Local jewellery design needs more than creativity to become a vibrant sector of the economy, writes Tumi Makgetla
Tumi Makgetla profiles Intsika, a jewellery school in the East Rand
Tumi Makgetla speaks to fashion designer Mpho Kuaho from Botswana who has dressed models for the Durban July horse race.
The same currency will be traded from Kinshasa to Kimberley, if the vision of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is realised. The SADC hopes to create a free trade area by 2008, a customs union by 2010, a common market by 2015 and an economic and monetary union by 2018. As envisaged, the monetary union would resemble the European Union.
The flush <i>Mail & Guardian</i> reader might not mind spending almost R40 in Angola on his or her favourite weekly newspaper, but he or she would get better value in Malawi, where the paper is only R12,96. In South Africa the <i>M&G</i> costs R14,90. Looking at the purchasing power of different currencies can provide a more meaningful understanding of how they compare than the official exchange rate.
Public servants expressed their determination to continue their indefinite strike this week, closing down schools across the country and interrupting hospital and other government services. Union organisers planned to "shut down the government" on Friday, buoyed by support from the Congress of South African Trade Unions central executive committee.
A vulture swooping down on a piece of meat cannot know that the juicy morsel might be its last meal. But, when farmers put poisoned meat around their farms to protect their herds from predators, it can result in the deaths of game and wild fowl in the area. Pesticides used to reduce vegetation and protect grazing land might harm wildlife also.
Publishing group hopes to digitise about a quarter of a million local titles, writes Tumi Makgetla
The emergence of a black middle class is not solely the product of equity transactions but also of the skills development, employment equity, enterprise development and preferential-procurement elements of the black economic empowerment codes, argues a paper from the Businessmap Foundation published this month.
Defining the middle strata in one of the most unequal countries in the world is a tricky but unavoidable challenge that Businessmap Foundation researchers Khehla Shubane and Colin Reddy tackle in their report on black economic empowerment and the black middle class. The authors ultimately understand that the middle class includes people who live a lifestyle that is socially defined as "middle class".
Tumi Makgetla speaks to publisher Solomon Solani Ngobeni about scouting for new African voices.
Retailers and agro-processing companies are under investigation by the National Agriculture Marketing Council, which is concerned that these groups may use their "excessive" market power to the detriment of consumers and farmers. These concerns are described in the council’s report on food price trends released last week.
If the consumer pays between R5 and R6 for a litre of milk in the shops, how much should the farmer get? The milk industry is currently under investigation by the competition authorities, who are focusing on the price build-up between farmer and consumer. In particular, they are paying close attention to a set of apparently cosy interventions that the large milk processors are able to make in the market.
The Johannesburg economy must grow at 9% for the country to achieve its economic growth target of 6%, according to economist Michael Schussler, speaking as a representative of the Johannesburg Business Forum at the recent Presidential Imbizo. During the imbizo, traffic congestion, electricity and telecommunications costs and the country’s skills shortage emerged as some of the constraints to higher economic growth.
Vehicle tracking companies have recovered tens of thousands of vehicles since they started up just more than a decade ago. But not only do these companies find stolen cars, their staff also apprehend and arrest criminal suspects, locate chop shops and help the police break up syndicates.
Vehicle tracking companies have recovered tens of thousands of vehicles since they started up just more than a decade ago. But not only do these companies find stolen cars, their staff also apprehend and arrest criminal suspects, locate chop shops and help the police break up syndicates.
The moderating trade deficit is a positive development against the stark backdrop of a 30-year record high shortfall on the current account. Down-playing fears about the current account deficit, the Reserve Bank is quick to note that unusually high oil import volumes widened the gap last year.
Returning home to bury a loved one is never easy, but it can be life-changing in unexpected ways, writes Tumi Makgetla.
Nine Zimbabwean car guards were sent to South African deportation facility Lindela on Tuesday and another three were arrested in a swoop on an illegal car-guarding business in Johannesburg by the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (Psira). Twenty car-guarding businesses have come under Psira’s scrutiny over the past 40 days.
Everybody knows that Trevor Manuel is sitting on a pile of money. As he told us in his recent budget speech, he is expecting that pile to be worth R11-billion this year.
But this is only the budgeted surplus for government departments. If government’s wider interests are added – including, among others, social security funds — the budgeted surplus for the year increases by more than 50% .
You would expect the man at the helm of a company responsible for the disappearance of hundreds of millions of rands of other people’s money at least to be a great fraudster. But in the case of the Mineworkers Provident Fund’s missing millions, J Arthur Brown may have just had a good eye for a weak system.
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/ 27 February 2007
The Codes of Good Practice on Black Economic Empowerment provide a standard framework for measuring empowerment across all sectors of the economy. According to the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act of 2003, state organs and public entities must take the codes into consideration "as far as is reasonably possible".
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/ 19 February 2007
The South African nuclear community has taken the government’s recent support for nuclear energy as a cue to plan local uranium enrichment. Processing uranium will secure South Africa’s nuclear fuel supply in the event that the domestic nuclear energy market grows. Experts highlight the soaring price of uranium internationally and project a supply shortage as incentives to process uranium locally.
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/ 19 February 2007
Johannesburg residents are increasingly switching to gas after the recent spate of electricity power outages, said Egoli Gas, the city’s gas supplier. But while gas is promoted as more reliable and environmentally friendly than coal-generated electricity, only a quarter of the population in the greater Johannesburg area has access to the gas network.
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/ 29 January 2007
Eskom is de-mothballing old stations, rolling out new capacity and achieving vast energy savings, but with such run-down and stretched power resources, there will be little wiggle room in electricity provision for a long time to come. Recent outages saw Eskom lose 25% of the power on the national grid in the peak of summer.
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/ 24 January 2007
Tumi Makgetla speaks to the winner of the Noma Award for publishing in Africa.
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/ 24 January 2007
A cool new animation aims to teach teens about the environment, writes Tumi Makgetla.
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/ 22 January 2007
Like a second-hand car salesperson, international currency markets can play bait and switch with sound investments. A few years ago, when the dollar cost R10, an investor would have paid R1 000 for a $100 share in the United States. The same share would only be worth about R750 today, assuming the share did not rise.
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/ 18 January 2007
Economists take several factors into consideration when trying to judge where currencies are moving. And they often get it wrong. But to give an idea of some of the factors involved in evaluating a currency for risk, the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> spoke to some economists and analysts to review some of the top currencies on the market today.
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/ 12 December 2006
Maintenance backlogs have dragged South Africa’s infrastructure grade down to a D, or "poor", in the first report card of the country’s built environment infrastructure, released by the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) recently.
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/ 11 December 2006
Mario Almeida, the owner of the elegant restaurant Espaço Bahi’a in Angola’s capital city, says he can spot people who are new to his establishment by their wide-eyed expressions. Crooning Portuguese music gives way to American jazz as slow-moving beams of light create a galaxy on the dark wooden panels between the second and third floors.
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/ 27 November 2006
A growing cacophony of economists — including those commissioned by government — are saying that Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni has significant wiggle room to maintain the rand at competitive levels, which will boost export and manufacturing growth. The critical chorus says a more competitive currency can be achieved through market-friendly interventions.