JOHANNESBURG – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a package of reforms on Thursday which he said would create 275,000 more jobs a year, in a bid to bring down sky-high unemployment and improve his own track record on the economy. Ramaphosa said the measures unveiled today included agreements by top public and private firms […]

JOHANNESBURG – Saudi Arabia is in talks with South Africa’s major arms manufacturers and is considering taking an equity stake in the struggling state-owned defence firm Denel, the head of the Saudi state defence company told Reuters. Saudi Arabian Military Industries’ (SAMI) chief executive Andreas Schwer said he expected to conclude the first partnership deals […]

Cape Town has been voted the top opportunity city in Africa by the World Bank. The bank made its announcement in its “Doing Business in South Africa” report. According to Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille, Cape Town’s high ranking for providing electricity elevates it to the top 25 % of worldwide city economies. Apparently […]

JOHANNESBURG – South Africa’s Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene is due to give evidence on Wednesday at an inquiry into state capture, testimony that could reveal new details about the role of former president Jacob Zuma and his friends, the Guptas. Nene is a pivotal figure in a probe into the three Indian-born Gupta brothers, who […]

JOHANNESBURG – South African energy regulator NERSA on Tuesday gave power utility Eskom the go-head to recover R32.69 billion ($2.25 billion) of costs incurred over the past three years through higher tariffs over a four-year period from 2019 to 2023. Eskom had been hoping to recover the costs in three years. Cash-strapped Eskom, which is […]

WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Tesla Inc and Elon Musk have agreed to pay a $20 million fine each to financial regulators, and the South African born and raised billionaire will step down as the company’s chairman… but remain as chief executive, under a settlement that caps a tumultuous two months for the carmaker. The securities […]

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused the South African expat – and Tesla Inc Chief Executive – Elon Musk on Thursday of fraud, and sought to remove him from his role in charge of the electric car company, saying he made a series of “false and misleading” tweets about […]

The South African government has encouraged all SA travellers to be alert and sensitive to possible security challenges in areas they are working in or visiting outside of South Africa. The announcement came following the confirmation by the government that a South African national has been kidnapped in Burkina Faso. “Government, through the South African […]

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s Old Mutual Ltd said on Wednesday its shareholders will get R50 billion ($3.50 billion) from the spin-off of a majority of its stake in Nedbank. Old Mutual holds 52 percent of Nedbank and after the spinoff will hold around 19.9 percent, it said in a statement. (Reporting by Nqobile Dludla, […]

A life-size statue of Nelson Mandela has been unveiled at the United Nation’s (UN’s) headquarters in New York, USA. The statue of South Africa’s founding father is intended to immortalise Madiba’s values and serve as a reminder forever of everything SA’s exceptional statesman stood for. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa – who is in New […]

PRETORIA (Reuters) – South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a multi-billion-dollar stimulus programme on Friday, earmarking funds for job creation and infrastructure development as he seeks to make good on a pledge to revive the country’s ailing economy. Speaking a day after the central bank disappointed some in his ruling African National Congress (ANC) party […]

PRETORIA – South Africa’s central bank left its benchmark repo rate on hold at 6.5 percent on Thursday, in a tight call, with the bank’s governor striking a more hawkish note than at the last rate meeting in July. The rate decision by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) was closely watched after emerging market […]

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s highest court on Tuesday allowed the private use of marijuana, upholding a lower court’s ruling that found the criminalization of cannabis was unconstitutional. Activists who include members of the Rastafarian movement and traditional healers greeted the ruling with loud applause. They have held marches over the years to demand that […]

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa pledged on Monday there would be no mass layoffs of public sector workers as the South African government considers various ways to pull the economy out of a recession that has rattled the rand and investor confidence. The economy slipped into recession in the second quarter for […]

An economic stimulus package for South Africa, adopted by Cabinet, is set to spark economic activity and boost the country’s growth, according to the country’s president. President Cyril Ramaphosa shared with South Africa’s business and labour leaders an outline of the economic stimulus package during a consultative meeting on Friday. The meeting in Pretoria was […]

Farmworkers on the Nieuwe Sion farm in the Western Cape were recently delighted when the British owners of the farm – David and Elaine Potter – handed over not only the keys, but the title deeds too, to an awesome village containing 22 homes for them. The state-of-the-art village cost R30-million to create. It includes […]

In delivering today’s Crime Statistics for the 2017/2018 financial year, Police Minister Bheki Cele called the rate of murder “scary”. Fifty-seven people are murdered in South Africa every day, a statistic – he says – that requires more stringent action by the police. Sounding despondent, he said the stats are “nothing to write home about, […]

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene said on Monday that there is a significant downside risk to revenue collection due to a recession and problems in tax collection by the revenue service. “There is now additional downside risk to the tax revenue projected at the beginning of the year because of the […]

Tesla shares tumbled more than 6% to $263.24 on Friday after the electric car company’s CEO, South African expat Elon Musk, smoked marijuana on a webcast. (Watch below.) He also wielded a sword, and his company announced its recently-appointed accounting chief had resigned because of “discomfort” with the attention on Tesla, and the pace of […]

CAPE TOWN – South Africa’s plans to change the constitution to allow the expropriation of land without compensation could hit property prices and trigger a banking crisis, the chief executive of Nedbank warned parliament on Friday. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Aug. 1 that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) planned to change the constitution […]

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa authorised a new investigation into a water ministry contract with German software firm SAP on Thursday, citing allegations that public money was spent unlawfully. The investigation by South Africa’s Special Investigating Unit (SIU) comes after the country’s anti-graft agency said in March it was conducting its own […]

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s slide into recession is a “transitional issue” from which the economy will soon recover, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in comments published on Thursday, repeating promises for a stimulus package to reignite growth. Ramaphosa has staked his reputation on reviving the economy after a decade of stagnation under his predecessor, scandal-plagued […]

SASOLBURG, South Africa (Reuters) – About 100 workers from South Africa’s mainly white Solidarity union staged a brief protest outside Sasol’s chemicals plant in Sasolburg on Wednesday over a share scheme offered exclusively to black staff. Solidarity union leaders, who say the scheme is discriminatory because it excludes white workers, handed over a memorandum criticising […]

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – Steinhoff’s former chief executive Markus Jooste told a parliamentary inquiry today that his main mistake during his tenure, as the retailer battled an accounting scandal, was agreeing to a joint venture with Austrian businessman Andreas Seifert. Rather than take any responsibility for the global furniture company’s share price collapse himself, Jooste […]

The African National Congress says the latest figures from Statistics SA represent an urgent call to action for all South Africans to rally behind a common vision of growing the economy and job creation. The figures show that the South African economy moved back into a technical recession with a negative growth rate of (-0.7%) […]