Business confidence in agricultural sector remains positive

SOUTH AFRICA (The Citizen) - Rainfall has had a more than expected impact on business confidence, while the land issue was a big disruptor to confidence.

Business confidence in South Africa’s agricultural industry remained positive for the second quarter of 2018, according to the Agricultural Business Chamber (Agbiz). But it’s barely hanging on to stay in positive territory, and the land policy question must be answered sooner rather than later. “Subsequent to an up-tick to 58 index points in the first quarter, the Agbiz/Independent Development Corporation (IDC) Agribusiness Confidence Index declined to 54 in the second quarter,” said head of AgriBusiness Research at Agbiz Wandile Sihlobo. “With the results still above the neutral 50-point mark, albeit having declined marginally, the agribusiness sector is still optimistic about business conditions in South Africa.” The survey was conducted between June 4 and June 15 and comprised agribusinesses operating in all agricultural sub-sectors throughout the country. Rainfall in water-scarce South Africa has had more of an impact on business confidence than one would believe, with confidence rising and falling with rainfall patterns. “The optimism in this particular subindex was underpinned by prospects of above-normal rainfall in the Western Cape within the next thre

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Johannesburg recycling initiative begins

SOUTH AFRICA (Al Jazeera) - Authorities hope separation of household waste for recycling will help solve landfill crisis in country's largest city. Some waste pickers in Johannesburg have told Eyewitness News, they fear the city's efforts to make recycling compulsory for residents will impact their business. From 1 July, people living in the suburbs, townships or in a complex will be supplied with a recycling bag once a week to dispose of items like paper, glass and cans. But the city has assured the almost 6,000 entrepreneurs who work as waste pickers that the project will in fact make their jobs easier. As early as 4am and waste pickers in Bryanston begin pushing trolley-loads of recyclable items to a truck owned by an independent contractor that pays for recyclable items. Jabulani Mhlongo has been working at the Robinson Deep landfill site in Turffontein for over 22 years. He's worried there will be nothing left to salvage once the recycling project is in full swing. “Our complaints as recyclers are that if government wants to take over the recycling, we’ll go hungry.” Thirty-year-old Maxwell Zungu is also concerned that the city's new project will have a massive impact on his livelihood. Waste pickers can earn up to R13,000 a month. But Pikitup's general manager, Mzukisi Tshem, has assured waste pickers that their work will not become redundant.

A struggling national airline is renting out its pilots and cabin crew

SOUTH AFRICA (Quartz Africa) - Pilots and cabin crew from South African Airways will be loaned to other airlines, as the debt-ridden national carrier tries to save itself. The airline’s CEO Vuyani Jarana told news agency AFP this week that it was part of his cost-cutting scheme to save South African Airways. Jarana hopes that South Africa’s underused pilots can take advantage of the global pilot shortage, instead of having to lay off staff. A South African pilot who has since been contracted out to Japan Air was offered a lucrative salary in US dollars and a business class flight home every three weeks. The South African Airlines pilots association, however, said it was “dismayed” that its members would have to be contracted to airlines like Emirates, Turkish Airlines and Cathay Pacific “as a result of extremely poor fiscal control and mismanagement.” “It is unsettling to talk about job losses in a country that is battling high levels of unemployment. We would like to see a sustainable SAA,” said Werner Human, COO of the trade union Solidarity. The union has approached the courts to compel the government to place SAA under business rescue, which could force the company to restructure and undertake any other means to save it from its current financial distress. The union also wants parliament to stop bailing SAA out. South Africa’s labor laws are often seen as advantaging workers, but has sided with South African Airways in previous retrenchmen

South Africa hopes Barberton mountains will be added to list of UN World Heritage Sites

