JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South African bank Absa said on Monday its full-year headline earnings dipped by 1 percent in 2018, when taking into account 3.2 billion rand ($221.77 million) in costs related to its separation from British lender Barclays. 



Absa, which has re-branded and renewed its strategy as a standalone African bank after separating from Barclays in 2017, announced a final dividend of 11.10 rand per share, up 4 percent from the previous year.



However, when taking into account the divorce from its parent, headline earnings per share (HEPS) decreased and costs rose by 8 percent and its return on equity fell to 13.4 percent.



HEPS &#8211; the key profit measure in South Africa &#8211; stood at 1,703.7 cents in the year ended Dec. 31, compared with 1,724.5 cents in 2017.



The bank was pleased with its improved momentum in 2018, a year which saw “almost unprecedented” activity for the bank and a “challenging backdrop”, said Rene van Wyk, interim CEO, Absa.



“With major changes bedded down in 2018, the framework for the business has been reset,” he said, adding it can now deepen efforts to deliver against its ambitions.



Absa &#8211; one of South Africa’s biggest lenders and a prominent brand across southern and eastern Africa &#8211; is hoping a new CEO, an aggressive strategy overhaul and restructuring can reset its performance, which has lagged behind competitors and left investors sceptical.



Once South Africa’s largest consumer lender, Absa’s retail offering, which contributes more than half of overall revenue, has lost market share in recent years.



While the South African retail division grew lending and deposits, higher impairments in some units, including auto loans, resulted in earnings growth of 2 percent.



A 76 percent surge in impairments &#8211; the result of exposure to one large single name &#8211; also dragged earnings lower by 1 percent in its corporate and investment bank, where costs exceeded revenue growth.



Absa also wants to double its share of revenue elsewhere in Africa from 6 percent to 12 percent in the medium-term, joining peers such as Standard Bank in turning towards fast-growing economies elsewhere in Africa in the face of economic stagnation at home.



The lender’s operations outside of South Africa grew earnings by 9 percent.



($1 = 14.4296 rand)



Reporting by Emma Rumney, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips

Why S.Africa’s Absa plans to pay higher dividend despite FY earnings drop

PRETORIA (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa’s energy regulator Nersa on Thursday granted struggling state power firm Eskom average power price increases that were far below what the utility had asked for, saying it aimed to balance the interests of the company and the public. 



Nersa decides every few years how much revenue cash-strapped Eskom is allowed to earn from its customers via electricity tariffs, based on forecasts of its power sales and costs.



Nersa said Eskom could hike tariffs by 9.41 percent in the 2019/20 financial year, 8.10 percent in 2020/21 and 5.22 percent in 2021/22.



Those tariff increases do not include previous awards Nersa gave Eskom last year, for costs incurred over 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17, which will be recovered over a four-year period.



Eskom wanted power price increases of 17.1 percent, 15.4 percent and 15.5 percent over the next three years in its latest multi-year price determination application submitted last year.



On Thursday Nersa also allowed Eskom to recover 3.869 billion rand ($270 million) from its customers for electricity supplied in the 2017/18 financial year, significantly below the 21.6 billion rand that Eskom had applied for.



Nersa typically awards Eskom less than it asks for, as it only allows the company to recover costs which it deems prudently incurred.



Eskom supplies more than 90 percent of the power in Africa’s most industrialised economy. But it is grappling with breakdowns at its creaking coal-fired power station fleet which forced it to implement some of the worst power outages in several years last month.



The government has promised to inject 23 billion rand a year into Eskom over the next three years to help the utility meet repayments on its 420 billion rand debt burden.



($1 = 14.3353 rand)



Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo and Emelia Sithole-Matarise

Why SA’s energy regulator Nersa granted Eskom smaller tariff hikes than sought

HARARE (Reuters) &#8211; The head of Zimbabwe’s central bank denied on Thursday that it had fixed the exchange rate of the country’s new transitional currency, whose value it said it would let the market decide. 



Zimbabwe ditched a discredited 1:1 dollar peg for its dollar-surrogate bond notes and electronic dollars on Feb 20, merging them into a transitional currency called the RTGS dollar.



The value of that currency, which authorities said they would float, has held unchanged at 2.5 to the U.S. dollar since Feb. 22.



The country’s economy has been crippled by a cash crunch and plans to allow ordinary Zimbabweans to exchange bond notes and electronic dollars for U.S. dollars at banks have yet to be implemented.



On the black market, the RTGS rate was 3.8 to the dollar on Thursday, compared to 3.5 last week.



Concerns that the government is resisting moves to allow a further devaluation of the RTGS dollar has discouraged those holding U.S. dollars from selling them at the prevailing rate.



“We have not fixed the exchange rate and we will not fix it,” Central Bank Governor John Mangudya told a parliamentary committee.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">‘MARKET MANIPULATION’</h3>



Ministry of finance secretary George Guvamatanga saw room for a further RTGS dollar devaluation, which he said the market would determine.



He told the committee that volumes traded on the black market were thin and that if rates on the forex interbank market rose too high, very few businesses could afford to buy dollars.



“We know between the two of us, where that exchange rate should be and where it should end but we will allow the market to get there,” Guvamatanga said.



John Robertson, a Harare-based economist, said the currency market was still being manipulated. “What they are trying to do is to ensure stability but market forces may decide otherwise,” he said.



The central bank has allowed mining companies and other exporters to sell their dollars on the interbank market, thereby seeking to create a pool of dollars to pay for vital imports such as drugs, electricity and fuel.



Mangudya said Zimbabwe imported fuel worth $173 million in January and February through credit lines from foreign banks, which was enough to cover local demand during the period.



