Tuesday 17 September - DAILY NEWS SUMMARY
Pretoria News (www.pretorianews.co.za)
Page 14 – Creating employment in SA through re-industrialisation
The Star (www.iol.co.za)
Page 14 – New energy technology hits coal
Business Day (www.businesslive.co.za)
Page 1 – Ramaphosa questions Mkhwebane’s motives Page 1 – Mboweni’s growth plan out of step with SA
Page 2 – Green energy plan worth R160bn takes shape in SA
Citizen (www.citizen.co.za)
Page 1 – Rica ruling a win – for now
News24 (www.news24.co.za)
North Korea leader Kim invites Trump to Pyongyang in new letter 연합뉴스 (www.yonhapnews.co.kr)
한·아프리카재단 국민외교사절단 아프리카서 공공외교 펼친다
Creating employment in SA through re-industrialisation
Operational investment in the country’ s seven SEZs is reported to be around R19 billion
• Pretoria News
• 17 Sep 2019
• EUSTACE MASHIMBYE Joy Joy.
I File PhotoBONGUMUSA Kunene had some
inspirational stories to tell how SAB’s support, the incentives the SEZ affords him
(including tax incentives, building allowances and employment incentives) and the Black Industrialists Programme funding have changed ordinary lives.
changing all of those families’ in the process.
These are just two real life examples of how, through localisation we can make the re- industrialisation of South Africa a reality, creating many much-needed jobs, contributing to the growth of the economy and ending the poverty of many of our people.
With the assistance of government grants, funding and incentives, as well as the commitment by the private sector to increase their levels of local procurement, we can create many more Kevali Chemicals and give more people like Itumeleng and the security guard a decent future.
It all starts with the decision to support a local manufacturer, to create life-changing joy in the lives of ordinary South Africans.
Black Motion sang Come and see them belt out their Proudly SA tunes at this weekend’s DStv Delicious International Food & Music Festival. lives THE EUROPEAN Commission has opened investigations into Belgian tax relief for 39 major international companies, including chemical giant BASF and British American Tobacco, on suspicion that they could amount to illegal state aid. “We are concerned that the Belgian ‘excess profit’ tax system granted substantial tax reductions only to certain multinational companies,” EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said yesterday, reopening a yearslong probe into the matter. The tax rule in question allows corporations to reduce their tax liability by deducting
“excess profits” – accrued as a result of belonging to a multinational group – from their taxable profits. In January 2016, the commission ordered Belgium to recoup €700 million (R11.28 billion) in unpaid taxes from at least 35 international companies. But in February the EU General Court annulled this decision, advising the EU executive that it must assess each case individually to establish whether the relief constituted an aid scheme. The commission has now reopened the 39 investigations into tax rulings made by Belgium for companies such as BP and drinks giant Anheuser-Busch. I dpa
New energy technology hits coal
Sector needs to come to terms with prospect of fading demand from its major destinations
• The Star Early Edition
• 17 Sep 2019
• EDWARD WEST [email protected]
THE RICHARDS BAY coal terminal. In 2018, 48 percent of all coal exports out of the Richards Bay terminal went to India. | Supplied
SOUTH African coal exports are approaching long-term decline, according to an Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) report released yesterday.
IEEFA energy finance analyst Simon Nicholas said the sector needed to come to terms with the prospect of fading demand from its major export destinations.
“Policy makers in South Africa need to prepare for the ongoing technology driven transition away from coal or face the inevitable social and economic consequences,” said Nicholas.
“It won’t happen overnight, but key trends in global markets show new energy technology is replacing coalfired power faster than most predicted.
“By 2030, new wind and solar will be cheaper than running existing coalor gas-fired plants virtually everywhere in the world. This is already the case in India, South Africa’s major coal export destination,” said Nicholas.
“At its heart this is a technology transition, and it is, hence, unavoidable – it will happen whether policy makers want it or not. A lack of planning will result in chaotic transition with negative social and economic impacts of the type South Africa can ill afford,” the report noted.
In 2018, 48 percent of all exports out of Richards Bay coal terminal went to India, a nation with a clearly stated policy of reducing reliance on coal imports. In the first half of 2019, that rose to 60 percent.
The last fiscal year saw the expansion of thermal power capacity in India slow to the lowest level in a decade, due to major renewable energy expansion.
India’s coal ministry is preparing to cut coal imports by a third, or around 85 million tons by 2024.