SOUTH AFRICA (Times Live) - South Africa hopes the Barberton mountains will be added to the global list of UN World Heritage Sites this weekend. The 42nd session of the World Heritage Committee will decide on 31 applications for sites to be given heritage status on Friday and Saturday. The annual conference of the committee is being held in Bahrain‚ where Minister of Arts and Culture Nathi Mthethwa is representing South Africa. There are 1‚037 World Heritage sites around the world and South Africa already has nine‚ including Robben Island‚ the Cape Floral Kingdom (fynbos) and the Cradle of Humankind. Sites that are deemed World Heritage Sites are recognised as having global historical or environmental significance‚ may signify a phenomenal achievement of humanity‚ or reveal ancient civilisations. The recognition allows the country to access funds for conservation from the World Heritage Fund and may increase tourism to the area. The mountains in Mpumalanga‚ also known as the Makhonjwa Mountains‚ are thought to be one of the oldest sites on Earth‚ with its volcanic rocks estimated to be between 3.2 and 3.6 billion years old. The mountains are also believed to contain the oldest signs of life‚ with a micro fossil of bacteria discovered there that is estimated to be 3.1 billion years old. A committee of people from 21 countries will this weekend vote on which sites make the cut. To be accepted onto the list‚ a country must meet stri

South Africa’s average salary versus the world

SOUTH AFRICA (businesstech.co.za) - Stats SA this week reported that the average monthly salary for South Africans has declined, while other data shows that the average take-home pay has dropped dramatically. According to Stats SA, average monthly earnings paid to employees in the formal non-agricultural sector decreased from R20,060 in November 2017 to R19,858 in February 2018 – though this was up 5% year on year from R18,913 in February 2017. Expressed as an annual salary, this equates to R238,300 a year. A separate release from BankservAfrica showed that the average take-home salary was significantly lower at R13,621 a month – or R163,450 a year. It must be noted that South Africa’s average salary data is skewed by large levels of inequality, and excludes the large informal sector. South Africa also has high levels of unemployment, which is not factored into the bigger picture here. How SA compares versus the rest of the world Sticking with how South Africa’s formal sector is remunerated compared to the world, we can look at the OECD, which publishes data on average annual salaries across the partner regions. While South Africa is not included in the data set, we are able to use conversion data from IMF to see how our average salaries would fit in. The OECD uses gross salary numbers as at the end of 2017, so the data from Stats SA for February 2018 is the closest comparison we have. The OECD figures are also reported in ‘international doll

South Africa’s blood supply crisis averted

Durban (Daily News iol.co.za) - Following a massive public drive over the past two weeks the South African National Blood Service (SANBS) said the public had responded en mass, overturning the dire low supply of blood. However KwaZulu-Natal remained in the red with just a 2.5 days supply in the bag, said SANBS spokesman Ivor Hobbs. “Things are looking good at the moment. We recently commemorated World Blood Donor Day (June 14) which coincided with the #MissingType campaign (June 11 to 18), which asked organisations to remove the letters A, B and O (symbolising the “missing” blood types with the same letters) from their logos for a week, and for South Africans to temporarily delete the As, Bs and Os from their social media handles - all to raise awareness of the need for new blood donors. The campaigns were successful resulting in all blood stocks being recovered. At one point we even reached over five days supply,” he said. As of Tuesday, the national supply was at just over three days. “In KZN supplies are still very low sitting at 2.5 days, but we do distribute from other centres in the province,” said Hobbs. However he said while they celebrate the gains of the last two weeks, they encouraged more to become donors. “We need 3 300 units of blood a day to meet needs. So while we thank each and every person who responded to our call, at the same time we encourage more people to donate blood,” said Hobbs. Out of South Africa’s population of

Four people affected by Rift Valley fever in South Africa

SOUTH AFRICA (Times Live) - A fever-causing virus transmitted by mosquitoes‚ especially in wet seasons‚ has been confirmed in four people following an isolated outbreak in sheep on a farm in the Jacobsdal area of the Free State‚ bordering the Northern Cape. The National Institute for Communicable Diseases identified the Rift Valley Fever (RVF) outbreak in May after a total of 250 sheep deaths and abortions on the farm were documented. Ten residents and workers who had come into contact with the affected sheep through slaughtering or handling of animal tissues were monitored by the provincial department of health and the NICD. “Four individuals were retrospectively confirmed to have been infected with RVF virus; four individuals were shown to have probably been infected with RVFV‚ pending further tests on follow-up blood samples for confirmation; two individuals were not infected with RVFV despite handling potentially contaminated tissues‚” the NICD said this week. Six of the eight people had experienced mild symptoms of fever‚ muscle pain or headache in the preceding month. None developed a severe disease that necessitated hospitalisation. The NICD noted that mosquitoes collected on the affected farm tested negative for the RVF virus‚ “suggesting that active transmission had diminished due to decreased mosquito populations”. A widespread RVF epidemic occurred in South Africa in 2010-2011‚ with more than 14‚000 animal cases recorded