He said the fuel shortages that have been experienced since the start of the year were caused by some dealers failing to raise enough money to buy U.S. dollars for fuel imports and delays in supplies following payments.



On Tuesday, the government allowed mining companies and some other businesses to import their own fuel. Mangudya said supplies should normalise this month. Such promises have previously failed to end shortages.



Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Alexander Winning and John Stonestreet

Has Zimbabwe’s central bank fixed the exchange rate of the country’s new transitional currency?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday extended by one year sanctions against Zimbabwe saying that the new government’s policies continue to pose an “unusual and extraordinary” threat to U.S. foreign policy.



The renewal comes despite calls by African leaders, including South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, for the sanctions to be lifted to give the country a chance to recover from its economic crisis.



“The actions and policies of these persons continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States,” Trump said in a notice announcing the extension, adding: “I am continuing for (one) year the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13288.”



The renewal comes despite calls by African leaders, including South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, for the sanctions to be lifted to give the country a chance to recover from its economic crisis.



Trump administration officials had said the sanctions will remain until the government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa changes Zimbabwe’s laws restricting media freedom and allowing protests.



According to U.S. officials, there are 141 entities and individuals in Zimbabwe, including Mnangagwa and long-time former president Robert Mugabe, currently under U.S. sanctions.



Mnangagwa has called for the sanctions to be lifted against the ZANU-PF ruling party, top military figures and some government-owned firms, which were imposed during Mugabe’s rule over what the United States said were human rights violations and undermining of the democratic process.



Reporting by Lesley Wroughton, editing by G Crosse

Here’s why U.S. president Trump extended sanctions against Zimbabwe by a year

LONDON (Reuters) &#8211; An HIV-positive man in Britain has become the second known adult worldwide to be cleared of the AIDS virus after he received a bone marrow transplant from an HIV resistant donor, his doctors said.



Almost three years after receiving bone marrow stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that resists HIV infection &#8211; and more than 18 months after coming off antiretroviral drugs &#8211; highly sensitive tests still show no trace of the man’s previous HIV infection.



“There is no virus there that we can measure. We can’t detect anything,” said Ravindra Gupta, a professor and HIV biologist who co-led a team of doctors treating the man.



The case is a proof of the concept that scientists will one day be able to end AIDS, the doctors said, but does not mean a cure for HIV has been found.



Gupta described his patient as “functionally cured” and “in remission”, but cautioned: “It’s too early to say he’s cured.”



The man is being called “the London patient”, in part because his case is similar to the first known case of a functional cure of HIV &#8211; in an American man, Timothy Brown, who became known as the Berlin patient when he underwent similar treatment in Germany in 2007 which also cleared his HIV.



Brown, who had been living in Berlin, has since moved to the United States and, according to HIV experts, is still HIV-free.



Some 37 million people worldwide are currently infected with HIV and the AIDS pandemic has killed around 35 million people worldwide since it began in the 1980s. Scientific research into the complex virus has in recent years led to the development of drug combinations that can keep it at bay in most patients.



Gupta, now at Cambridge University, treated the London patient when he was working at University College London. The man had contracted HIV in 2003, Gupta said, and in 2012 was also diagnosed with a type of blood cancer called Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">LAST CHANCE</h3>



In 2016, when he was very sick with cancer, doctors decided to seek a transplant match for him. “This was really his last chance of survival,” Gupta told Reuters in an interview.



The donor &#8211; who was unrelated &#8211; had a genetic mutation known as ‘CCR5 delta 32’, which confers resistance to HIV.



The transplant went relatively smoothly, Gupta said, but there were some side effects, including the patient suffering a period of “graft-versus-host” disease &#8211; a condition in which donor immune cells attack the recipient’s immune cells.



Most experts say it is inconceivable such treatments could be a way of curing all patients. The procedure is expensive, complex and risky. To do this in others, exact match donors would have to be found in the tiny proportion of people — most of them of northern European descent — who have the CCR5 mutation that makes them resistant to the virus.



Specialists said it is also not yet clear whether the CCR5 resistance is the only key &#8211; or whether the graft versus host disease may have been just as important. Both the Berlin and London patients had this complication, which may have played a role in the loss of HIV-infected cells, Gupta said.



Sharon Lewin, an expert at Australia’s Doherty Institute and co-chair of the International AIDS Society’s cure research advisory board, told Reuters the London case points to new avenues for study.



“We haven’t cured HIV, but (this) gives us hope that it’s going to be feasible one day to eliminate the virus,” she said.



Gupta said his team plans to use these findings to explore potential new HIV treatment strategies. “We need to understand if we could knock out this (CCR5) receptor in people with HIV, which may be possible with gene therapy,” he said.



The London patient, whose case was set to be reported in the journal Nature and presented at a medical conference in Seattle on Tuesday, has asked his medical team not to reveal his name, age, nationality or other details.



Reporting by Kate Kelland; editing by Catherine Evans

HIV-positive patient becomes world’s second AIDS cure hope

<figure>
 <img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260156/original/file-20190221-195879-p9teee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&#038;q=45&#038;auto=format&#038;w=754&#038;fit=clip" alt="File 20190221 195879 p9teee.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1" />
 <figcaption>
 The Mediterranean diet.
 Foxys Forest Manufacture/Shutterstock
 </figcaption>
 </figure>



By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/silvia-alonso-alvarez-694393">Silvia Alonso Alvarez</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/international-livestock-research-institute-2924"> International Livestock Research Institute </a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/isabelle-baltenweck-529850">Isabelle Baltenweck</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/international-livestock-research-institute-2924"> International Livestock Research Institute </a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lora-iannotti-694346">Lora Iannotti</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/washington-university-in-st-louis-732">Washington University in St Louis</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/paula-dominguez-salas-694392">Paula Dominguez-Salas</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/london-school-of-hygiene-and-tropical-medicine-859">London School of Hygiene &#038; Tropical Medicine</a>



A <a href="https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/">team of 37 world-leading scientists</a> from 16 countries have just released the world’s first ever scientific eating plan. The <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31788-4/fulltext">“planetary health diet”</a> is designed to be healthier for people and more environmentally friendly. 

