BusinessLIVE - For Your Ear

Mauritius tourism —first Covid-19, now a toxic oil spill

Nairobi — Tourist operators in Mauritius fear that an oil spill from a Japanese ship will further damage their businesses, already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, and could cost jobs if their pristine beaches are spoiled. Tourism generated 63-billion rupees ($1.6bn) for the economy last year. In May, the central…

12 Aug 2020 12PM 2 min

A good week for Brad Binder

A good week You don’t need to be a petrolhead to enjoy the news that Potchefstroom-born Brad Binder became the first SA rider to win a MotoGP race after taking gold at the Czech Grand Prix this weekend — and the first novice to win since 2013. Heaven knows, South…

12 Aug 2020 11AM 1 min

Total brings rig to drill fresh prospect at Mossel Bay gas find

Total’s oil and gas rig has arrived in Cape Town in preparation to expand on the petroleum giant’s significant discovery off the coast of Mossel Bay. The rig, known as the DeepSea Stavanger, was built in Norway and commissioned by Total and its partners to drill the Luiperd prospect in…

12 Aug 2020 11AM 2 min

ANDILE NTINGI: A potted history of Transkei’s chiefs and kings

A few days after Bhaca king Madzikane II Thandisizwe Diko was linked to irregular procurement of Covid-19 personal protective equipment (PPE) by the Gauteng provincial government, a friend sent me a text asking how many kings there are in the former Transkei homeland. As a Xhosa-speaking South African, I am…

12 Aug 2020 11AM 5 min

UK economy shrinks by record 20.4% in second quarter

London — Britain’s economy shrank by a record 20.4% in the second quarter when the coronavirus lockdown was tightest, the most severe contraction reported by any major economy so far, with a wave of job losses set to hit later in 2020. The scale of the economic hit may also…

12 Aug 2020 11AM 4 min

Teens who vape more likely to have shown Covid-19 symptoms

Bengaluru — Vaping may be associated with a five to seven times increased risk of Covid-19 among US teenagers and young adults, a study published on Tuesday suggests. Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine analysed nationally representative survey data collected in May from 4,351 participants aged 13—24 years…

12 Aug 2020 10AM 1 min

Why state stimulus measures are like (bad) karma

Governments around the world have embarked on the greatest financial experiment of all time. That experiment has been labelled by the media as “stimulus” and involves a mixture of government aid, tax relief, unemployment payments and central bank money manipulation on the grandest scale imaginable. We’re tripping over the financial…

12 Aug 2020 10AM 6 min

Demand for diamonds plummets but bright spot is affluent investors

Johannesburg/Mumbai — As the coronavirus pandemic upended the global diamond industry, shuttering mines from Lesotho to Canada and disrupting supply chains, Rajen Patel swapped diamond polishing for peanut farming. Patel, who worked for a decade in India’s Surat where about 80% of the world’s diamonds are polished, joined the exodus…

12 Aug 2020 10AM 5 min

Calls for SA intervention as Isis gathers pace in Mozambique

With its minority Islamic State (IS) influence, the rising home-grown insurgency in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado — gateway to exploratory offshore gas-fields — is raising eyebrows at Southern African Development Community (Sadc) level.On July 29, the journal Africa Intelligence reported that SA’s Brig-Gen Xolani Mankayi had ordered…

12 Aug 2020 10AM 4 min

Good returns outweigh high risk in African private equity investment

African private equity investment has always been riskier than investment in other regions, but for those willing to invest long term and sustainably, the region provides opportunities that will outlast current economic shocks. With much dry powder around for private equity transactions (almost $2.5-trillion was waiting to be deployed globally,…

12 Aug 2020 9AM 5 min

Beneficiaries show Sukuma Fund the good in small things

Hope can be writ small as much as it can be writ large. This, at least, is the lesson we at the Sukuma Fund have learnt in recent months as we have attempted to assist the many thousands of entrepreneurs who have turned to us to fund them. Our mission…

12 Aug 2020 9AM 4 min

Kamala Harris: A giant leap for humankind

Half a century after the US landed men on the moon, a black woman is the nominee for vice-president, thus standing on the threshold of becoming president. As a measure of human progress, the first is to physics what the second is to social equality. Yet each is alike in…

12 Aug 2020 8AM 2 min

‘Digital capture’ looms large in SA

The word "capture" has become almost as popular in SA as the suffix "-gate" is in the US. It’s something I’m proud of, as our regular, almost unconscious, capitulation to the memes and tropes of American cultural imperialism is deeply annoying, if not downright pathetic. Of course, the whole world…

12 Aug 2020 8AM 8 min

UCT’s Graduate School of Business has a new director

The University of Cape Town has appointed an American academic, Catherine Duggan, as director of its Graduate School of Business (GSB). She will officially take over on September 1. GSB, which is rated one of the world’s top business schools, has been without a director since mid-2018 when Mills Soko…

12 Aug 2020 8AM 1 min

STEVEN KUO: It’s not just US vs China — the EU is watching

Two of the world’s largest economies have been at loggerheads in 2020, and neither side will step back. When the US closed the Chinese consulate in Houston after accusing Beijing of espionage, the predictable retaliation came with the shutting of the US consulate in Chengdu. Last week, Donald Trump put…

12 Aug 2020 8AM 3 min

Reserve Bank’s Prudential Authority to appeal VBS ruling

The SA Reserve Bank’s Prudential Authority (PA) said on Wednesday that it will appeal a judgment setting aside findings that advocate Terry Motau made against ANC politician Danny Msiza in his explosive report about the wide-scale looting that collapsed VBS Mutual Bank. The PA, which is responsible for regulating banks,…

12 Aug 2020 8AM 1 min

Urban design needs reworking in US

Washington — Justin Garrett Moore and his partner were walking across a privately controlled public plaza in New York when they were suddenly confronted by security guards asking about their presence. The night-time confrontation near Penn Station was quickly resolved, but Moore, a Black man in his forties, was outraged…

12 Aug 2020 8AM 7 min

Oil rises as US stocks fall building hopes of fuel-demand uptick

London — Oil prices rose on Wednesday after an industry report showed US crude inventories fell last week, more than analysts had expected, bolstering hopes that fuel demand in the world’s biggest economy can weather the coronavirus pandemic. Brent crude was up 67c, or 1.5%, at $45.17 a barrel by…

12 Aug 2020 7AM 2 min

Donald Trump is likely to overpromise and underdeliver on tax cuts

Washington — President Donald Trump is tapping his presidential authority to make tax changes that Congress is refusing to do, but his limited power means he could end up overpromising and underdelivering on his pledge to slash IRS bills. Trump has deferred hundreds of billions of dollars worth of payroll…

12 Aug 2020 7AM 4 min

People trust the state less than doctors, which is where smoking comes in

A healthy recovery from Covid-19 in SA will require more effective and scientifically informed action from the government and doctors. Unfortunately, public trust in the former is less than robust. Our recent survey in July of more than 1,000 adult South Africans shows that respondents have substantially higher trust in…

12 Aug 2020 7AM 5 min