October 8, 2014
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Chantelle Kotze.
Making Headlines:

South African President Jacob Zuma opens KwaZulu-Natal’s Dube TradePort .

Sierra Leone’s burial teams for Ebola victims strike over hazard pay.

And, Gauteng government is considering launching a bank that will assist township entrepreneurs get access to funding to help grow their businesses.

President Jacob Zuma told stakeholders and investors at the formal opening of the KwaZulu-Natal Dube TradePort that the industrial development zone (or IDZ) would contribute R5.6-billion to South Africa’s gross domestic product and create more than 150 000 jobs by 2060.

Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies said that government was still in the process of setting up the necessary institutional mechanisms, but that legislation that will broaden the scope of IDZ’s and transform them into special economic zones (or SEZs) had already been signed into law.

Zuma noted that all IDZs would automatically receive SEZ status when the new legislation came into effect. He said support measures would include exemption from value-added tax and customs duties, a Section 12i tax allowance, a 15% corporate tax rate, a building allowance and an employment tax incentive. 

Teams in charge of burying Ebola victim’s bodies in Sierra Leone have gone on strike over nonpayment of their weekly risk allowances.

Only specialized teams in protective clothing are allowed to remove and dispose of bodies because the Ebola virus is highly infectious and remains active in the corpses of victims. The strike could worsen the outbreak of Ebola in Sierra Leone, which has already recorded 121 deaths and scores of new infections. The two districts the teams cover include the capital, Freetown.

Sierra Leone Deputy Health Minister Madina Rahman denied that teams weren’t paid, saying they were only owed for this week.   

The teams had been told of piles of bodies in and around Waterloo, in the Western Area rural district south of the capital. 

The Ebola outbreak is the worst on record and has killed 3 439 out of a total of 7 492 cases through October 1, mostly in West Africa, the World Health Organisation said last week.

Since it started in the forest region of Guinea in March, the disease has spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia. Cases have also been recorded in Nigeria, Senegal, the US and Spain.

Gauteng Premier David Makhura announced on Tuesday that the Gauteng government was considering launching a bank that will assist township entrepreneurs to get access to funding to help grow their businesses. He was speaking at the Gauteng township economy revitalization summit in Soweto.

Makhura said the Gauteng Entreprise Propeller (or GEP) was not doing enough to assist businesses and that it was helping far too few people. GEP is a provincial government agency established in 2005 under the auspices of the Economic Development Department to provide nonfinancial support and financial support and to coordinate stakeholders for the benefit of small, medium and micro entrepreneurs in Gauteng. However, it was operating like a bank and needed to be transformed to focus on the transformation of the township.

The Premier told delegates that the provincial government would invest at least R160-million for the current financial year, to revitalize and build business hubs in the townships.    

Also making headlines:

US Ambassador to South Africa Patrick Gaspard has expressed concern about alleged irregularities in the recent Eskom tender for the replacement of steam generators at the Koeberg nuclear power station in Cape Town.

Europe should expect to see more Ebola cases after the first transmission outside Africa.

And, Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta arrived at the International Criminal Court on Wednesday for a hearing over his indictment on charges of crimes against humanity, making him the first sitting leader to appear at the global tribunal.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today