Wednesday, July 21, 2010

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Sheila Barradas.

Making headlines:

The green tax to be levied on light vehicles from September 1 is expected to earn the national fiscus an estimated R450-million in the 2010/11 financial year, says National Treasury spokesperson Jabulani Sikhakhane, who added that the tax will also be levied on pick-ups (or bakkies).
The main objective of the tax is to influence the composition of South Africa's vehicle fleet, so that it becomes more energy efficient and environment friendly. Sikhakhane says that the revenues collected will be used to fund general government priorities, including various environmental objectives. "The Environmental Fiscal Reform Policy paper published in 2006 makes clear government's intention to introduce environmental taxes - and incentives - to ensure that our economic growth is directed towards a more sustainable path," he says.
Corporate law firm Webber Wentzel partner Hennie Bester argues that any new carbon tax introduced by government should be revenue neutral. Bester explains that the carbon dioxide vehicle tax is a new source of State revenue for South Africa, but it is unclear whether it will be accompanied by a corresponding relief elsewhere, providing revenue neutrality to keep the "policy honest". "The ideal is not to yield more revenue, but to change behaviour," he says.

Rising trade with Asia, and China in particular, has emerged as a key new source of growth for sub-Saharan Africa and will continue to be a core growth driver in 2010 and beyond, IHS Global Insight chief economist Nariman Behravesh said on Tuesday.
Speaking at the IHS Global Insight's annual Africa Economic Outlook Conference in Sandton, Behravesh argued that in the current "multispeed world", where Asia is in "the fast lane, Europe in the slow lane, and the US somewhere in between", Africa's growing association with Asia will help cushion the region from the downside risks associated with the prevailing crisis in the Eurozone. He added that the spillover from the European crisis onto Africa would be limited, and set at "less than 20%" the risk of the world economy descending into a double-dip recession as a result of the crisis, as well as the real-estate bubble in China.
Behravesh said that China would need to increase the level of private consumption, which currently accounts for less than 40% of gross domestic product, and shift the economy away from "pure manufacturing" to services, which will lower the demand for commodities. Growing trade links with Asia are very important to sub-Saharan Africa, Behravesh says, adding that the "economic prospects for the region will be fairly bright in the coming decades."

The former head of the United Nations (UN) Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) Inga-Britt Ahlenius has accused UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon of poor leadership, saying that the world body is "falling apart" and becoming irrelevant.
The latest criticism of Ban's performance at the helm of the UN, first reported by the Washington Post on Tuesday, comes as his aides weigh the former South Korean Foreign Minister's prospects for a possible second term. Ahlenius says that under Ban's watch "there is no transparency, ... and a lack of accountability." She alleges that Ban undermined the independence of the OIOS, which investigates suspected wrongdoing at the UN, by preventing her from making the US head of the disbanded UN Procurement Task Force, attorney Robert Appleton, head of OIOS investigations.
However, Ban's spokesperson Martin Nesirky says that Ban has improved accountability and transparency at the UN as he promised to, when he took over from Kofi Annan in January 2007.

Also making headlines:

South African Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi says that the number of people infected with HIV/Aids in South Africa remains "extraordinarily high".
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir will travel to Chad in his first visit to a member State of the International Criminal Court, which is demanding his arrest for war crimes and genocide.
African National Congress treasurer-general Mathews Phosa says that every South African has a duty to push the Mandela legacy into the future.
And, HIV/Aids experts say that only 10% of countries have HIV/Aids prevention programmes that are well matched to their national needs.

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.