Pretoria News 2022-06-13

LANSERIA International Airport was likely to scale down on some of its commercial activities until such time it found another operator able to fill this gap, the privately-owned airport chief executive Rampa Rammopo said on Friday. Rammopo in an interview said Comair, through kulula.com, contributed significantly to their business. Although Lanseria International Airport had anticipated a slow recovery of Comair, which operates kulula.com, in its strategic business plan, due to the myriad of operational challenges the business encountered since Covid-19, they had never anticipated a scenario where Comair would be liquidated, he said. At a time when the aviation industry was slowly, but surely showing some signs of recovery from the devastation of the Covid-19 buoyed by the build-up of confidence from the travelling public, the liquidation of…

SOUTH Africa’s newest airliner Lift would be expediting its growth plans to more than double its current aircraft fleet as well as expand its route network, Lift Airline co-founder and chief executive Jonathan Ayache, said on Friday. Lift makes use of 4th Generation Airbus A320 Aircraft of which it owns three. Lift said its aim was to start the roll-out of additional aircraft over the next month. “Our plans for expanding our fleet and route network are being expedited following Comair’s exit and as part of this we will be looking to recruit new staff and absorb as many of those impacted,” Ayache said. “We will do everything we can to assist those passengers impacted (Comair’s liquidation) as we look at adding additional flights. We have already added a…

The funding of increased manufacturing capacity will more than double the group’s employment opportunities THE Foschini Group continues to surprise the market and has earmarked R2.1 billion to establish new stores and double its manufacturing capability Despite this its shares tumbled nearly 4 percent to R133.24 at the market close on Friday, as the bourse took strain with a global sell-off sparked by recession fears. However, the counter is down 13.4 percent over the past 12 months. TFG said it had committed more than R600 million towards opening in excess of 350 new stores. The investment in increased manu- facturing capacity will more than double employment opportunities in the group’s own factories and strategic non-owned cut-make-trim factories from 5 200 in 2022 to 11 200…

DIGITAL start-up Tymebank is sustaining the acquisition of about 130 000 customers a month and is making headway on the number of customers with active accounts, which it admits is challenging in the tough economy. Tymebank’s parent, African Rainbow Capital Investments (ARC), in an update for the first three months of 2022, said that internationally, TymeBank’s subsidiary, Tyme Global, based in Singapore, will launch a digital bank called GOtyme in the Philippines in October, with local partners the Gokongwei family. An update by JSE-listed ARC Investments provides a window into the progress of the relatively new start-up online Tymebank, which otherwise would not have to make its details public. Last month, Tymebank assigned its chief executive Tauriq Keraan to a new international executive role and had contracted Coenraad…

AS EXPECTED, the budget vote delivered by President Cyril Ramaphosa in parliament on Thursday was overshadowed by the revelations of the $4 million that was allegedly stolen at the president’s Phala Phala farm in Limpopo, the Citizen reported last week. Following his speech, opposition parties used the time to debate his budget speech to ask Ramaphosa to “come clean” about the events surrounding the large sum of money he kept on his Phala Phala farm and why he had not reported the theft to the police. This all became public after the former spy boss Arthur Fraser asked the police to investigate Ramaphosa, Presidential Protection Unit Head Major General Wally Rhoode and members of crime intelligence for money laundering, acting in contravention of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act…

A study by the American Society for Nutrition outlines the case for and against using the concept of ultra-processed foods to help inform dietary guidelines beyond conventional food classification systems. The authors, Carlos A Monteiro, MD, PhD, of the University of Sao Paulo in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Arne Astrup, MD, PhD, of Novo Nordisk Foundation in Hellerup, Denmark, will discuss the issue in a live virtual debate on June 14 during the Nutrition 2022 Live Online. The debate centres around NOVA, a system developed by Monteiro and colleagues, that classifies foods by their degree of industrial processing, ranging from unprocessed or minimally processed to ultra-processed. NOVA defines ultra-processed foods as those made using sequences of processes that extract substances from foods and alter them with chemicals or additives in…