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Polity
Article by: Amy Witherden Published: 26 Feb 2010
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| Daily podcast - February 26, 2010 | |
| Friday, February 26, 2010 From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Brad Dubbelman. Making headlines: The Trade and Industry Ministry will soon start a countrywide campaign to prepare businesses for the introduction of the new Companies Act in the third quarter. Speaking at a briefing in Cape Town yesterday, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said that the Act is "a major piece of legislation and a major reform", which will "significantly improve the environment for business operations" in South Africa. One of the changes in the Act will be the simplification of the procedure for registering companies, Davies added that a major innovation in the Act would be the introduction of the business rescue scheme. Western donors are ready to cancel Zimbabwe's $6-billion foreign debt, the country's Finance Minister Tendai Biti said yesterday, adding that the lenders were waiting for Harare to put the process in motion. The Southern African country last received balance of payment support in 1999 after which international financial institutions froze out Zimbabwe owing to policy differences with President Robert Mugabe. But last year's formation of a unity government between Mugabe and long time rival Morgan Tsvangirai led to the first economic growth in a decade as Zimbabwe embarked on economic reforms. Biti said that there is no going back on the reforms but that the coalition government was divided on his proposal to have Zimbabwe declared a heavily indebted country to qualify for debt forgiveness, thereby allowing it to qualify for new aid. A new set of criteria for measuring the progress of nations needs to be employed, said former CEO of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and head of Statistics South Africa, Dr Mark Orkin. Speaking at a HSRC lecture in Pretoria this week, Orkin argued that previous development indicators, such as the Human Development Indicators (HDI), and the Millennium Development Goals, are too narrow to achieve an accurate reflection on the progress of nations. These indicators focus too much on financial wealth through gross domestic product measures and other forms of balance of trade measures. To overcome these challenges, Orkin followed on from the previous work and proposals outlined by the Stiglitz Commission, which added subjective and other elements of "wellbeing" as development indicators. These measures are mainly confined to global constraints and linkages; specifically carbon dioxide emissions and trade relations. Also making headlines: Zambian President Rupiah Banda signs a mining cooperation pact with the copper-mining country's biggest investor, China. French President Nicolas Sarkozy says, on a visit to Kigali, that France made serious errors of judgment over the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The Côte d'Ivoire announces the formation of a new electoral commission, a key step towards resolving a political crisis provoked by election delays. And, Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi calls for a "jihad" against Switzerland, saying that it is an infidel State that is destroying mosques. That's a roundup of news making headlines today. |
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