Other major export destinations for South African coal include Pakistan, whose import growth will be limited by concerns over the economic impact of coal imports, and South Korea, which is now considering the progressive retirement of up to 20 coalfired power plants as it plans to rely on renewables and LNG in the long term.
“Major mining companies are starting to realise that the long-term outlook for thermal coal is bleak,” said IEEFA director of energy finance studies Tim Buckley, who co-authored the report.
Global mining giants such as Rio Tinto, South32, BHP Billiton and Anglo American had all either withdrawn from the seaborne thermal coal market already or were now considering it, he said. And more than 100 significant global financial institutions, including South African banks, now had formal coal exclusion policies in place, he added.
“Access to coal debt and equity financing is becoming increasingly problematic.”
South African coal exporters are likely to seek alternative markets going forward as opportunities for growth in renewable driven destinations dry up. However, the long-term outlook for coal exports to other destinations was also likely to disappoint.
“The global seaborne coal trade is set to go into permanent decline,” said Nicholas.
“As a result, South Africa will see increased competition in markets around the world from other major thermal coal exporters such as Indonesia, Australia and Russia.”
Richards Bay Coal Terminal, already operating with almost 20 percent spare capacity, may have to get used to the idea that an increasing proportion of its annual capacity would become stranded.
“The limited growth potential for coal exports in the long term will no doubt disappoint the industry, however, it’s a timely reminder that the world is transitioning away from coal.”
Ramaphosa questions Mkhwebane’s motives
In his affidavit, the president says protector accessed ‘ stolen’
private and confidential e- mails
• Business Day
• 17 Sep 2019
• Karyn Maughan
President Cyril Ramaphosa has for the first time openly questioned public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s political motives for the way she had conducted her investigation and had come to politically explosive findings that have linked him to potential money laundering.
He says the public protector was motivated by an “ulterior purpose” in her inclusion of details of his ANC election bank accounts. These were irrelevant to her investigation into whether he misled parliament about a R500,000 donation from facilities firm Bosasa, he said.
While Ramaphosa has previously expressed concern about Mkhwebane’s grasp of the law, he has refrained from entering into debate about her motivations. The public protector, whose credibility has been damaged by her losing court challenges in key cases, has faced
accusations that she was involving her office in factional fights in the ANC. She vehemently denies being biased.
Her relentless pursuit of Ramaphosa and public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan, has been a major distraction for the president. The possibility that it might eventually lead to him being ousted has worried investors who are counting on Ramaphosa to push through growth- boosting reforms in an economy that is barely growing and is burdened by a 29%
unemployment rate.
In his affidavit filed as part of his court bid to overturn Mkhwebane’s report on his “CR17”
campaign, Ramaphosa accuses Mkhwebane of accessing “stolen” private and confidential e- mails linked to the campaign. He narrowly defeated Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for the ANC presidency in December 2017, before taking over the leadership of the country in February 2018.
“It is my belief that these
e-mails were stolen from the CR17 campaign computers. I call on the public protector to explain how and from whom she received these e-mails.”
After receiving the so-called “Rule 53” record of documents and evidence that Mkhwebane used to make her findings that the CR17 campaign may have been complicit in
moneylaundering, Ramaphosa argued that the probe was done without any legal basis and was not conducted “in good faith”.
All “the evidence obtained by the public protector relating to the CR17 campaign is entirely irrelevant to her investigation, findings and remedial action and should never have been included in the ‘Rule 53’ record.”
While Ramaphosa does not identify the purpose behind Mkhwebane’s report, the much publicised disclosure of his funders’ identities through media leaks has left him politically vulnerable. He is accused of having been “captured” by those who supported his campaign –
many of whom are prominent business people. In an ANC divided along pro- and antibusiness lines, the disclosures have given ammunition to his opponents.
Ramaphosa says not one of Mkhwebane’s findings — that he lied to parliament about the donation from recently deceased Bosasa CEO Gavin Watson, which exposed him to the risk of conflict of interest and that suspicions of money laundering linked to his “improper relationship” with Bosasa were substantiated — was “supported by the evidence in the record”.
He says Mkhwebane has produced no evidence to show that he deliberately lied to parliament when he initially claimed that Watson’s donation was a payment from Bosasa, now trading as African Global Operations, to his son Andile, with whom the company had a consultancy agreement.
“Yet the public protector came to the astonishing and unjustified conclusion that I deliberately misled parliament,” Ramaphosa says.
Mkhwebane is expected to file a reply to these accusations in the coming weeks.