The team warns that the way we eat now threatens both our health and the long-term survival of the planet. They say the current food system dangerously overproduces <a href="https://ccafs.cgiar.org/bigfacts/#theme=food-emissions">greenhouse gases</a>, misuses <a href="https://ccafs.cgiar.org/bigfacts/#theme=food-emissions">fertiliser</a>, and causes large-scale <a href="https://ccafs.cgiar.org/bigfacts/#theme=food-emissions">food wastage</a> and massive <a href="https://ccafs.cgiar.org/bigfacts/#theme=food-emissions">land degradation</a>. 

Their solution is to shift to a diet that transforms this damaging food system. This diet would sustainably feed up to 10 billion people by 2050 and avert about 11 million premature adult deaths a year due to cardiovascular disease and other non-communicable diseases. 

The diet sounds like a silver bullet, but we have found it to be slightly problematic. It doesn’t recognise the enormous differences across the world when it comes to food consumption and production systems. 

It suggests we need less livestock in the world because they damage the environment and produce health-threatening foods – like meat. To most people in developed countries, livestock are the source of neatly packaged foods, readily available in the supermarket. To <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/i0680e/i0680e03.pdf">one billion</a> people in developing countries, livestock are much, much more. They are a source of much-needed livelihoods, incomes, jobs, savings, and nutrition. In some environments, fruits and vegetables may be difficult to grow, and food security depends strongly on animal-source produce. 

The report doesn’t deny any of this: it’s simply rather quiet on it. This could easily lend itself to misinterpretation and push the international development community, donors and governments to reduce investments on increasing access and affordability of animal source foods in countries where positive contributions of these products remain essential for health and life. 

<h2>A healthy diet?</h2>

The authors describe what they call a “universal healthy reference diet” as an alternative to standard current diets which they qualify as imbalanced as reliant on red meat and sugar. 

Drawing on studies, mostly conducted in middle and upper income countries, they propose a diet that consists of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts and unsaturated oils – a diet that’s not very different from the so-called <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/what-is-a-mediterranean-diet/">Mediterranean diet</a>. It includes a low to moderate amount of seafood and poultry, but little to no red meat, added sugar, refined grains or starchy vegetables, and only a small amount of dairy. 

One of the issues that has provoked the <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/397606855/Two-pager-Scientific-Evidence-on-Red-Meat-and-Health">most debate</a> about the report is whether the scientific evidence base regarding what constitutes a “healthy diet” is robust enough. Most of the evidence <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2698337">it cites</a> regarding healthy diets comes from observational studies – these can’t prove a causal link between the consumption of specific products, like red meat, and health issues, like heart disease.

<h2>Needs of poor</h2>

The report also claims that its recommendations are flexible enough to be tailored to the preferences and cultures of different populations, as well as to their specific livelihoods. 

But at no point do the authors explain how the world’s less well-off – who tend to subsist on poor quality starches and who have limited access to milk, meat, eggs, fish – could follow their recommendations.

Many rural households, for example, <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/I9553EN/i9553en.pdf">have limited</a> access to markets and generally depend on rain-fed agriculture for their foods. These families consume most of their calories from staple crops such as maize or manioc, foods that lack the variety of nutrients necessary for health and well-being. Even if they produce other foods such as eggs, dairy, fish from aquaculture, or cash crops such as vegetables or fruits, they will likely sell these foods to support other needs like school fees or health care costs. And many people who live in urban areas in emerging and developing economies <a href="https://glopan.org/sites/default/files/Downloads/GlobalPanelUrbanizationPolicyBrief.pdf">face similar</a> difficulties affording a healthy diet.

Sub-Saharan Africa is mentioned a few times in the report. The report notes that because carbohydrate intake is high in many parts of the continent, 

<blockquote>
the promotion of animal source foods, including livestock products, can improve dietary quality, micronutrient intake, nutrient status and overall health. 
</blockquote>

But the report doesn’t expand on these issues and many, in Africa and Asia, need to increase rather than decrease their consumption of animal source foods.

<h2>Divisive report</h2>

Another criticism is that much of the report focuses on adult diets, yet about one in four people in the world are children less than 15 years old. As they grow and develop they have very different nutritional needs to adults. 

The report has a short section that touches on the importance of breastfeeding for infants and iron for adolescent girls and pregnant and lactating women but does not fully address nutrition in these populations or in other phases of childhood. 

By touting diets low in meat or dairy, it could even be harmful as animal source foods <a href="https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/handle/10568/92907/RR44_may2018.pdf?sequence=5&amp;isAllowed=y">are important</a> and provide nutrients that support rapid growth and immune protection. School-age children, in particular, require zinc, iron, iodine, vitamin A, B12, among others from animal source foods for brain development and health.

