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BusinessLIVE - For Your Ear

Listen to the latest BusinessLIVE articles from the news desk of Business Day, Financial Mail and the Business Times.

This audio is produced directly from the text article.
Daily English South Africa Business News · News
12,931 Episodes
140 – 160

ROB ROSE: Clicks, the EFF, and the failure to think

Clicks CEO Vikesh Ramsunder first saw the advertisement that caused all the trouble last Friday, as it began to attract heat on social media. The contrasting images, created by Unilever’s Tresemmé brand and posted on the Clicks website, was of a white woman’s head with the description “normal hair” next…
8 Sep 2020 6PM 5 min

Former Latvian prime minister Valdis Dombrovskis named as new EU trade chief

Brussels — European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen put former Latvian prime minister Valdis Dombrovskis in charge of the influential trade portfolio in a reshuffle forced by the departure of Irishman Phil Hogan. Von der Leyen also named Mairead McGuinness, a senior member of the European parliament, as the…
8 Sep 2020 5PM 1 min

Republicans unveil slimmed-down stimulus bill

Washington — Senate Republicans introduced a slimmed-down stimulus bill that would restore some of the extra unemployment benefits that expired in July and provide another round of relief for small businesses hit by the Covid-19 crisis. The legislation, which Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted earlier on Tuesday as a…
8 Sep 2020 5PM 2 min

EDITORIAL: Mr President, our stalled economy needs torque, not talk

Long before the grim outcome was confirmed, it was clear the second-quarter GDP number was going to be as no other. And it was no surprise that President Cyril Ramaphosa issued a lengthy statement in response ( In his short time in office, statements lamenting SA’s dismal economic performance have…
8 Sep 2020 4PM 3 min

Zimbabwe to resume international flights from October

Harare — Zimbabwe will resume domestic flights from Thursday and international flights in October in an effort to boost tourism, but travellers will be required to have a certificate clearing them of Covid-19, the government said. The country suspended flights and shut its borders in March as it sought to…
8 Sep 2020 3PM 1 min

MNINAWA NTLOKO: Middendorp lost his rag even before Amakhosi dropped the cup

A colleague recently received a stinging rebuke from fiery Kaizer Chiefs coach Ernst Middendorp that left him simultaneously bemused and amused. The combustible German mentor was apparently unimpressed with my colleague’s stinging examination of his at times perplexing approach to the game during the business end of the season. The…
8 Sep 2020 2PM 4 min

One size does not fit all in Africa’s Covid-19 response

The right to life is fundamental; an imprescriptible right inherent to all human beings. The Equity and Human Rights Commission states that governments should take appropriate measures to safeguard life by “taking steps to protect you if your life is at risk”. With public healthcare in Africa suffering chronic shortages…
8 Sep 2020 12PM 7 min

LETTER: Why the anti-DA rhetoric?

Business Day has by far the finest group of business writers and reporters in SA. Their opinion pieces and reports are normally of a very high standard. But why the regular stream of anti-DA rhetoric? SA is a country where the governing party has created nothing of value, and has…
8 Sep 2020 11AM 1 min

LETTER: SOEs have to change their models to survive

The continued bailout of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is unsustainable. There is a great need to develop comprehensive strategies that will enable their continued survival. This is a changing world. We probably need to rationalise and decommission some of those entities that are no longer necessary to drive government strategy. It…
8 Sep 2020 11AM 1 min

Salga calls for tax amendments to penalise individuals owing municipalities

SA’s local government association is proposing that legislation be amended to allow Sars to divert tax refunds from individuals who owe municipalities money to help pay for the outstanding debt municipalities have been struggling to recover. “We can improve municipal revenue collection instruments through measures such as amending the Tax…
8 Sep 2020 11AM 4 min

LETTER: Superrich bosses the fault of too little capitalism

The fact that we have overpaid executives is not due to too much capitalism, but to too little. Capitalism has become a term too easily abused by anyone looking for a quick fix or an excuse. There was a time when businesses were managed by their owners. There was a…
8 Sep 2020 11AM 1 min

LETTER: Transit route gives Ethiopian Airlines advantage

There appears to be one major error in John Fairwell’s letter on SAA (SAA plays into Ethiopian Airlines’ hands (, September 6). He says Ethiopian Airlines “operates in a regulated market in the absence of any competition, similar to the SA market before 1991". In fact, Ethiopian Airlines only operates…
8 Sep 2020 11AM 2 min

LETTER: Old boys’ club behind excessive executive pay

I hope Nathan Cheiman's letter on CEO pay was written tongue-in-cheek (Give CEOs their due (, September 2). If not, it perfectly reflects what is wrong with the attitude of company directors in SA and elsewhere. As I understand the matter, directors are appointed by the shareholders, and the “old…
8 Sep 2020 11AM 1 min

Cyril Ramaphosa urges South Africans to help rebuild the economy

The significant drop in the country’s GDP is an anomaly due to the Covid-19 lockdown, but it should spur South Africans on to do all they can to help rebuild the economy, President Cyril Ramaphosa said. This was after Stats SA revealed on Tuesday that the economy shrank at an…
8 Sep 2020 10AM 2 min

LETTER: Mistaken projections led to drastic lockdown policies

It is not clear to me what substantial points were being made in the article by some of SA’s most eminent epidemiological modellers (“Uncertainty governs Covid-19 projections, so multidisciplinary research is vital (../2020-09-03-uncertainty-governs-covid-19-projections-so-multidisciplinary-research-is-vital/)”, September 3). They were replying to Prof Graham Barr’s earlier article (“Government shunned proper statistical tools to…
8 Sep 2020 10AM 2 min

Ignorance and the perception of negative risk has Africa paying a high premium

Abuja — Macky Sall had a bone to pick with creditors. Sitting before the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), investors and diplomats during a conference on African debt in December, the Senegalese president complained that Western prejudice keeps borrowing costs unfairly high on his continent. “This negative-risk perception…
8 Sep 2020 10AM 8 min

End of impasse over Polihali Dam construction bodes well for Gauteng

The good news was hidden in the jobs and tenders section of last week’s Lesotho Times. That’s where the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA) announced the cancellation of prequalification for the construction of the Polihali Dam and transfer tunnel because it did not address “lenders’ requirements”. It will now go…
8 Sep 2020 9AM 4 min

When will Wall Street bosses order workers back to the office?

New York — Up and down the new virtual Wall Street, the question has started to creep in: when will the bosses order us back to our real offices? Almost six months after the coronavirus pandemic emptied towers and trading floors in New York and beyond, JPMorgan Chase executives have…
8 Sep 2020 9AM 6 min
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