September 30, 2013.
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan says Africa needs quality investments.

Egypt's foreign minister Nabil Fahmy says the transitional government phase is expected to end by early summer.

And, South Africa’s new smart identification document cards are expected to cost R5.3-billion.

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Friday that Africa needed to attract quality investment to ensure meaningful and sustained growth. Gordhan was at an Association of Black Securities and Investment Professionals conference in Rosebank, Johannesburg.

He said that while the continent with its growing middle class held great potential for direct foreign investment, the quality of such capital needed to be probed. He added that "a good sign was that big economies were beginning to understand that their actions effected the rest of the world."

Gordhan said South Africa needed to ask a few more questions about the quality of capital, and whether capital was there purely for the purposes of yield. This would indicate a short-term view that would not adequately contribute to sustainable and sustained growth.

Gordhan also said trade between African countries needed to improve, and emphasized that leadership decisions in the financial sector had real effects on the lives of people.
 

Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy said on Saturday that the transitional phase of government in Egypt should end "by next spring," replacing leaders appointed after the army ousted elected president Mohamed Mursi in July.

The Egyptian army headed by General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, ousted Mursi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, on July 3 after mass protests against his one-year rule.

Egypt's interim government is working on amending a constitution that was drafted under Mursi by an Islamist-dominated assembly. Mursi’s opponents saw the consittuiton as failing to guarantee rights and reflect Egypt's diverse population.

Fahmy told the UN General Assembly that work was under way, in line with the roadmap, on several tracks, and that it has so far succeeded in establishing the principles of justice, freedom and democracy, as a basis for governance.

Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor has confirmed that the national roll-out of South Africa’s new smart identification document (ID) cards was expected to cost about R5.34-billion.

In response to a Parliamentary question posed by Inkatha Freedom Party MP Narend Singh, Pandor, said this was based on the 38.2-million IDs registered in the National Population Register as at May 21.

However, it was unclear whether the estimated national roll-out pricing supplied included the retrofitting of regional offices with technology to the do live capturing of applicants’ information or the R40-million that was spent on four new machines to print 1 000 ID cards an hour using laser engraving technology.

The new smart ID card was officially introduced on July 18, with the delivery to the broader public to be announced in due course.

Also making headlines:

Sudanese staged another protest in Khartoum to demand that President Omar Hassan al-Bashir resign.

Kenyan authorities are holding eight people in connection with a Nairobi shopping mall attack, while three others were released after questioning.

And, the International Criminal Court judges say Kenyan deputy president William Ruto's trial must resume this week.
 

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.