The EAT-Lancet report has done an important job in bringing global attention to the question of how to sustainably feed the world’s growing population. But now it needs to take the next step and fully incorporate the perspectives of the poorer people in developing and emerging economies and of the vast emerging global middle classes.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112238/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important" />

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/silvia-alonso-alvarez-694393">Silvia Alonso Alvarez</a>, Senior scientist &#8211; Epidemiologist, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/international-livestock-research-institute-2924"> International Livestock Research Institute </a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/isabelle-baltenweck-529850">Isabelle Baltenweck</a>, Deputy Program Leader, Policies, Institutions and Livelihoods, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/international-livestock-research-institute-2924"> International Livestock Research Institute </a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lora-iannotti-694346">Lora Iannotti</a>, Associate Professor, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/washington-university-in-st-louis-732">Washington University in St Louis</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/paula-dominguez-salas-694392">Paula Dominguez-Salas</a>, Assistant Professor of Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/london-school-of-hygiene-and-tropical-medicine-859">London School of Hygiene &#038; Tropical Medicine</a>

This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-ever-global-scientific-eating-plan-forgets-the-worlds-poor-112238">original article</a>.

How the world’s first ever scientific eating plan forgot the poor

HARARE (Reuters) &#8211; Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank has borrowed $985 million from African banks including Mozambique’s central bank and the African Export and Import Bank to purchase fuel and other critical imports, governor John Mangudya said.



Zimbabwe is in the grip of a severe dollar crunch and last month ditched a discredited 1:1 dollar peg for surrogate bond notes and electronic dollars, merging them into a lower-value transitional currency called the RTGS dollar.



Mangudya said the loans would be repaid from future gold earnings and had a tenure of between three and five years.



“These loans are well structured facilities contracted last year,” he told a parliamentary committee.



Mangudya also said government borrowing from the central bank reached $2.99 billion in December, about three times its permissible overdraft limit.



The government has promised to curb borrowing in 2019 as part of reforms to revive the southern African economy, after the budget deficit soared last year following a spike in spending ahead of elections.



Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Mark Heinrich

Zimbabwe borrows $985 million from African banks, what you need to know…

By Kopano Gumbi, CNBC Africa’s markets reporter 



The Unemployment Insurance Fund – paid for by millions of taxpayers -has confirmed that it will bail out indebted South African retail giant Edcon.



Hyprop has also arranged to support Edcon. This may include the property company subscribing for an equity interest in Edcon. 



Edcon occupies 66 781m2 of space at South Africa&#8217;s largest listed specialised shopping centre Real Estate Investment Trust&#8217;s malls or 9,2% of gross lettable area, and 7,6% of rental income in South Africa.



In a Sens statement Hyprop said it &#8220;has worked with Edcon to reduce their space requirements. Agreement has been reached with Edcon for 7 563m2 to be returned in the short term. New tenants have been secured for most of this space and Hyprop is confident of its ability to re-let the balance&#8221;. 



The struggling fashion retailer, which owns household names Edgars and Jet, shocked the market last year when it announced that it would need R3.5billion to stay afloat.



It is understood that the business went to investors at home and abroad for the money, but many were skeptical. 



Over 100,000 jobs are on the line in a country that is already bleeding jobs and has an unemployment rate of 27.1 per cent, according to Stats SA.



 The Edcon Group also approached the Public Investment Corporation in December. According to Sinesipho Maninjwa, an independent analyst, Edcon did not meet the investment criteria set out by the PIC, largest asset manager in Africa. 



The reason why the UIF was roped in was because of its “socially responsible investment policy” under which a transaction like this could save jobs. 



Grant Pattison, the CEO of the Edcon Group, confirmed that today is the eleventh hour in the fight to save the company.

EDCON claims from UIF

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South African retailer Steinhoff reported on Thursday a 3 percent rise in sales to 4.7 billion euros ($5.4 billion) for the three months ended Dec. 31.



The firm, trying to clean up its finances after uncovering an accounting fraud that nearly tipped it into bankruptcy, also said a forensic investigation into the problems at the firm by accountancts PwC would be delivered to the board in mid-March.



($1 = 0.8783 euros)



Reporting by Emma Rumney; Editing by Mark Potter

Scandal-ridden Steinhoff reports a 3% rise in quarterly sales

MBABANE (Reuters) &#8211; eSwatini’s economy probably contracted in 2018 and is set to continue faltering as the southern African kingdom faces slowing rates of foreign investment and a fast-growing wage bill, Finance Minister Neal Rijkenberg said on Wednesday.



The tiny landlocked country, formerly known as Swaziland and with a population of 1.4 million people, is ruled by the increasingly powerful King Mswati III whose rule has faced growing resistance as state revenue and employment have slowed.



“eSwatini is facing an unprecedented economic crisis. Preliminary estimates suggest a contraction of 0.4 percent in our GDP for 2018 and the economic outlook remains subdued,” Rijkenberg said in a budget speech to lawmakers.



Reporting by Lunga Masuku: Editing by Catherine Evans

eSwatini is facing an unprecedented economic crisis – finmin

By Bryden Morton, B.Com (Hons) Economics, Executive Director and Chris Blair, B.Sc Chem. Eng., MBA – Leadership &amp; Sustainability,  CEO. 