2017 the year Cyril Ramaphosa defeated Nkosazana DlaminiZuma for the ANC presidency
Mboweni’s growth plan out of step with SA
• Business Day
• 17 Sep 2019
• Gqubule is founding director at the Centre for Economic Development and Transformation. DUMA GQUBULE
Ihave never worked so hard as I have speaking to South Africans from Sandton to
Khayelitsha over the past week, helping them make sense of finance minister Tito Mboweni’s plan to grow the economy.
As I spent the day with unemployed activists at a workshop organised by the Tshisimani Centre in Cape Town to help them analyse the plan, it became clear how disconnected the government is from those it is meant to serve.
“This is a document for the elite. We don’t have money for internet to get access to it,” one participant said. Most people could not understand the strategy’s dense terminology and repetitive language.
The document is not a growth strategy. It covers a limited set of issues in a limited number of sectors. Most of the issues it identifies as building blocks for growth are not addressed. The majority of recommendations are not new.
Most refer to issues that have been stuck in bureaucratic processes for years for more than a decade, in some cases. For example: plans to introduce competition in rail and ports are repackaged policies that have featured in numerous state of the nation addresses by three of the country’s former presidents.
The modelling that informed the Treasury’s forecasts makes no sense. Those who use the expenditure approach to measure GDP forecast additional growth of 2.3% a year over the next decade. However, those who use the production approach forecast additional growth of 5.4% a year over the same period.
Economist Asghar Adelzadeh says there is either a huge mistake or the sectoral effects of GDP growth are exaggerated. “You can only have one GDP growth rate.”
If one projects the forecast sectoral GDP growth rates for a decade from December 2018, the reforms will result in a collapse of primary and secondary sectors to 24.1% of GDP from 31.5%. The primary sectors (agriculture and mining) will collapse to 5.3% of GDP from 10.5%. Mining will decline by an implausible 5% a year. The sector’s share of GDP will plunge to 2.9% from 8.1%.
Though mining’s share of GDP has halved from 15.7% in 1994, Minerals Council CEO Roger Baxter says that it is possible to present a plausible scenario where mining’s share of GDP does not fall over the next decade if certain policies are implemented.
The share of tertiary sectors will increase to 76.2% of GDP from 68.8% as a result of implausible increases in the relatively skills-intensive transport, storage and communication and finance, real estate and business services sectors. The transport, storage and
communication sector will increase 9.7% a year. Its share of GDP will soar to 14.7% from 9.8%. The sector grew by an annual average of 2.3% over the past decade.
The CEO of a telecommunications company told me the awarding of new spectrum will have a small, direct effect on the economy.
“The industry will spend an additional R20bn a year, of which half will involve the export of capital to pay for imports. The rest will be lowerorder work that involves digging holes.”
The finance, real estate and business services sector will increase 8.4% a year.
Finally, the strategy has a colour-blind definition of transformation that perfectly illustrates its deeply problematic race politics. It refers to black people as the “non-white majority”.
This offensive and hurtful language that defines black people in the negative harks back to the days of apartheid when there were segregated facilities for “nonwhites” and “nie-blankes”.
Green energy plan worth R160bn takes shape in SA
• Business Day
• 17 Sep 2019
• Mike Cohen /With Staff Writer, Bloomberg
A plan to establish the world’s largest green energy financing initiative is being thrashed out in SA, which needs to reduce its environmental footprint and find innovative ways to fund debt-stricken state power utility Eskom.
The plan, by Meridian Economics, a Cape Town-based think-tank, is under consideration by the government. It envisions the establishment of an $11bn (about R160bn) facility backed by development finance institutions and private funders.
The new entity would lend money to Eskom at slightly below commercial rates on condition it accelerates the closure of polluting coal plants to make way for renewable energy.
This is one of several options under consideration by the department of public enterprises, which this week promised to produce a paper on Eskom and finalise recommendations on the future state of the power producer and how it will be funded. The department has not
indicated yet whether the deadline will be met.
SA is the world’s 14th-largest producer of greenhouse gases and the government is under pressure to deliver on a commitment it made in 2009 to reduce emissions 42% by 2025.
Under the new plan, the country would add an additional 10GW of renewable-energy
production capacity over a decade, thereby reducing its potential carbon dioxide emissions by 715-million tons by 2050. “This would be the largest and most significant global climate finance transaction to date,” Emily Tyler, a climate economist at Meridian, said in an interview. “It would propel SA to a cleaner and more resilient energy future.”
