Star 2023-10-19

EOH, THE SOUTH African IT services provider that is shaking off corruption and other legacy issues from previous years, yesterday reported a narrower loss for the full year to July 31 as it also announced the resignation of its CEO and chief financial officer (CFO). The JSE-listed company and its former executives in 2019 came into the spotlight after having benefited from participation in an illegally awarded contract worth up to R1.2 billion. The company is currently also battling to settle a payee dispute with the South African Revenue Service (Sars) and says it is close to striking a settlement with the liquidator of Mehleketo. EOH’s financial woes have been multi-pronged; it also almost got into trouble with its banks as it carried as much as R4 billion…

THE NATIONAL Consumer Tribunal has slapped Vodacom with a R1-million administrative fine for contravening the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) as regards fixed-term contracts and their conduct was declared unconscionable and prohibited. The National Consumer Commission (NCC) said yesterday in a statement that it welcomed the decision by the tribunal after it found that Vodacom’s conduct was unconscion- able by imposing terms and conditions that negated the consumers’ right to cancel their fixed-term contracts. Thezi Mabuza, the acting national consumer commissioner, said: “The commission welcomes this judgment as we believe that it is going to deter other suppliers/operators from engaging in the same conduct. “We further see this as a victory for South African consumers who for the longest period were subjected to contracts that were in favour of the supplier.”…

SOUTH African Revenue Service (Sars) Commissioner Edward Kieswetter told Parliament that more stringent systems needed to be put in place to stop the defrauding of customers seeking refunds as criminals were taking advantage of the same systems that gave the entity an edge in processing refunds. Briefing the Standing Committee on Finance on Sars’ financial report for the 2022/23 year yesterday, Kieswetter said the organisation had been able to control R61 billion in refunds, which could have been lost had systems not been tighter. He said criminals were always trying to gather personal details of clients for prospective refunds and were able to gather personal information to pretend they had been mandated by Sars. “The introduction of powerful capabilities to enable us to conduct business have unfortunately given criminal…

Consumers face rapidly rising prices on the shelves in the final months of this year siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za Festive shopping could become a bit costly as consumers in South Africa face rapidly rising prices on the shelves in the final months of this year after inflation quickened for the second month in a row in September, pushed by rising fuel and food prices. Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) yesterday said the annual headline inflation rate accelerated to 5.4% in September, up from 4.8% in August, bringing the rate to the same level as June this year. This was slightly above market forecasts of 5.3% but remained comfortably within the 3%-6% target band of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB). StatsSA said the main upward pressure came from prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages,…

PICK N PAY chairperson Gareth Ackerman said yesterday that the six months from March to August were among the most difficult South African consumers have had to endure in the recent past. Speaking at the presentation of the company’s results for the first time after his father and Pick n Pay founder Raymond Ackerman died last month, Ackerman said load shedding also reached its worst level since 2008. He said this had a disproportionately negative impact on the retail industry. “Food inflation topped 14% in March, its highest level in 14 years, and the price of fuel has risen by about 20% so far this year. Interest rates also reached their highest point since 2009, thanks to 10 successive increases since the end of 2021. “All…

PICK N PAY’S share price dropped by nearly 15% following it reporting an interim loss, which its new CEO Sean Summers labelled as “disappointing” due to elevated load-shedding costs and an increased competitive intensity. The shares closed 12.45% lower at R25.95 on the JSE yesterday, and have trended 49.37% lower in the past year. In its trading profit for the 26-week period, the retailer reported a 97.5% loss, which was R31.8 million compared with R1.3 billion in the comparable 2022 period. The retailer spent just under R400m on diesel, which added to expense growth, and limited its ability to respond to strong competitor promotional activity. The group reported a headline loss per share of 129.20 cents, which decreased from the 88.76c reported last year. “Owing…