June 26, 2012

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Natasha Odendaal.

Making headlines:

South Africa and Swaziland have signed a memorandum of understanding relating to a R2.4-billion bailout for Africa's last absolute monarchy. However, the actual loan agreement has not yet been signed, a South African official said on Monday.

Treasury spokesperson Jabulani Sikhakhane said that the financial authorities of the two countries were still discussing the matter of the loan.

A co-author of the ANC’s ‘State Intervention in the Minerals Sector’ (or Sims) report has argued that strengthening the fiscal linkages to South Africa's mining industry through a new resource rents tax was preferable to ‘blanket nationalisation’. Resource rents tax would effectively target super profits earned by domestic miners, while nationalisation could not be pursued in the absence of compensation.

Speaking at a 'Mining for Change' event on Monday, Dr Paul Jourdan stressed that South Africa's bilateral investment agreements made nationalisation without compensation “impossible” and that paying compensation would “break the bank”.

The ANC’s Enoch Godongwana would present the 400-page report, which was released earlier this year, formally this week during a 45-minute plenary presentation to delegates that will converge on Midrand, Gauteng, today.

International Relations Minister Maite Nkoane-Mashabane said on Monday that South Africa's $2-billion loan to the IMF will help the country gain influence.

The pledge by BRICS countries was in line with the provision to transform institutions of global governance, she told the ANC Progressive Business Forum BRICS colloquium, ahead of the party's four-day policy conference in Midrand.

President Jacob Zuma made the commitment of $2-billion to the International Monetary Fund at the G20 summit, a meeting of the world's greatest economies, in Los Cabos, Mexico, last week.

The money would be loaned for an IMF "firewall" meant to prevent future financial crises.

Also making headlines:

ANC president Jacob Zuma says South Africans need to constructively criticise the ANC's policy discussion documents.

And, the new Egyptian president has a tight window on the economy.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.