Eskom supplies about 95% of SA’s power and has turned to the government for aid to remain solvent after amassing R450bn of debt. Under the plan, it would secure loans in tranches from the new facility over five years and have to repay them over 20 years. The money would be used to wean Eskom off bailouts and cover its future financing needs, rather than fund new and already self-sustaining green energy projects.
Implementation of the plan would be contingent on the government following through on a commitment to break up Eskom into generation, transmission and distribution units under a state holding company and reorganising its debt to place it on a more sustainable footing.
The new entity would use most of the difference between the cost of the concessional funding it secures and the price it charges Eskom to finance a socalled transition fund. It would focus on creating jobs and promoting development mainly in Mpumalanga, where most of Eskom’s plants are located.
It would also contribute to state coffers in the form of a carbon payment.
The establishment of the transition fund could help win backing for the plan from labour unions, which oppose coal-plant closures and Eskom’s break-up on the grounds there will be job losses.
The unions played a key role in helping President Cyril Ramaphosa win control of the ANC in late 2017.
Several large development finance institutions, climate funds and philanthropic organisations had expressed initial interest in participating in the initiative, Tyler said, without identifying them.
Discussions on the green funding proposals were at an early stage and it would be premature to comment on them at this stage, said Ismail Momoniat, a deputy director-general at the Treasury, which is assessing the plan.
Meridian is headed by Grove Steyn, a member of a government task team set up to advise on a resource plan for Eskom.
The green energy initiative was included in the team’s report submitted earlier in 2019, but the details have since been refined.
Rica ruling a win – for now
JUDGE RULES PORTIONS OF INFORMATION ACT ARE
‘ UNLAWFUL’ AND ‘ INVALID’
• The Citizen (Gauteng)
• 17 Sep 2019
• Chisom Jenniffer Okoye [email protected]
Declaration of invalidity suspended for two years to allow time for changes.
While the court yesterday ruled in favour of the journalism investigative centre
amaBhungane’s challenge of the country’s surveillance law, the ruling is not final yet.
AmaBhugane is now expected to make an application to the Constitutional Court to confirm the ruling.
There is also bad news for those hoping that the ruling would exempt them from having to go through pesky sim card registrations, since those requirements remain very much in place.
The two-year legal battle started in 2017, after amaBhungane learned that managing partner and investigative journalist, Sam Sole, had been the target of state surveillance under Rica, (the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act) while investigating the decision by the National Prosecuting Authority to drop corruption charges against former president Jacob Zuma.
Sole told The Citizen that at the time he felt it was an invasion of his privacy because “one does everything on their phone”.
“If they have access to [all] communication, there is a sense of invasion. As a journalist, there is a concern that it is much too easy for the state to get access to communication-related information and it is important that we are able to protect and commit to protecting our sources,” he said.
The centre focused on two sections within the surveillance law for their court actions: one that allowed for the “interception of communications of any person by
authorised state subject to prescribed conditions” and the other that admitted to the “practice of the state in conducting ‘bulk interceptions’ of telecommunications traffic on the basis that no lawful authority exists to do so”.
Joining the court action as friends of the court were two organisations, Right2Know and Privacy International. They argued that the bulk surveillance is an extraordinary violation of rights and demanded an end to the practice.
Judge Roland Sutherland at the High Court in Johannesburg declared yesterday that the sections in the Act were “unlawful” and “invalid”.
He found that sections 16(7), 17(6),18(3)(a), 19(6), 20(6) and 22(7) of Rica were inconsistent with the constitution and invalid to the extent it failed to prescribe procedures for notifying the subject of the interception.
“Rica, including sections 16 (7) thereof, is inconsistent with the constitution and accordingly invalid to the extent that it fails to adequately provide for a system with appropriate
safeguards to deal with the fact that the orders in question are granted [without notice] and the declaration of invalidity is suspended for two years to allow parliament to cure defect.”
The declaration of invalidity was suspended for two years, in order for parliament to amend the Act.
Attorney Natasha Moni said the ruling would not affect the everyday citizen, but would affect those who require privacy and privilege of communications, such as journalists and legal practitioners, who need to be able to protect their sources or clients’ identity.
She said at the moment when there is an exparte application (an application made to a court where only the party making the request is represented and the other side is not given any notice) brought by the state to intercept communication and get information, there is no sufficient safeguard for the party whose information was being sought.
Therefore, this party would not be notified and in turn could not defend themselves when their information was being accessed.
