care charter has laid out aggressive ownership equity targets for the sector. The Department of Trade and Industry launched its draft empowerment Codes of Good Practice recently, setting a target of 25,1% of black equity ownership within the next 10 years.
In a move that could soon be outlawed, a senior Independent Communications Authority of South Africa official has joined a private company shortly after its licence was amended, allowing it to become a major player in the broadband industry. Former Icasa councillor Mbulelo Ncetezo, joined Wireless Business Solutions in August as head of legal and regulatory affairs.
Nu Metro says it will be taking court action against video rental outlets that continue to flaunt copyright laws by renting DVDs and videos without a licence. It says it is aware that some video stores have been renting unlicensed products that they have purchased at retail stores. Nu Metro intends dropping its prices from August 1, a move it says is intended to combat piracy.
A video/DVD rental store in South Africa pays nearly five times that of its US counterpart. The Competition Commission announced last week that because of perceived non-compliance with an undertaking of the commission, signed last year by Nu Metro and Ster Kinekor, it was recommending further investigation into the video and DVD distributors, which together hold a 95% share of the market.
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) is to probe the subsidisation of cellphones with a view to ensuring that customers benefit from number portability and shorter contracts. A discussion document released by Icasa proposes a regulatory framework to govern the use of subsidised handsets.
The European Commission’s proposals, announced this week, to reform the sugar industry are expected to have little impact on the South African industry. Experts are predicting dire consequences for lesser developed countries, but the effect on South African producers is expected to be limited.