Bond Flight From South Africa Spurs Warning

SOUTH AFRICA (Bloomberg) - Foreign investors’ holdings of South African bonds have dropped to the lowest level in more than a year following a record sell-off since the beginning of May, and a senior Treasury official says there could be worse to come. Non-residents held 38.9 percent of government debt as of June 22, down from as high as 42.8 percent in March, according to Bloomberg’s calculations based on National Treasury data through April and Johannesburg Stock Exchange data for May and June.

Capital Flight

Foreigners have reduced their holdings of South African debt

Foreigners piled into South African debt in the first quarter on optimism new President Cyril Ramaphosa would undo the economic havoc wreaked by his predecessor, Jacob Zuma. But the flows started dwindling in April before turning into a flood of sales, reaching a net 56.5 billion rand ($4.2 billion) since the beginning of May, according to JSE data. The outflows occurred against the backdrop of a broad sell-off in emerging-market assets sparked by a stronger dollar and rising U.S. rates, which weakened the case for high-yielding investments. They’re a concern because South Africa depends on portfolio inflows to finance its current-account deficit, w

South Africa cannot afford the proposed NHI

SOUTH AFRICA (The Citizen) - The Davis tax committee warned in 2017 that an NHI would not be sustainable without much faster growth, which is unlikely to happen. The introduction of National Health Insurance (NHI) was likely to cost South Africa more than R600 billion at its start in 2026, with costs continuing to escalate thereafter, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). Reacting to the plans by Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi to introduce the NHI, SAIRR head of policy research Anthea Jeffrey cautioned government on the “dire implications” of introducing a medical health scheme South Africa could not afford. “No proper costing has ever been done on the NHI. The projected R256 billion in the 2025 figure provided in the 2017 white paper is a 2010 figure, which is badly outdated and entirely unrealistic. “South Africa cannot afford it, especially now that growth is so low and public debt so high. In addition, the tax increases which were earlier mooted to fund it – a 1% point in the VAT rate, or a 4 percentage point increase in the top marginal rate of personal income tax – have already both been introduced, simply to plug the holes in the government’s revenues. “The country has a very small and already overburdened tax base. “In December 2017, the Davis tax committee, which had been charged with investigating the funding of the NHI, warned that it would not be sustainable without much faster growth. Such growth i

South Africa Plans Sweeping Changes to Health-Care System

SOUTH AFRICA (Bloomberg) - South Africa’s health-care system may face a major overhaul as the government moves ahead with plans to implement mandatory national insurance and reduce the cost of private care. The revamp is part of an effort to broaden access to treatment in a country where more than 80 percent of the population lacks private insurance. This leaves many people relying on a public system with too few doctors and dilapidated hospitals and clinics. Of the 8.7 percent of South Africa’s gross domestic product spent on health care, less than half goes to state facilities, government data show. “We need a massive reorganization of the public health-care system,” Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi told reporters in the capital, Pretoria, on Thursday. “What we are designing here, no-one has done in the world.” A draft law published in the government gazette proposes setting up a national health-insurance fund that would buy services from accredited public and private facilities, which would then provide care for registered members. While the law is largely silent on how the system will be funded, Motsoaledi said taxpayer contributions would be compulsory. Pricing Panel A committee answering to the NHI fund board and the health minister would determine the prices the facilities could charge on an annual basis, while another advisory panel would decide what services should be offered. The government plans to fully implement the system by 2026. “I

Etiket: Briquette

SOUTH AFRICA (The Citizen) - Rainfall has had a more than expected impact on business confidence, while the land issue was a big disruptor to confidence.

Capital Flight