Cape Times 2021-08-13

Regulatory actions exact a toll on MTN’s subscriber numbers EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za MTN SAW THE number of its subscribers fall by 2.3 million to 277.3 million in the six months to June 30 due to new SIM registration requirements in Nigeria, while the group will abandon its Syria operation due to regulatory factors. Excluding Nigeria, subscribers for the pan-African group that operates in 21 markets were up 5.4 million. Despite a lifting of a ban on new SIM activations in April 2021, new subscriptions in Nigeria remained muted, owing to new registration requirements, but were expected to normalise over time, the group said yesterday in its results for the six months to June 30. Regulatory actions and demands had made operating in Syria “unten- able”, MTN Group president and…

Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za EXXARO Resources, South Africa’s biggest coal producer that paid its highest interim dividend to June 2021 on firm iron ore prices, said yesterday that the coal export industry had recorded its worst performance due to constraints at Transnet Freight Rail (TFR). Exxaro reported a 31 percent slump in export sales to 1.82 million tons due to TFR constraints as a result of poor locomotive availability, increased incidences of cable theft, as well as increased vandalism of rail infrastructure. Chief executive Mxolisi Mgojos said all mines had railed lower volumes than in the first half of 2020. “Locomotive unavailability, coal line shutdown disruptions, derailments, and other operational challenges combined with vandalism and sabotage of rail infrastructure and rampant cable theft have resulted in one of the…

100MW licences to start flowing as Mantashe gazettes amendments Banele Ginindza banele.ginindza@inl.co.za Minister for Natural Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe yesterday gazetted the amendments to Schedule 2 of the Electricity Act, lifting the generation threshhold for private companies to generate up to 100 megawatts (MW) of electricity for their own use and sell excess energy to the grid, leaving the door open for the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) to consider applications. The move comes a little past the 60-day deadline announced by Presi- dent Cyril Ramaphosa in early June, lifting the threshold from 10MW to a 100MW at the height of loadshedding, which saw industry lose out production hours due to disruptive power supply from troubled parastatal Eskom. The higher threshold will allow mining companies, in particular,…

ARE YOU MORE optimistic about South Africa’s prospects today than you were at the start of the year? Given the events of the past month, it’s understandable that many of us may be feeling more despondent. But even after accounting for last month’s riots, most professional forecasters have upgraded their economic growth numbers compared to the start of the year. And many local asset managers are still sticking with their South African overweight equity and bond positions. Admittedly, these upward revisions are coming off a low base. At the start of this year the International Monetary Fund expected the country’s economy to grow by just 2.8 percent in 2021 and 1.4 percent in 2022. Subsequently, it upgraded South Africa’s growth outlook by a cumulative 2 percent over…

Banele Ginindza banele.ginindza@inl.co.za The TRADITIONAL and Khoisan Leadership Act signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2019 as well as other existing royalties legislation is up for scrutiny to tighten loopholes, which have seen communities fleeced of billions of rands over the years by traditional leadership under the guise of representing them. Civic organisation Corruption Watch confirmed yesterday that it had engaged a legal team to challenge the pieces of legislation at the Constitutional Court to give communities better leverage of what is ostensibly paid on their behalf by mining companies extracting minerals from land communities have owned for generations. “The uptake for business is that they could lose their social licences when communities decide mining on their land is not beneficial for them. Rio Tinto had to declare…

Lender Investec commits to greater environmental transparency Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za INVESTEC yesterday committed to being more transparent with regard to its lending and investment decisions in relation to climate change. This comes as shareholders are slowly pulling away from environmentally unsustainable investment practices such as fossil fuels. The group’s climate risk-related disclosure has received 99.9 percent shareholder approval, the most significant climate-change shareholder resolution for a JSE-listed company to date. The financial services company’s resolution, tabled ahead of its annual general meeting last week, explicitly required the company to take action to address greenhouse gas emissions associated with its lending and investment portfolio. Disclosed in the integrated annual report released yesterday, Investec committed to comply with the goals of the Paris Agreement within its annual report and financial statements…