Minister Mboweni opened the 2019/2020
South African budget speech by bringing along a typical South African plant, the
Aloe, and painting a picture of how this Aloe came to be. He said that we must
sow the seeds of renewal and growth, cultivate the soil and protect the plant
from the elements and pests by pruning away the rot. Although used as a
metaphor, the metaphor is clearly referring to stopping corruption and state
capture efforts – something that has directly affected You in South Africa



The budget speech was dominated by concerns
over South Africa’s rising debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, as well
as the poor financial state of a number of state owned entities. These issues provide
a conundrum for the Finance Minister as he would need to seek additional funding
from an already strained tax base. In an election year, major changes to the
tax structure tend to be put off until after the election has passed. The
entire budget speech lived up to the expectation that no drastic changes would
be implemented (from a tax point of view) and that it would be a somewhat
neutral budget &#8211; the main points impacting You in the economy include:



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Personal
Income Tax: Although a slight adjustment to the tax threshold of the income
tax bracket has been made, the remainder of the brackets have remained
unchanged. The impact of this is that You may experience a slight bracket creep
– this means if You move into a new income tax bracket because of a salary
increase then You will pay more tax. The impact of this creep should be
relatively neutral to individuals given South Africa’s progressive tax system
because You earn more money in the new bracket.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Fuel
Levies: The fuel levy will increase by 30c per litre for petrol and 29c
per litre for diesel. The Finance Minister acknowledged that this was below the
amount required by the beleaguered Road Accident Fund. This may be amplified by
world oil prices and the Rand/Dollar exchange rate.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Sin Taxes: The taxes
on sin tax items increased. If You are a person who enjoys any of the following
products expect to face the following price increase.</li><li>A beer will cost you 12c more and the total
levy stands at R1.74</li><li>Wine increased by 22c per bottle and the total
levy stands at R3.15</li><li>Sparkling wine increased by 84c per bottle and
the total levy stands at R10.16</li><li>Whiskey increased by R1.14 per bottle and the
total levy stands at R65.84</li><li>Cigarettes increased by 64c per pack and the
total levy stands at R7.80</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Social
Grants: Social grants were increased moderately to attempt to appease both
the socialists who expect larger social grants and capitalists who believe that
they need to be reined in. The following changes to the value of social grants
were announced.<ul><li>The old age and disability pensions increased
by R80 to R1770 per month</li></ul><ul><li>The foster care grant increased by R40 to
R1000 per month</li></ul><ul><li>The child care grant will increase by R10 in
April and R10 in October 2019 to reach R430 per month.</li></ul></li></ul>



Increased
taxes increase net revenue for the State whilst grants decrease the net revenue
for the State. These taxes and grants have not been altered in any significant way
which then begs the question of how will South Africa combat rising debt and
financially distressed state owned entities (SOEs)? The Finance Minister‘s main
solution to this problem is to implement a reduction to the size of the state’s
wage bill of R27 billion over 3 years. But how will this be achieved? This
would be done by offering older servants early retirement and placing limits on
overtime, bonuses and pay progression in the future – will this be enough to
arrest the growing GDP deficit and ailing SOEs? Probably not and therefore Minister
Mboweni gave an indication into the potential philosophy for raising tax
revenues in future when he spoke about his belief in the “user must pay”
principle. Undoubtedly, Mboweni was referring to the existing E-Toll and Eskom
sagas. These statements provide sufficient evidence to suspect that when the
new electricity tariff is announced, NERSA will grant Eskom a larger increase
than in recent years. Similarly, this suggests that the E-Toll system will not
be scrapped in the short term. Both of these possible outcomes are negative to
You, the user.



Finally
the overall themes that characterised this year’s budget speech are as follows:




<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Tax changes on individuals are to be kept as
neutral as possible.</li><li>The Finance Minister is an advocate of the
“user must pay” principle which could see tariffs charged on individuals, such
as electricity and E-Tolls being increased as a means of moving the financial
burden more onto the user than the state. </li><li>Indebted state owned entities will not be
bailed out and will need to repay any loans they receive from government and
comply with government’s requirements for lending them money.</li><li>For the time being government believes that we
are on track to peak at a 60% debt to GDP ratio.</li></ul>



In summary, it was a fairly uneventful
budget speech &#8211; in line with most expectations that it would be lacking
surprises as this is an election year. Whether or not foregoing making
meaningful changes to the revenue raising model this year will impact our debt
to GDP in the future remains to be seen, but for now, the tax burden on
individuals has remained relatively unchanged. It is the future we should worry
about.

Op-Ed: What South Africa’s #Budget2019 speech will mean to you personally

HARARE (Reuters) &#8211; Zimbabwe’s commercial banks are under orders to restrict U.S. dollar transactions to companies and individuals with foreign payments to make, according to a central bank directive that demonstrates the slow progress of currency reforms. 



The document, a measure of the foreign exchange controls that remain in place six days after authorities announced moves to ease chronic cash shortages, also states such transactions should be aimed at stimulating economic growth.



It was sent to banks on Friday and seen by Reuters on Tuesday.



Zimbabwe abandoned a discredited 1:1 dollar peg for its dollar-surrogate bond notes and electronic dollars last week, merging them into a lower-value transitional currency called the RTGS dollar.



It launched the RTGS dollar in a “managed float” at 2.5 per U.S. dollar, but as of Tuesday, banks had yet to start selling hard currency in cash.



Banks were only selling U.S. dollars to firms and individuals with invoices or receipts for imports deemed a priority, such as fuel and medicines.



“All interbank market sales to individuals and corporates shall be restricted to funding of external obligations,” and banks should submit dealing reports every two hours, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) directive said.



Dealers were encouraged to take steps “to ensure efficient utilisation of foreign currency that is tilted towards the productive sectors of the economy,” it added.



The state-owned Herald newspaper reported that Botswana had offered to lend Zimbabwe $600 million to support its diamond industry and private firms.



Economists say the RTGS reform shows promise provided the government makes good on a plan to let the new currency fluctuate.



Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube told Reuters in an interview on Monday that, while the market should determine the RTGS rate, the government wanted to avoid excessive volatility.



However, the current official rate values the RTGS far higher than on a thriving black market that many ordinary Zimbabweans use to buy and sell U.S. dollars.



