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/ 28 October 2007
As South Africa’s economic growth slows and inflation heats up, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel will present a medium-term budget on Tuesday with decidedly less to smile about than six months ago. While analysts expect Manuel to be more cautious in his revenue predictions, they believe past prudence has left him with enough room for manoeuvre.
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/ 26 October 2007
Hardly a month after Finance Minister Trevor Manuel cast aspersions on the integrity of local football administrators, the Premier Soccer League (PSL) has suffered another setback with the finding that Mamelodi Sundowns were guilty of forging the signature of Jose Torrealba to extend the striker’s contract.
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/ 25 October 2007
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Most South Africans think Jacob Zuma will become South Africa’s next president, TNS Research Surveys said on Thursday — although many also fear a Zuma presidency would be disastrous. Two thousand respondents were asked in a survey who would become the next president of South Africa in 2009.
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/ 22 October 2007
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has called for a more concerted international effort to put the financing of education and training on a better footing and to ensure education and training opportunities become more equitably distributed across the world.
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/ 10 October 2007
Southern Africa is on track to form a free trade zone by 2008 and is still considering establishment of a customs union. ”We will be able to meet the deadline of the FTA [Free Trade Area] and we are seeing what we can do to meet the customs union,” Xolelwa Mlumbi-Peter, a South African trade official.
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel says he has been assured by Absa there will be no individual enrichment in its sponsorship deal with the Premier Soccer League (PSL). ”We have the assurance that Absa would do everything in its power to [ensure] that the money is used as intended, for the advancement of soccer in this country,” he said on Friday.
By now Finance Minister Trevor Manuel must be conceding — privately — his allegation that Absa corruptly won the right to use its name for the premiership championship was as hasty as it was uninformed. OnTuesday, the Premier Soccer League dismissed out of hand that some of its executive committee members had received or stood to receive a 10% commission.
The Premier Soccer League (PSL) should involve players’ unions in their deliberations on commission for television and sponsorship, the South African Football Players’ Union said on Wednesday. The PSL has come under fire this week over claims that it intends paying internal negotiators 10% commissions on a R1,6-billion television rights deal and a R500-million sponsorship deal.
Premier Soccer League (PSL) executive members have not been paid commission for their part in the R1,6-billion television rights deal or the R500-million Absa sponsorship deal. The PSL had not even formally decided yet whether it would pay its negotiators any commission at all, said chairperson Irvin Khoza.
Premier Soccer League (PSL) members have not been paid any commission from the television broadcasting and Absa sponsorship deals, PSL chairperson Irvin Khoza said on Tuesday. Indeed, the issue of the payment of commissions had not even been finalised yet, he told reporters in Johannesburg.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has urged National Assembly sport committee chairperson Butana Komphela to have the Premier Soccer League (PSL) explain why executive members should get a R50-million ”commission” to secure a R500-million sponsorship deal.
The Premier Soccer League (PSL) has expressed disappointment with Finance Minister Trevor Manuel for involving himself in its affairs and has written to Sports Minister Makhenkesi Stofile, asking him to intervene, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday.
It has been described by one newspaper as ”splitting the Premier Soccer League [PSL] down the middle.” But what Finance Minister Trevor Manuel described as ”morally reprehensible” commission payments amounting to hundreds of millions of rands to PSL officials has seemingly united 45-million South Africans in outraged opposition to the professional soccer organisation.
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/ 21 September 2007
Commodity-rich African countries should act wisely in order to benefit from the prevailing global boom for the sector, because it will not last, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has warned. Manuel said in a speech at the University of Namibia that the upswing in commodity prices would ”stay in the short-to-medium term”.
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/ 18 September 2007
Despite the Western Cape having scored the highest matric pass rate in the country last year, only half of its learners reach matric, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Tuesday. Addressing a sitting of the provincial parliament on expenditure trends and service delivery, Manuel said the high number of learners who dropped out of school was a cause for concern.
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/ 13 September 2007
South Africa’s solid economic fundamentals should help it weather current turmoil in global financial markets, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday. South Africa’s rand currency and stock markets have swung wildly over the past few weeks amid turmoil in financial markets in the face of a global credit crunch.
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/ 11 September 2007
Legislation providing for formal regulation and supervision of cooperative banks was adopted by the National Assembly on Tuesday. Introducing debate on the Cooperative Banks Bill, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said it seeks to create an appropriate regulatory framework for member-based deposit-taking, financial services cooperatives.
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/ 11 September 2007
State-owned broadcast signal distributor Sentech is protesting that it simply does not have enough money to do its job properly. Writing in the company’s annual report, chairperson Colin Hickling points out that it has been proved impossible to roll out a national broadband radio network until extra funds are received from the government.
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/ 11 September 2007
The National Treasury has stepped in to ensure better protection for minors’ assets and avoid future Fidentia-type scandals. As early as the end of this year, it is proposed that death benefits be paid into a new vehicle called beneficiary funds, which will be regulated by the Pensions Fund Act.
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/ 7 September 2007
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is looking at the legality of the Tshwane metro council’s reported ban on ”white businesses”, and the matter could even end up in the Constitutional Court, DA leader Helen Zille said on Friday. ”Such a resolution amounts to naked racism and flies in the face of the Constitution,” she said in her weekly online newsletter, SA Today.
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/ 6 September 2007
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel told Parliament on Thursday that total spending by all three spheres of government in the financial year to March was R5,3-billion rand less than had been appropriated. Much of the underspending was blamed on lack of capacity.
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/ 5 September 2007
The latest spending patterns by provincial departments show a measurable improvement, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday. Although provinces still face capacity challenges, there is improvement, he told journalists during the Treasury’s tabling of provincial budgets and expenditure review in Parliament.
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/ 4 September 2007
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has ruled out fixing the price of bread in South Africa. ”If we try and cap prices here we will create all manner of difficulties for ourselves,” he told MPs in the National Assembly on Tuesday. Manuel was responding to a call from Pan Africanist Congress MP Motsoko Pheko to fix the bread price.
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/ 2 September 2007
A string of gloomy data has clouded some of the optimism surrounding the South African economy, raising fears of another interest-rate hike and casting doubt on government growth forecasts. Figures released on Tuesday showed that growth had slowed by 0,2 percentage points to 4,5% in the second quarter of 2007.
South Africa faces the challenge of how to use its 5% economic growth in ways that everyone, especially the poor, will benefit, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Thursday. He was speaking at the launch of the Development Bank of Southern Africa’s annual report.
Brent Meersman reports on the panel discussion, Is Poetry The New Black? which took place at this year’s Cape Town Book Fair
This year the cameras move away from emaciated African children, writes Niren Tolsi
The first moment of freedom: Trevor Manuel and Whitey Jacobs were released from prison yesterday.