“It will not affect the everyday person,” said Moni. “You will still have to Rica your sim cards. It may affect people who sell the cards and those who buy sim boxes because that is illegal.”
AmaBhungane advocacy coordinator Karabo Rajuili said the ruling was a huge vindication not only for the investigative unit but for all journalists.
“It has been a 10-year battle,” she said. – One does everything on their phone
North Korea leader Kim invites Trump to Pyongyang in new letter
2019-09-16 18:42
North Korea test-fires 'super large' launcher
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the testing of a super-large multiple rocket launcher on Tuesday, North Korean state media KCNA said on Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un talk before a meeting in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on June 30, 2019, in Panmunjom, Korea. (BRENDAN
SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un invited United States President Donald Trump to visit Pyongyang in a letter sent in August, a South Korean newspaper reported on Monday, citing diplomatic sources.
The letter, the second Trump received from Kim last month amid stalled denuclearisation talks between the two countries, pre-dated North Korea's latest launch of short-range projectiles a week ago.
In the second letter, which was passed to Trump in the third week of August, Kim spoke of his willingness to meet Trump for another summit, one source reportedly told the Joongang Ilbo newspaper.
Meet North Korea's new head of state: Kim Jong Un
North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un rules with an iron fist like his father and grandfather before him. But he wasn't actually head of state...until now.
Neither the White House, the US State Department nor the North Korean mission to the United Nations responded to Reuters' requests for comment.
Trump and Kim have met three times since June last year to discuss ways to resolve a crisis over North Korea's missile and nuclear programmes, but substantive progress has been scant.
The pair last met at the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas in June and agreed to restart working-level negotiations that had been stalled since an unsuccessful second summit between the two leaders in Vietnam in February.
Last week's round of short-range missiles came just hours after Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said North Korea was willing to have "comprehensive discussions" late this month.
Trump subsequently said he would be willing to meet Kim at some point later this year.
Trump said on August 9 he had received a three-page "very beautiful letter" from Kim and added he could have another meeting with him.
한·아프리카재단 국민외교사절단 아프리카서 공공외교 펼친다
• 기사입력 2019/09/16 14:20 송고
(서울=연합뉴스) 강성철 기자 = 한·아프리카재단(이사장 이연호)은 아프리카에서 열리는 범아프리카평화문화포럼 참가를 비롯해 앙골라·남아프리카공화국 등에서 공공외교 활동을 펼친다고 16 일 밝혔다.
대학생과 청년 기업 및 비정부기구(NGO) 관계자 등 16 명으로 구성된 사절단은 오는 18∼21일 앙골라 수도 르완다에서 열리는 범아프리카평화문화포럼에 참가해 한국을 알리는 활동에 나선다.
아프리카연합(AU)과 유네스코가 공동 기획해 올해 처음 열리는 이 포럼은
자유·정의·민주주의·인권·관용·연대의 원칙을 토대로 대화와 협상을 통해 지역 내 갈등 해결을 모색하려고 마련됐다.
올해는 AU 가 추진 중인 '2020 아프리카 분쟁 종식 이니셔티브'를 주제로 논의한다.
로렌수 앙골라 대통령을 포함한 아프리카 주요국 정상과 정부 고위 관리, 국제기구 및 시민사회 대표 등이 이 포럼에 대거 참석할 예정이다.
사절단은 포럼 참석 외에도 남아공 요하네스버그 소재 범아프리카의회 견학 등을 통해 아프리카 대륙의 정치·경제·사회 의제와 지역통합 노력에 대해 배우고 앙골라·남아공 소재 공관 및 한인기업 등과 간담회를 통해 한-아프리카 간 교류 협력 확대를 위한 방안도 모색한다.
최연호 이사장은 "역동적으로 변모하는 젊은 대륙 아프리카에 대한 관심과 이해를
촉진하고 공공외교 활동을 통한 외교 역량을 활용해 아프리카 국가와의 동반자 관계 확대를 도모하려고 마련한 행사"라고 밝혔다.
지난해 6 월 외교부의 네 번째 산하기관으로 출범한 재단은 한국과 아프리카를 잇는 상생협력의 플랫폼으로 자리 잡기 위해 아프리카동창회 구축, 가이드북 발간, 포럼 개최 등 다양한 국민참여형 민관협력 사업을 펼치고 있다.
18∼21일 앙골라 수도 르완다서 '범아프리카평화문화포럼' 개최
