Friday July 01, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Brad Dubbelman

Making headlines:

The Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) toll fee steering committee has put forward new, lower toll tariffs for the 185 km of road improved under the GFIP. These tariffs would still have to be approved by the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Finance, and the Gauteng Premier, and were not the final toll fees, emphasised steering committee chairperson Department of Transport director-general George Mahlalela. The steering committee, formed following public outcry over the toll fees as announced by the South African National Roads Agency Limited in February, recommended a drop from 30 c/km for motorcycles, to 24 c/km, and a decrease from 49.5 c/km for cars, to 40 c/km.

A protracted struggle for Libya could leave it in the hands of extremists instead of the liberal economic technocrats who now lead its rebel movement, the World Bank's representative for Libya said. "If this civil war goes on, it would be a new Somalia, which I don't say lightly," said Marouane Abassi, World Bank country manager for Libya who has been in Tunisia since February. Abassi, who is Tunisian, said the World Bank had been working with Libya since 2006 on plans for economic reforms led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam, although many of those reform plans were scuppered by Gaddafi.

The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) would be investing R102-billion over the next five years in sectors prioritised in government’s New Growth Path (NGP), the development finance institution said. The IDC approved R8.4-billion in funding for South Africa-based developments in the financial year ended March 31, with some 97% of these investments in NGP priority sectors. This was the highest in the IDC’s history and Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel commented that it was an indication of the recovery of economic growth and a “big spur to investment”.

Also making headlines:
The President of Equatorial Guinea and current head of the African Union launched a scathing attack on foreign intervention on the continent, saying moves to defend human rights had instead deepened problems.
The UN envoy to Côte d’Ivoire urged the government to restore law and order by deploying police and sending former rebels who helped President Alassane Ouattara seize power back to their barracks.
And, less than half of South Africa's 821 sewage works are treating the billions of litres of effluent they receive each day to safe and acceptable standards, according to the latest Green Drop report.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.