Cape Times 2025-10-01

African countries overhaul energy and gas regulations to attract investors, SA remains a laggard Many African countries have overhauled their oil and gas regulatory and policy frameworks to make it easier for international companies to operate, explore and obtain production licenses, but South Africa remains a laggard. This emerged on Monday, during the first day of the African Energy Week conference that was being held in Cape Town, where even the opening dancers were singing "drill, baby, drill", words that only two years ago might have seemed an anathema to energy conferences, because the focus then was on decarbonisation and the renewable energy transition. With renewable energy now seemingly at the tail-end of delegate discussions, Kosmos chief executive Andrew Inglis pointed out that oil and gas resources are key to…

Eskom has made significant progress in reducing load shedding, cutting outages from 84 days to just 17 days in the first eight months of 2025, Eskom Chairman Mteto Nyati said on Tuesday. Nyati spoke during the PSG Think Big webinar, highlighting the utility’s ongoing turnaround efforts. Nyati, who was appointed chairman in 2022 alongside a new board, credited the improvements to a carefully planned and executed recovery strategy. “We’ve done a lot of changes – we supported new management and came up with a two-year generation recovery plan which was approved by the board in March 2025,” he said. “By March 2025, we wanted to be at the energy availability factor of 70%. Today, we are exactly at that. In fact, on many days, we’ve been above 70%.” The turnaround,…

Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau on Tuesday said he remained optimistic about the renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), despite uncertainty around its timing and duration. Agoa provides eligible sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free access to the US market for more than 1 800 products, in addition to the more than 5 000 products that are eligible for duty-free access under the Generalized System of Preferences program. There has been widespread uncertainty about the continuation of the Agoa after US President Donald Trump imposed hefty tariffs on goods imported to the US, including fruits, wine and other commodities from South Africa. South Africa has been trying to push the Trump administration to extend the Agoa for another five years when it expires at the end…

South Africa’s formal sector shed 80 000 jobs in the second quarter of 2025, a 0.8% decline from March, raising renewed concerns about the country’s stubbornly high unemployment levels. Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) reported on Tuesday that total employment fell from 10.59 million in March to 10.51 million in June. The sharpest losses came from community services, trade, manufacturing, construction, transport, and business services. Mining and electricity were the only industries to record gains. Year-on-year, employment dropped by 229 000 jobs, or 2.1%. Full-time employment also contracted by 44 000 jobs during the quarter, driven by losses in community services, business services, manufacturing, construction, trade and transport, while part-time employment fell by 36 000 jobs. Economists said the figures underline South Africa’s persistent jobs crisis. North-West University Business School’s…

Agriculture in South Africa sits at a crossroads. It remains the backbone of rural livelihoods, food security, and exports, yet faces mounting pressures - climate variability, declining soil health, global market volatility, and persistent inequalities in land ownership and productivity. The question we must urgently ask is: what does the future hold, and how can we steer agriculture towards resilience and inclusive growth? As climate pressures continue to escalate and food demand surges, South Africa's agricultural sector stands at a critical juncture. Recent modelling indicates that strategic investments in innovation paired with inclusive policies have the potential to transform farming into a catalyst for economic prosperity. Conversely, without decisive action, the country risks deepening its dependency on external resources, which could undermine agriculture’s long-term sustainability. The choices made today will…

When 5G first arrived, it was hailed as the technology that would reinvent our lives. We were told to imagine remote surgery performed across continents, cars driving themselves on city streets, and factories humming with robotic precision, all powered by near-instantaneous connections. In South Africa, headlines celebrated Vodacom and MTN switching on their first towers in 2020, and the excitement was infectious. This was meant to be more than just faster downloads, it was the dawn of a new digital era. Five years later, the revolution still hasn’t shown up. The 5G bars on our phones rarely translate into transformative experiences. In reality, the technology has been more evolutionary than revolutionary. The hype ran ahead of the reality. Why 5G Fell Short Part of the problem lies in the infrastructure.…