July 4, 2012

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Shannon de Ryhove.

Making headlines:

South African inflation is expected to remain within its 3 to 6% target range on a sustained basis to the end of 2014. The main upside risk will come from falls in the rand due to investor risk aversion, the Reserve Bank said on Wednesday.

In its 2011/12 annual report, the central bank reiterated that the domestic growth outlook had deteriorated mainly due to global uncertainties, saying it had trimmed its forecasts.

Governor Gill Marcus said in a statement that the global environment continued to provide an uncertain, unstable and risky backdrop against which price and financial stability in the domestic economy had to be maintained.

The Reserve Bank has kept its repo rate unchanged at 5.5% since November 2010 to try and boost economic growth.

Zimbabwe's Education Minister says a bid to force private schools to come under majority black control under a much contested empowerment law is illegal. This highlights divisions within the coalition government over the policy.

A government notice issued last week by Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere gave foreign-owned banks and private schools a year to comply with a law requiring 51% shareholding by local blacks.

But Minister of Education David Coltart, a member of the Movement for Democratic Change party said the directive was illegal. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has also sharply criticised the empowerment law. He says Kasukuwere's latest announcement does not reflect the cabinet's position.

Former Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu will co-operate with the Auditor General and the Public Protector on a probe into the tender process to buy a new presidential jet, her office said on Tuesday.

Spokesperson Ndivhuwo Mabaya says no information will be provided to the Democratic Alliange, as there is no basis in law for the Ministry to do so.

He was responding to the DA's challenge to Sisulu that she produce proof that the tender process was sound.

Also making headlines:

South Africa has appointed Zenani Mandela-Dlamini, a daughter of former President Nelson Mandela, as its ambassador to Argentina.

Fifty years after Algeria won independence, France's new president, Francois Hollande, finally appears ready to express regret over one of the bloodiest episodes in its colonial history.

And, civil society watchdog Corruption Watch is considering ways to cast an anticorruption spotlight on South Africa’s R850-billion infrastructure programme, which is being led primarily by State-owned companies.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.