‘SEED U.S. DOLLAR CAPITAL’The central bank has sold small amounts of U.S. dollars to banks at 2.5 RTGS in recent days, and a currency dealer told Reuters the RBZ had authorised banks to buy and sell U.S. dollars at 2.5 percent either side of that rate.



Tellers at two banks in downtown Harare said they could help clients make payments for overseas purchases at 2.5625 RTGS, the rate that other banks offered on Monday.



However, “the RBZ hasn’t given us any U.S. dollars in cash yet,” a teller at a CABS bank branch said.



The central bank sold what it called “seed foreign currency capital” to banks, but the sums in question appear to be tiny.



A senior RBZ official told The Standard newspaper around $5 million had changed hands on the interbank market on Friday.



Bureaux de change can in theory sell people U.S. dollars in cash, but they are few and far between and the central bank directive said some would have to re-apply for operating licences.



One exchange bureau at the Road Port bus station in Harare was not selling U.S. dollars in cash yet but hoped it would start making sales next Monday.



Exchange rates on the black market for the bond note &#8211; which many people still use in shops &#8211; were at 3.6 to the U.S. dollar, unchanged from Monday, informal currency traders said.



Reporting by Alexander Winning and MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by John Stonestreet

Here’s why Zimbabwe is limiting dollar sales to foreign payments only

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; Africa’s biggest pay-TV group MultiChoice debuted on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on Wednesday with shares opening at 95.50 rand, giving the company a market capitalisation of 42 billion rand ($3.03 billion).



South African ecommerce giant Naspers decided to spin off MultiChoice after coming under pressure in recent years to find ways to narrow a valuation discount between its market value and that of its one-third stake in Chinese internet group Tencent.



As of 0727 GMT, the stock was trading at 105.04 rand, adding to opening gains.



Naspers did not raise any money from the listing with the 439 million shares instead being distributed to current Naspers shareholders on a one-for-one basis for its listed shares and one for five unlisted A class shares



Founded 30 years ago, MultiChoice reaches around 14 million households in 50 African countries, offering both paid-TV products and a fledging streaming service called Showmax.



The company has said there are more than 25 million households across the continent yet to be captured by its traditional pay-TV business.



The spin off leaves MultiChoice — whose strong cash flow helped Naspers evolve into one world’s biggest players in e-commerce &#8211; free to fend for itself in an increasingly competitive market where Netflix is already supplying viewers with TV content and Hollywood hits.



“This is a momentous time for our business&#8230; This marks the next chapter in our development and growth,” said MultiChoice CEO Calvo Mawela.



($1 = 13.8603 rand)



Reporting by Emma Rumney; editing by Alexandra Zavis and Jason Neely

Africa’s top pay-TV group MultiChoice debuts on JSE with $3 bln market cap

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa is close to signing an interim trade agreement with Britain that would replicate arrangements with Europe and ensure trade will not be disrupted in the event of a hard Brexit, South African Trade Minister Rob Davies said on Monday. 



With just a month to go before Britain is due to leave the European Union, London has been trying to strike agreements with trade partners around the world to replicate the terms it now has as a member of the bloc.



“We are very, very close to concluding a bilateral agreement with the UK which is essentially a roll over &#8230; of the partnership agreement,” he said in a phone interview, referring to South Africa’s current agreement with the EU.



South Africa is Britain’s biggest partner in Africa with trade worth over 9 billion pounds ($11.77 billion) in 2017. Metals and other commodities, cars and car parts, machinery, fruit and beverages are among the main traded goods.



Without an agreement in place, that trade would become subject to higher tariffs that would hit key industries in both countries essentially overnight in the event of a hard or no-deal Brexit on March 29.



The deal being finalised would create a transition period for the two sides to reach a more permanent deal, once Britain’s future relationship with the EU and its new trade profile becomes clear.



Davies said some elements couldn’t simply be recreated in the bilateral agreement, and required negotiation.



Some of those provisions were still being discussed, he said, though other difficult issues including tariff quotas on agricultural exports had already been settled.



However, some Brexit risks, such as the impact of an economic slowdown in the EU, could not be mitigated against, he said.



“If supply chains in Europe are adversely affected and Europe starts to have some kind of external shock challenges, there’s not too much we can do about that,” he said, adding this could hit industries like South Africa’s auto sector.



($1 = 0.7648 pounds)



Reporting by Emma Rumney and Joe Bavier; Editing by Peter Graff

South Africa and Britain could sign interim post-Brexit trade deal

HARARE (Reuters) &#8211; Botswana has offered to lend Zimbabwe $600 million to support its diamond industry and local private firms, a state-owned newspaper reported on Tuesday, amid a severe dollar crunch in the southern African nation.



There are few signs the flow of foreign currency is improving in Zimbabwe after it ditched a discredited 1:1 dollar peg for its dollar-surrogate bond notes and electronic dollars, merging them into a lower-value transitional currency called the RTGS dollar.



James Manzou, Zimbabwe’s secretary for foreign affairs, said President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi are expected to sign the loan agreements in Harare on Thursday.



The loan will consist of $500 million dollars for Zimbabwe’s diamond industry and a further $100 million to help private companies, whose operations have been hamstrung by the dollar shortage, the state-owned Herald newspaper said.



“Zimbabwe is also appreciative of the $500 million diamond facility offered to it by Botswana,” Manzou was quoted as saying by the paper.



Manzou, who could not be reached for comment, did not give any details on the diamond loan.



Last month South Africa said it had turned down Zimbabwe’s request for a $1.2 billion loan.



Zimbabwe’s diamond sector has struggled since the government kicked out private companies from the eastern Marange fields in early 2016 after they declined to merge under the state-owned mining company.



