Cabo Delgado: Consequences of a failing state defenceweb.co.za - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from defenceweb.co.za Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
It would seem that Denel, South Africa’s state-owned aerospace and military tech company, is heading the same way as other SOEs. ‘In the financial year ending in 2020 its losses were R1.9bn, mainly due to rising operating costs, which is often a sign of high management overheads’, writes Jonathan Katzenellenbogen. He adds that the last time the company made a profit was in 2016/17, ‘R282m, which amounted to about 3.5 percent of sales’. Financial issues has seen some of Denel’s highly qualified employees pack their bags, seeking work elsewhere. According to Katzenellenbogen, this is due to the company’s ‘inability to meet its payroll on time’ among other concerns. Former engineers are now working for competitors in the UAE and Saudi Arabia which, says the writer, have ‘raised allegations of theft of intellectual property’. – Jarryd Neves
PANDA hit-piece article is a disgrace to journalism , says Vegter biznews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from biznews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Jonathan Katzenellenbogen
This afternoon, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni will deliver a Budget that has taken on greater-than-usual significance. For the past few years, Mboweni has been calling for tough measures to be taken, but has failed to take these, owing to lack of wider political support within the African National Congress (ANC).
A government budget deficit of between 13 and 15 percent of GDP for the current fiscal year, projected by a number of economists, will be the largest in the country’s history.
Total government debt is now about 80 percent of GDP. The Treasury plan is for the debt-to-GDP ratio to peak at 95 percent by 2025/26. With feeble economic growth, these debt levels will open the economy to sudden adverse swings in confidence, and therefore potential financial crises.
Sin Taxes – a soft target that does more harm than good - Biznews
23 February 2021 - The argument for sin taxes is frequently made. Arguments against sin taxes, however, are rarely discussed, and never feature in the National Treasury’s budget speeches.
At first glance sin taxes make sense… The taxed items aren’t essentials and increasing the price of unhealthy substances should reduce their appeal. Ivo Vegter from the Daily Friend delves a little deeper into the most popular indulgences around the world and finds that, in South Africa, sin taxes might not be that simple. During one of the strictest lockdowns in the world, the country was a revealing test case for what happens when cigarettes and alcohol are banned outright. A black market emerged almost over night, drawing ordinarily law-abiding citizens into business with organised crime syndicates. While government ‘fiddles at the margins’, these taxes have a substantial effect on employment, industry and the economy