South Africa

PRETORIA - It takes eight procedures and 65 days to establish a foreign-owned limited liability company in South Africa, which a new World Bank study says is slower than both the sub-Saharan African average of 48 days and the global average of 42 days. The ‘Investing Across Borders 2010' report - which analyses practices affecting foreign direct investment (FDI) in 87 countries - also notes that a foreign company wishing to engage in international trade will need to obtain an additional trade licence from the Department of Trade and Industry, which usually takes 38 days to secure. By contrast, it involves only three procedures and four days to set up a foreign-owned business in Rwanda, where it takes only one additional day to obtain a trade licence for international trade. Further, start-up procedures have been centralised under the Rwanda Development Board, which handles company registrations. However, South Africa compares favourably against a country such as Angola, where it involves 12 procedures and 263 days to establish a foreign-owned company, and it even compares well against a country such as Brazil, where it takes 166 days. The World Bank describes the study as the first "objective" review of data on laws and regulations affecting FDI. It uses the outcomes to reassert the bank's long-held argument that overly restrictive and obsolete laws are impeding FDI flows, while poor implementation is creating additional costs to investment.

CAPE TOWN - Doubts are expressed over plans to replicate aspects of FIFA World Cup courts that have seen the cases of criminals, who have targeted visitors to the event, or visitors in trouble, swiftly concluded. "They have dedicated prosecutors sitting around waiting for a case to come to them," comments Golden Miles Bhudu, head of South African Prisoners Organisation for Human Rights, in response to the Justice Department's hopes to carry over successful elements of the courts to the "normal" justice system. The lobby group, which often complains about the lengthy waits behind bars for people, who have been denied or cannot afford bail, is not holding its breath for an overnight improvement in the processing of cases. Says Bhudu: "What we have been saying all along is that we need to bend right backwards to please international communities and give them the impression that everything in this country is hunky dory. It's not. "People wait a minimum of eight months for their case to get underway - the maximum could be anything between three to eight years before you are found guilty." At the start of the FIFA World Cup, the Law Society of South Africa was among those, including Western Cape Premier Helen Zille, who expressed optimism over the replication of aspects of the FIFA World Cup court system after the tournament. According to the Justice Department, there has been 172 cases involving 223 accused since the tournament started and 104 prosecutions - a 60% success rate.

PRETORIA - The Presidency announces three more departures by senior officials in its office but denies that there is a "crisis". "There is no exodus of staff, and there is no crisis or turmoil in the institution," the Presidency says in a statement posted on its website. "What is happening are normal staff movements, as it happens in any organisation at any time," the Presidency says, adding that it is concerned about "speculative reporting" on staff changes. The comments are contained in a statement entitled, "Staff changes in the Presidency", which confirms rumours of more departures by senior officials. The statement says that President Jacob Zuma's economic adviser Mandisi Mpahlwa and deputy director-general for communications Vusi Mona will move to other jobs. The Presidency says that Mpahlwa has been appointed ambassador-designate to the Russian Federation. "Given the importance of Russia, we needed a seasoned cadre to represent the President and the national interest in that country," says the Minister in the Presidency responsible for Performance Monitoring, Evaluation and Administration, Collins Chabane. Mpahlwa will assume the post in September. Mona will move to the Government Communications and Information System. "The weekend media reports that Mr Mona has been asked to resign are incorrect," says the statement. "Meanwhile, President Zuma and Minister Chabane are currently in discussions with the director-general, Mr Vusi Mavimbela regarding his role and this has not been finalised yet."

PRETORIA - A distinction should be made between parastatals and State departments spending money on FIFA World Cup tickets, Minister in the National Planning Commission Trevor Manuel says, according to the SABC. This follows an outcry over State entities spending millions on soccer tickets. Manuel says that parastatals are business entities that need to make profits by engaging on a social level with clients. "Some of the parastatals are business entities and these business entities have to run themselves in a particular way. "We mustn't hyperventilate when the national airline takes tour operators and builds a relationship with them, because that is building the business. "When you take a local authority or a government department and they spend taxpayers' money on themselves it's a different issue." The Sunday Times reports that Eskom, which has been embroiled in a wage dispute, spent R80-million on FIFA World Cup tickets. South African Airways spent R23-million on tickets, two months before getting a R1,6-million bail-out from the government. PetroSA and Transnet jointly spent R24-million and the Free State provincial government and the Mangaung municipality spent almost R22-million on tickets. The Congress of South African Trade Unions reportedly called for a probe into government and State-owned entities' spending on tickets.