Relations between Zimbabwe and Botswana have improved recently following a strained period when Botswana’s ex-President Ian Khama, who stepped down in 2018, routinely criticised Zimbabwe’s former strongman Robert Mugabe for holding on to power for too long.



A military coup in 2017 forced Mugabe to resign, ending his 37-year rule.



Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Kirsten Donovan

What you need to know about Botswana’s $600 million loan offer to Zimbabwe

By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ilana-van-wyk-692832">Ilana van Wyk</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/stellenbosch-university-1439">Stellenbosch University</a>



The prosperity gospel is back in the news in South Africa, this time over the <a href="https://ewn.co.za/Topic/Prophet-Shepherd-Bushiri">misdeeds</a> of one of its prophets. The prosperity gospel is a religious movement that has exploded in popularity and prominence in South Africa over the last two decades but has stirred up controversy globally for more than 40 years.

The gospel first reached South Africa in the late 1970s through churches such as televangelist Ray McCauley’s <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/inside-the-most-powerful-church-in-south-africa-2006129.html">Rhema Bible Church</a>. Due to apartheid restrictions on the movements of black people, the prosperity gospel’s reach was limited. But since the start of democracy in 1994, <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/jra/35/1/article-p66_4.xml">preachers</a> from across the continent have streamed into the country’s townships, converting large numbers to this new gospel. 

Today it’s the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328070728_Pentecostalism_Politics_and_Prosperity_in_South_Africa">fastest growing</a> religious movement in South Africa. While precise statistics are lacking, scholars <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289353390_An_introduction_to_Pentecostalism_Global_charismatic_Christianity">agree</a> that prosperity gospel followers rival, if not exceed, the <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2006/10/05/historical-overview-of-pentecostalism-in-south-africa/">numbers</a> of so-called mainline churches. 

Not many South Africans had paid much attention to Prophet Shepherd Bushiri until the end of last year. But when three people died in a <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-01-06-69-year-old-among-trio-killed-in-bushiri-church-stampede/">stampede</a> at his Enlightened Christian Gathering Church in Pretoria, the “self-proclaimed prophet” received wide media coverage.

In February 2019, he was again in the news when the police’s special crime investigative unit <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-02-01-controversial-church-leader-shepherd-bushiri-arrested/">arrested</a> him and his wife on suspicion of fraud, money laundering and for exchange control irregularities amounting to over US$ 1 million. His R20-million private Gulfstream jet was also attached.

Bushiri’s followers also <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-02-05-from-major-1-to-daddy-the-craze-of-bushiri-supporters/">attracted media attention</a> when they gathered in great numbers waving placards outside court to pray for his release. Many prostrated themselves on the tarmac, tears streaming down their faces as they spoke in tongues or as they cried for their “daddy”, “Papa” or “Major One”. 

Paseka Motsoeneng, better known as <a href="https://informationcradle.com/safrica/prophet-mboro/">Prophet Mboro</a>, who is a preacher from a similar church, lent emotional and spiritual <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/beware-of-scams-to-bankroll-legal-battle-of-bushiri-19172963">support</a> to Bushiri’s “children”, traumatised by the loss of their “spiritual mother and father”. 

These scenes led many South Africans to ask questions about Bushiri’s supporters. Were they part of a cult? Or were they merely instruments in the hands of a man who manipulated their vulnerability for his own financial ends? 

Christian commentators <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/Voices/prophets-of-doom-a-sordid-tale-of-manipulation-and-money-20190211">called</a> for urgent government intervention to protect poor people duped by the improbable promises made by what they <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1855569/christians-march-against-false-prophets-bushiri-fights-back-in-court/">termed</a> as “scam” churches and “fake prophets”. 

As an anthropologist, I have been <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/a-church-of-strangers/;">studying</a> prosperity gospel churches in South Africa for nearly a decade. I have attended hundreds of daily services, watched scores of televised ones, analysed websites and chat forums and interviewed hundreds of prosperity gospel believers. And unlike theologians who argue about the legitimacy of Biblical interpretations and questions of doctrine, I have been interested in the kinds of people who swear undying support for men like Bushiri. 

<h2>Tenets of the prosperity gospel</h2>

The prosperity gospel explains poverty and illness in terms of sins against God, specifically the withholding of tithes. It also ascribes such “bad luck” to the work of demons engaged in a spiritual war against God’s kingdom. Converts typically renounce their past lives and their old churches.

They embrace spiritual “technologies” – these include offerings in church, paying tithes, praying strongly and exorcising demons – that promise to secure miraculous health and wealth directly from God. They also follow preacher-prophets who they believe have special powers to fight against the “spirit of poverty”. 

Many believers are strengthened in this faith through the persistent testimonies of those who had been “blessed” with jobs, houses, cars and healing in church. These testimonies are delivered from church pulpits and in person, and are endlessly repeated in church publications and on radio, television and the internet. 

<h2>What I found</h2>

My research showed that prosperity gospel churches attract people from all walks of life and a variety of educational backgrounds. While the majority of congregants, like the majority of South Africans, are typically poor and dependent on social grants, these churches also count significant numbers of professionals, business people and increasingly, politicians, in their ranks. 

I also found that Prosperity gospel believers are not captive victims of so-called cult leaders. In fact, they move constantly between churches as they search for more efficacious “technologies” and “stronger prophets”. 
Chances are that as Bushiri faces more legal troubles, more of his followers will desert him for prophets like Mboro. 

I often struggle to convince people that those who subscribe to this gospel are not simply credulous dupes. Detractors often refer to the figure of the improbably rich prophet, men like Bushiri, as proof that the prosperity gospel is illegitimate and that its believers are fools. 

