Friday, December 4, 2009
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Brad Dubbelman.
Making headlines:
There is a material misalignment between South Africa's inaugural integrated resources plan (IRP1) for power generation, which was approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday, and a number of the proposals contained in State-owned power utility Eskom's revised tariff application, including disagreement about when the first unit of the R142-billion Kusile power project should come on stream.
Energy Minister Dipuo Peters released some of the details of the much-anticipated plan yesterday, which is a capital project blueprint for the country up until 2013.
Central to Eskom's lower application for increases of 35% a year for the next three years, was its decision to delay the introduction of Kusile by a year, to June 2014. But IRP1 has sustained the initial 2013 deadline for the introduction of the first 723 MW arising from Kusile.
Peters acknowledges the lack of alignment with the new Eskom plan, but said that the Department of Energy believes that all the projects are necessary to "keep the lights on". The planning for security of supply cannot be stopped simply because there is no money, Peters said.

South African Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies yesterday addressed the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Geneva, and echoed calls for "an early and successful conclusion to the Doha Round", but emphasised that it must have a strong developmental outcome.
Davies said that South Africa supports the call of least developed countries (LDCs) for an early harvest on; duty-free quota-free market access, cotton, a services waiver for LDC preferences, and an ambitious Aid for Trade package. Davies also highlighted that the bail-out packages of several developed countries in response to the global economic crisis, could also exacerbate existing imbalances between developed and developing nations.
South Africa supported the proposals made by Argentina and other developing countries that the WTO monitor the impact of such measures on the trade and investment of developing countries.

The Mail & Guardian (M&G) newspaper has criticised the presidency for releasing a statement on an exclusive story set to appear on its front page on today. M&G editor-in-chief Nic Dawes said that the presidency had damaged the relationship of trust that the newspaper had developed with officials.
The presidency issued a statement late on Thursday, saying that President Jacob Zuma was not using taxpayer's money to foot the bill for an expansion to his Nkandla homestead in remote KwaZulu-Natal, including new houses, a clinic and a helipad.
The M&G said that this followed an attempt to obtain comment from the presidency about the construction, giving it a fair chance to respond, adding that the late statement was a "clear attempt to limit the impact" of the story.

Also making headlines:
South African President Jacob Zuma and high-level ministers will attend next week's Copenhagen climate talks.
A survey shows that Angola's Luanda is the world's costliest city for expatriates.
Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai asks his compatriates to return home to contribute to the reconstruction of the country.
And, South African President Jacob Zuma warns that South Africa's economy may shed more jobs.
That's a roundup of news making headlines today.