JOHANNESBURG - A newly released comparison of proposed municipal electricity tariff increases for 2010/11 shows that business and industrial consumers in the Ekurhuleni metropolitan area of Gauteng province will be confronted with a 57% surge in prices, compared with 2009/10 tariffs, while the average proposed increase across 11 large municipal areas surveyed would be 22%. The study, which was prepared by utility pricing company NUS Consulting South Africa, is based on the "highest voltage maximum demand" tariffs available to clients requiring electrical capacity of 1,5 MVA over a 12-month period. Customers falling into this bracket will include large manufacturing companies, or enterprises such as large bakeries or paint producers, or even large commercial or retail complexes. GM Stephan Dolk says that the comparison is based on the proposed increases submitted for approval by the municipalities to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) and are, in the main, at the upper end of Nersa's recommended increase range. The analysis finds that Ekurhuleni's tariffs in this category will increase by 28c/kWh to 77c/kWh, making industrial tariffs in the metropolitan area second highest after those charged in Johannesburg, where 80c/kWh is proposed for 2010/11. Durban's proposed increase comes in next highest at 30%, which will raise tariffs to the category of consumers surveyed to 71c/kWh and make that city's tariffs the third highest among the councils surveyed. Johannesburg's City Power, meanwhile, proposed a hike of 28% for the second year in succession.

Africa & the world

ADDIS ABABA - An East African regional bloc promises to send an additional 2 000 peacekeepers to Somalia, where an almost powerless government is hemmed into a few streets of its capital by Islamist militants. The African Union (AU) Mission in Somalia (Amisom) peacekeeping force of 6 100 Ugandan and Burundian troops, is struggling to hold back the rebels. The AU has repeatedly asked for United Nations (UN) peacekeepers to be sent in but has only been given funding. "The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) decides to deploy 2 000 peacekeepers under Amisom to Somalia immediately," Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin says. The statement did not say which countries will contribute more troops. Diplomats say that Uganda is likely to supply the biggest share of reinforcements. The IGAD meeting was attended by Heads of State from Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and Djibouti. The bloc also includes Eritrea but its membership is suspended. Western diplomats fear that Somalia could emerge as a launch pad for attacks in the Horn of Africa and further afield. Somalia's al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants have previously threatened to hit Uganda and Burundi for their troop contributions. The IGAD leaders, some of whom host Somali refugees in their countries, say that they eventually want 20 000 peacekeepers from the AU and the UN in the country. A UN resolution bans Somalia's neighbours - Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti - from contributing forces to the hard-pressed AU peacekeepers.

LUANDA - Defectors from Angola's ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party announce plans to form a new political group, saying that they aim to tap into discontent over poverty and corruption. The group, called the Democratic Block, is small in numbers and has almost no chance of taking power, but its leaders are hoping to grab enough seats in Parliament in elections in 2012 to make the ruling MPLA more accountable. "We want to change the political landscape by making people aware that they can speak out against corruption and vote for a party that protects their civil rights," Filomeno Vieira Lopes, secretary-general of the Democratic Block party, says. Lopes and other former MPLA members founded the Front for Democracy party in the run up to the 2008 elections, but dissolved it after failing to secure enough votes to elect a single representatives to Parliament. Angola was ranked in the bottom 19 of 180 countries in a Transparency International corruption table last year, despite calls by President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, one of Africa's longest serving leaders, to fight graft. Foreign investors are tapping Angola's vast oil deposits, but an estimated two-thirds of Angolans still live on less than $2 a day, and opponents of the government say oil wealth has been squandered or stolen. The MPLA has ruled the nation since independence from Portugal in 1975. Its victory in a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002 left political rivals in ruins. The biggest opposition party, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita), holds just over 10% of the seats in Parliament.