<h2>God and money</h2>

There’s a long Western Christian <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270900267_Introduction_money_and_the_morality_of_exchange">belief</a> that money is a force that corrupts proper spiritual intentions and corrodes sacred social bonds. Stemming from the 16th century Reformation, this tradition has been very suspicious of any coupling of God and money, holding that the material world poses dangerous distractions from proper spiritual belief. 

But there are other Christian traditions such as the prosperity gospel that are much more materialist in their concerns. In these traditions, money does very different kinds of work. It is the proper medium through which their God “blesses” people, through which people petition God and through which believers come into social being and connect to others through their generosity. 

Some of these traditions have a long history in South Africa, going back to the 1800s. The mission record for instance shows that scores of early converts- and missionaries- demanded material proof of their new God’s power. Various Revivalists used Christianity to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248962308_The_Millennium_Comes_to_Mapumulo_Popular_Christianity_in_Rural_Natal_1866-1906">inform</a> more aggressive forms of millenarianism such as the “gospel of self-help” during the 1940s and the tent campaigns of the 1960s. The prosperity gospel is a continuation of this materialist Christian tradition. For its followers, it is not a con, just a different approach to their God.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111838/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important" />

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ilana-van-wyk-692832">Ilana van Wyk</a>, Lecturer in Social Anthropology, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/stellenbosch-university-1439">Stellenbosch University</a>

This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-money-gospel-followers-arent-simply-credulous-dupes-111838">original article</a>.

A look at the ‘prosperity gospel’ in South Africa

HARARE (Reuters) &#8211; Zimbabwe’s commercial banks started trading the RTGS dollar on Monday, but authorities offered no indication as to how ordinary citizens would interact with the country’s new transitional currency five days after it was introduced. 



Zimbabwe ditched a dollar peg for its surrogate bond notes and electronic dollars on Wednesday, merging them into the RTGS dollar in an effort to revive a crippled economy and address a cash crunch that has undermined President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s efforts attract foreign investment.



The central bank sold U.S. dollars to banks at 2.5 RTGS dollars on Friday morning, and on Monday lenders began trading the currency with corporate customers and on an interbank market.



There had been indications that ordinary Zimbabweans would be able to buy U.S. dollars with bond notes or electronic dollars from Monday.



But a Standard Chartered bank teller in Harare said her branch was not selling dollars to individuals yet, and downtown bank queues were no longer than normal as people made their way to work.



Kudakwashe Mukora, an electrician who had just come out of the branch, said: “At the moment we’re just shooting in the dark. The government isn’t addressing the fundamental issue which is that the black market is in charge.”



On Monday one U.S. dollar was being sold on the black market for four electronic dollars &#8211; which have been locked in individuals’ accounts for months due to the chronic cash shortages &#8211; compared to 4.20 on Friday, currency traders said.



An employee at a Stanbic branch said the bank was offering U.S. dollars to corporate clients at 2.5625 RTGS dollars and buying dollars at 2.4 RTGS. She said the idea was that individuals would be able to buy and sell dollars at a later date, but she wasn’t sure when.



The central bank has promised a “managed float” of the RTGS &#8211; which stands for the real-time gross settlement system banks use to transfer money &#8211; but it is not clear how it will control the currency’s movements given that it does not have significant foreign exchange reserves.



“The big players are holding onto their money, that is what is holding rates at the moment. In the next week or two, it should be clear whether the interbank is working or not,” one trader at Harare’s Eastgate shopping centre said.



Zimbabwe’s currency problems date back to the hyperinflation era of post-independence leader Robert Mugabe, who Mnangagwa replaced after an army coup in November 2017.



International attitudes to Mnangagwa’s government have hardened since a violent security crackdown last summer on post-election protests and on demonstrations last month against a major fuel hike.



Reporting by Alexander Winning, Alfonce Mbizwo and MacDonald Dzirutwe; editing by John Stonestreet

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Op-Ed: What South Africa’s #Budget2019 speech will mean to you personally

Here’s why Zimbabwe is limiting dollar sales to foreign payments only

Africa’s top pay-TV group MultiChoice debuts on JSE with $3 bln market cap

South Africa and Britain could sign interim post-Brexit trade deal

What you need to know about Botswana’s $600 million loan offer to Zimbabwe

A look at the ‘prosperity gospel’ in South Africa

Zimbabwe banks start trading new currency, what you need to know

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Advertise With Us

Southern Africa

Why S.Africa’s Absa plans to pay higher dividend despite FY earnings drop

Why SA’s energy regulator Nersa granted Eskom smaller tariff hikes than sought

Has Zimbabwe’s central bank fixed the exchange rate of the country’s new transitional currency?

Here’s why U.S. president Trump extended sanctions against Zimbabwe by a year

HIV-positive patient becomes world’s second AIDS cure hope

How the world’s first ever scientific eating plan forgot the poor

Zimbabwe borrows $985 million from African banks, what you need to know…

EDCON claims from UIF

Scandal-ridden Steinhoff reports a 3% rise in quarterly sales

eSwatini is facing an unprecedented economic crisis – finmin

Op-Ed: What South Africa’s #Budget2019 speech will mean to you personally

Here’s why Zimbabwe is limiting dollar sales to foreign payments only

Africa’s top pay-TV group MultiChoice debuts on JSE with $3 bln market cap

South Africa and Britain could sign interim post-Brexit trade deal

What you need to know about Botswana’s $600 million loan offer to Zimbabwe

A look at the ‘prosperity gospel’ in South Africa

Zimbabwe banks start trading new currency, what you need to know

News Tips

Advertise With Us

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