Star 2023-06-27

THE NATIONAL Treasury has come to the defence of local municipalities who have been accused of hiking property rates way above inflation and which had slowed the economies in five metropolitan areas. Last week, the South African Property Owners Association (Sapoa) said municipalities had been charging exorbitant commercial property rates that contravene Treasury guidelines. Sapoa said the increases were not only inflationary, as alluded to by the SA Reserve Bank recently, but also threatened the viability of commercial property tenants who form the bulk of ratepayers in most metropolitan municipalities. According to Sapoa, municipalities have regularly increased rates by more than 10% per annum over the past few years, far more than the annual consumer price index, with water and property rates increasing 140% between 2010 and 2021, almost double…

THE SOUTH African Revenue Service (Sars) said yesterday that it had welcomed the election of its commissioner Edward Kieswetter as chairperson of the World Customs Organization (WCO). The election took place on Saturday, at the organisation’s Council session at the WCO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. The WCO has 185 members, three-quarters of which are developing countries and the Council is its highest decision-making body. The previous and only other time South Africa chaired the WCO Council was between 2001 and2006 under the leadership of the then commissioner, Pravin Gordhan. Kieswetter said: “Leadership is an inordinate responsibility and a rare privilege to assist international efforts to bring matters of customs to the centre of international trade facilitation. This election is ample evidence that the leadership of Sars in matters of dustoms…

Prospect of further rate hikes by central banks, political instability in Russia SOUTH African financial markets kicked off the week as a mixed bag on the back of heightened risks to the global economic outlook, including the prospect of further rate hikes by central banks and political instability in Russia. The JSE All Share index was 0.19% lower around 74 265 index points yesterday, extending last week’s sharp losses to 4.7% over the course of seven days. Market sentiment has been affected by the sudden military tensions that erupted in Russia, resulting in the temporary capture of the city of Rostov-On-Don and the immediate cancellation of public events. Over the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin had to deal with a short-lived mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of…

FIDELITY Services Group has committed to working with law-enforcement agencies investigating a controversial multi-million rand security contract at Eskom, allegedly without a competitive bidding process. Fidelity Group CEO Wahl Bartmann yesterday confirmed the group was awarded a R250 million three-month emergency contract to provide “a comprehensive security solution” at Eskom, consisting of a national deployment to cover Generations and Transmissions facilities. According to Eskom, the placement of the security contract was necessitated by information received by management indicating that there was a potential serious security risk to its operations and assets. The contract was established from the period July 2022 to September 2022 with an estimated budget of R500m, but a total of approximately R250m including VAT was spent for the duration of the contract. It was placed under…

THE UKRAINIAN grain exports deal, which could collapse within weeks, is critical for millions of people in the Horn of Africa, where some are already starving, the UN said yesterday. The Black Sea Grain Initiative aimed at easing the global food crisis is set to expire at the end of July 17 unless Russia agrees to its renewal -- while Moscow remains unhappy about the operation of a parallel agreement. If the export deal collapses, it would “absolutely hit eastern Africa very, very hard,” said Dominique Ferretti, the UN World Food Programme’s senior emergency officer in the region. “There’s a number of countries that depend on Ukraine’s wheat. And with- out it, you would see significantly higher food prices,” he told reporters via video-link from Nairobi. Russia’s full-scale invasion of…

ANGLOGOLD Ashanti said yesterday that it had taken another major step forward in its decarbonisation journey following an agreement by its subsidiary AngloGold Ashanti Australia to build one of the largest renewable energy projects in Australia’s natural resource sector, and to integrate it into the power supply for the Tropicana Gold Mine. In a statement, the company said it had agreed with Pacific Energy to construct and operate 62MW of wind and solar generation capacity at the site, located 330 kilometres east-northeast of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. AngloGold Ashanti said the project was due for completion in early 2025, with on-site construction expected to commence in the second half of this year. Its CEO Alberto Caldron said: “We have a responsibility to proactively identify and address current and future…