Новости за 11.11.2021

Creamer Media's Chanel de Bruyn speaks to Engineering News Editor Terence Creamer about the key highlights from Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana's maiden mini-Budget, the spending pressures ahead of the February budget and the Minister's approach to State-owned companies.

The country requires a continued focus on stabilising the nation’s public finances and, most importantly, the critical need to implement more aggressive structural and institutional reforms that can drive up investment and inclusive growth in the economy, the Minerals Council South Africa says. It adds that, in its view, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has delivered on these critical issues in his maiden Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS).

Specialised consultancy firm the Don Consultancy Group (DCG) says the recent manufacturing production and sales data released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) indicate positive news for South Africa’s growth. However, chief economic Chifi Mhango warns that “South Africa must expand its African market footprint for its manufactured products to sustain the momentum”.

In this editorial, the Association of Municipal Electricity Utilities (AMEU) responds to allegations by power utility Eskom that some municipalities had ignored instructions to implement load-shedding last weekend and that that had contributed to the utility having to implement Stage 4 load-shedding this week.

Pan-African technology group Liquid Intelligent Technologies has launched One Voice for Cloud PBX, a collaboration and unified communications tool that enables organisations and their employees to remain connected even when working remotely. Initially offered in six key African markets, with plans to grow its footprint across the continent, the OneVoice for Cloud PBX solution will assist businesses with their telephony and collaboration needs, delivering voice, video and data communication tools in a single offering.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has welcomed the $136-million in additional donor commitments for the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (Sefa). Commited during an event at the COP26 conference, Sefa donors reaffirmed their support for the fund’s institutional priorities.

A paper authored by a South African researcher presents some “exciting and novel results” from the MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey (MGCLS) and will be published in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal. Using the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory’s (Sarao’s) MeerKAT telescope, located in the Karoo region of the Northern Cape province, this first observatory-led survey demonstrates MeerKAT’s exceptional strengths by producing highly detailed and sensitive images of the radio emissions from 115 clusters of galaxies.

Harmony Gold, which was a bottom-feeding gold mining company, has been hoisted into a new stratosphere of value and volume by the quality ounces it has acquired. Johannesburg- and New York-listed company’s operational update for the three months to the end of September 30 highlights just how materially the newly acquired assets dominate the operating free cash flow position of the 1.6-million-ounce-a-year gold producer, which also has a significant pipeline of projects.

Government’s rising debt service costs, at about R1-trillion over 2022/23 to 2024/25, is crowding out spending on service delivery functions. Debt service costs will, on average, consume 21c of every rand collected in revenue over the medium term.  These costs will average R334-billion a year.

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana offered no new insight in his maiden address to lawmakers into how government intended approaching the issue of Eskom’s R400-billion debt burden, which has been labelled unsustainable by the utility, and also refrained from making any new provisions for distressed State-owned enterprises (SOEs). Instead, he said that he would be adopting a “tough love” stance towards SOEs, albeit with the caveat that government would most likely support those entities regarded as “strategic”, such as Eskom, Transnet and Denel.

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana indicated on Thursday that government regarded the revenue windfall that had arisen as a result of higher commodity prices as temporary and confirmed that fiscal consolidation would, thus, be sustained to reduce the Budget deficit and stabilise the national debt. However, he also announced that, barring any major new shocks or unbudgeted spending commitments, the consolidation would yield a primary fiscal surplus in 2024/25, bringing fiscal consolidation to an end.

National government is developing a comprehensive public-sector remuneration strategy for the medium to long term. This will apply to the country’s 1.33-million public servants employed in departments, State-owned enterprises, public entities and local government.

The Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) for the next three years up to 2024/25 details how government is accelerating various structural reforms to promote growth, while keeping fiscal consolidation on course to narrow its budget deficit and stabilise debt. Delivering the MTBPS on November 11, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said capital investment had been adversely affected by the national lockdowns, contributing to underspending.

Daimler Trucks & Buses Southern Africa (DTBSA) will officially split from Mercedes-Benz South Africa (MBSA) on December 1, mirroring a global, amicable, divorce between the German truck and car makers. The two manufacturers will, however, continue to share the three-pointed star, with Mercedes-Benz to remain a brand within both companies.

Pulp and paper producer Sappi has returned to profitability for the financial year ended September 30, turning a loss of $135-million in 2020 into a profit of $13-million for 2021, with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortisation (Ebitda) having increased by 40% over the prior year. Speaking to Engineering News on November 11, CEO Steve Binnie said the Covid-19 pandemic “had a dramatic impact on the business and all of its segments”, but a “steady improvement” was seen over the last 12 months... Читать дальше...

Mechanised underground Gauteng gold mine South Deep has been hailed by a solidly performing Gold Fields as its star in the three months to September 30. Gold Fields CEO Chris Griffith singled out the 75-year-life West Rand gold mine’s 30%-higher quarter-on-quarter performance when he reported solid third-quarter combined group output of 606 000 oz, which was up 9% year-on-year and up 8% quarter-on-quarter.

Industry association Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) and professional services multinational Aon South Africa on November 10 recognised excellence in the consulting engineering fraternity in what was a difficult year for infrastructure and engineering projects. The Cesa Aon Engineering Awards, in its forty-ninth year, recognised and awarded engineers and engineering companies for their work.