Star 2022-09-20

ZIMBABWEAN Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube says there is internal resistance to measures aimed at rooting out corruption around government contracts and exorbitant pricing practices for public sector tenders, which have seen some suppliers’ price laptops at more than US $9 000 (R158 242) each and 2kg chicken packs at US$30. Yearly inflation in Zimbabwe has surged to 285% for the month of August, precipitating the central bank to hike interest rates to 200%. The spike in inflation has been blamed on a marked decline in the exchange rate for the Zimbabwe dollar to more than 800 Zimbabwe dollars for 1 US dollar in the past few weeks. Secretary for Treasury, George Guvamatanga, last month directed that government departments, parastatals and ministries stop all payments to contractors to factor…

The power utility plunged SA into stage 6 load shedding indefinitely a second time this year SOUTH African business called for greater transparency with Eskom as the energy crisis worsened after the struggling utility ramped up severe power cuts on Sunday. Eskom plunged the country into stage 6 load shedding indefinitely for the second time this year on Sunday morning, after a generation unit tripped at the Kusile and Kriel power stations. Stage 6 rotational load shedding means that 6 000MW needs to be shed from the already deteriorating national grid, leading to at least six hours of power cuts in two-hour or four-hour cycles in a 24-hour period. The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) said yesterday that it was seeking answers from President…

THE JSE WENT into a tailspin yesterday as the rand plunged to yet another more than two-year low over severe power cuts in South Africa while equity markets fell for the fifth consecutive day due to unfavourable global and local factors. The rand yesterday reached R17.77 against the US dollar after plummeting to R17.80 on Friday as investors worry about South Africa’s economic recovery prospects after Eskom ramped up its rotational power cuts to stage 6 on Sunday and forecast even worse stages of loadshedding this week. This was the lowest the rand has been since August of 2020 as the US dollar continued to gain against all other major currencies. By 5pm the rand was at R17.70 to the dollar, 10c weaker than at the same time the…

DAIRY group Clover has sold its Johannesburg City Deep cold storage and distribution centre for R52.5 million as part of its strategy to centralise operations to main plants having faced service delivery issues in many of its outlying assets. The sale of the warehouse, reportedly to a private Durban investor, who will lease the premises out to a cold storage operator follows the sale in 2021 of Clover’s R50m Bellville, Western Cape facility, also concluded by private treaty by Cushman & Wakefield/Broll to a private buyer. Steven Velthuysen, Clover’s group manager: Legal & Secretarial, confirmed that the sale was part of centralising operations. “It is well documented that we are con- solidating our operations to bigger plants like Queensborough. We have had some struggles with municipalities in…

LUXE HOLDING, which had trading in its shares suspended last month, said yesterday it was in advanced negotiations to sell a group of assets via its subsidiary Luxe Jewellery and Watch Division, to its chief execitive. The group said in a JSE regulatory notice yesterday the assets include Arthur Kaplan and World’s Finest Watches, and the talks about a possible cash disposal were with Go Dutch Proprietary. If the proposed transaction goes ahead, Luxe will be left with one last major operating subsidiary NWJ Jewellery. The possible sale represents a related party transaction as Go Dutch is a company of which Althea Gewar, Luxe’s chief executive, is the sole director and shareholder. Luxe said in a statement the proposed deal would provide it with a cash injection to support the…

ONE OF THE stresses of being a journalist at a daily publication is that every day, you must present a diary, where you indicate what stories you intend to work on. Yesterday, however, I did not have that stress because I had a story to cover, which was an exclusive event hosted by Nedbank, themed In conversation with Mark Rose – Executive Head: Strategy and New Business Development at Nedbank Commercial Banking. Originally, my content editor, Philippa Larkin, had been invited, but had declined and asked on Friday that I attend to represent Business Report (BR) in her stead. Both she and I were told that this was no problem and I was welcome. I was granted accreditation, and I was told: “We look forward to seeing you later”. So…