From a tent meeting in Emalahleni (Witbank) to a school hall in eThekwini (Durban); from a synagogue in Parktown to a church funeral in Port Elizabeth, I find a strain of concern, an urgency that was not there before. Our people are worried. They are black and white, middle class and struggling. It is a […]

Cees Bruggemans, Consulting Economist at Bruggemans & Associates, sees hope and a brighter future for South Africa… BREAK IN THE CLOUDS by Cees Bruggemans It must be difficult to believe, with Eskom an ever bigger albatross around our necks, an imploding post office, and so from one scandal to the next. But there are breaks […]

Time to move from diagnosis to prescription… As an epidemiologist who has done work in understanding the ecosocial determinants of health and education, I surely do understand the ills of apartheid. I also understand that its effects will not disappear in one generation. Yes, apartheid was bad and its effect will be transgenerational (to think […]

Scatzy.com – the new VoD (video on demand) platform for indigenous movies from South Africa, Australia and New Zealand – launches their service today, 2 April, with the release of ‘Strikdas’ on the same day the film will be available in movie theaters in South Africa. This means that South Africans anywhere in the world will be […]

From 6 April, anyone on a South African passport going to live in the UK for longer than six months will need to pay a ‘health surcharge’ in order to gain access to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). The new ruling – announced this month by the British Home Office – will affect all temporary, non-European […]

The South African Post Office (SAPO) has responded to the photos that have been doing the rounds on social media depicting so-called chaos at the PO’s International Mailing Hub at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. The photos by Facebook user Werner Leonard (which have since been removed) sparked rumours of “mayhem” at the PO’s international […]

The thing with solar-powered cars is that you can only drive them during the day. It’s a problem solved by Nigerian student Segun Oyeyiola, who added a wind turbine to his Beetle. Now he can drive all night, too. It cost the Nigerian man more than R70 000 to fight his personal battle against global warming […]

by Ryk van Niekerk Constitutional democracy will survive the threat of an ANC-in-crisis. Moneyweb recently published two controversial opinion contributions from Max du Preez and Magnus Heystek which garnered a swift, emotional and blunt response from the Moneyweb community. Heystek penned the blog “The death of the rainbow nation” in which he points to the […]

by Magnus Heysteck If anyone reading this column still had any lingering hopes that South Africa is not hurtling towards being a failed state, then I’m sure these hopes were finally dashed by what happened in Parliament on the evening of November 13 2014. When the president of a country, according to some reports, starts sending […]

It has always been Richard John Pelwana Maponya’s dream to see Soweto grow its own flourishing economy. Born in Limpopo Province on 24 December 1926, Maponya is a property developer best known for building a business empire despite the restrictions apartheid imposed on black South Africans. He was fiercely determined to see Soweto develop economically. […]

As investors pour into Africa, chasing returns from resources, agriculture and the goods and services demanded by its growing and increasingly wealthy population, the need for good quality information is growing too. However, countries and companies remain opaque and this makes it very difficult for investors to decide where to put their money. That is […]

With President Jacob Zuma signing the new Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act into law, it is clear that the battle over the land is heating up. The latest change to the legislation will, among other things, change the cut-off date for lodging a claim for restitution and change the rules around the appointment, tenure, […]

UPDATE: News out earlier today raised hopes that the five-month strike on the platinum belt would soon be over but, according to Eye Witness News (EWN), the Association of Mineworkers and Contruction Union (AMCU) have rejected the deal and the strike continues … This morning we wrote that Reuters was reporting that the end to […]

South Africa is often lambasted for its labour relations environment and it has become common cause around SA boardrooms that if you want business to hire more people you, paradoxically, have to make it easier to fire them. This is borne out by several studies. The World Economic Forum, for example, placed it in 147th […]

South African Reserve Bank (SARB) governor Gill Marcus says that the solution to South Africa’s current poor economic performance must come from within, and that difficult conditions globally are no longer the main cause for the slowdown at home. In her written speech delivered to the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) in Johannesburg this morning, Marcus acknowledged the […]

South Africa’s benchmark Kagiso purchasing managers index (PMI) fell to 44.3 in May, the lowest it’s been since September 2009. It fell from an already dismal 47.4 in April. When the PMI, which is compiled by the University of Stellenbosch-based Bureau for Economic Research (BER), comes in below 50 it shows that the economy is shrinking […]

Labour unrest, slow growth in developed countries, high levels of youth unemployment and low levels of consumer and business confidence all pose challenges for the South African economy, but the country remains an important regional hub for mining, the automotive sector and financial markets. The latest Africa Economic Outlook report for 2014 paints a picture of […]

Today’s inauguration of President Jacob Zuma, which marks the start of his second and final term as state president, will be attended by around 20 000 people who will feast their eyes and ears on the best pageantry that South Africa has to offer. But amidst all the pomp and ceremony that marks one of the biggest days […]

Finance minister Pravin Gordhan has promised a continued focus on Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) when the African National Congress (ANC) is returned to power after this month’s general elections. The ANC is expected to win a sizeable majority again this year, as it has done in every election since 1994. Even the most optimistic opposition […]