Andrew Stegmann

New Fines for Breaking South Africa’s Lock-down Laws

The South African Judiciary has published a series of directives which outline how much citizens will have to pay in ‘admission of guilt’ fines if they are found to breach the country’s lockdown rules.

The South African Police Service may give a person, who has been arrested on suspicion of a less serious crime, an option to pay an admission of guilt fine.

Such a fine allows a person to admit guilt for a less serious offence without having to appear in court. This prevents an unnecessary overload of the court system.

It is meant to resolve less serious matters quickly where an accused person accepts responsibility for having committed a minor offence.

The directives are based on provincial and magistrate districts, and are in line with the new level 4 lockdown regulations which were introduced from 1 May.

The directives also provide on how the court plans to deal with these cases, with KZN indicating that it will reserve judgement for breaches it deems trivial.

While the fines differ between regions, the below table provides an idea of what you can expect to pay based on the directive for Tshwane.

Not all regions have published directives, but details are available for these areas:

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann

Amazon Web Services Officially Opens AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region

The addition of this new Region enables all organizations to bring lower latency services to their end-users across Africa, and allows more African organisations to benefit from the performance, security, flexibility, scalability, reliability, and ease of use of the AWS cloud.

AWS Regions meet the highest levels of security, compliance, and data protection. It enables organisations of all sizes to experiment and innovate faster. With the new Region, local customers with data residency requirements, and those looking to comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), will be able to store their content in South Africa with the assurance that they retain complete ownership of their data and it will not move unless they choose to move it.

Africa (Cape Town) is the 23rd AWS Region, and the first one in Africa. It is comprised of three Availability Zones, bringing the Global AWS Infrastructure to a total of 73 Availability Zones (AZ).

A Growing Presence in Africa

This new Region is a continuation of the AWS investment in Africa. In 2004, Amazon opened a Development Center in Cape Town that focuses on building pioneering networking technologies, next generation software for customer support, and the technology behind Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). AWS has also added a number of teams including account managers, customer service reps, partner managers, solutions architects, developer advocates, and more, helping customers of all sizes as they move to the cloud.

In 2015, the company continued its expansion, opening an office in Johannesburg, and in 2017 brought the Amazon Global Network to Africa through AWS Direct Connect. In 2018 Amazon launched infrastructure on the African continent introducing Amazon CloudFront to South Africa, with two edge locations in Cape Town and Johannesburg, and recently in Nairobi, Kenya. They also support the growth of technology education with AWS Academy and AWS Educate, and continue to support the growth of new businesses through AWS Activate. The addition of the AWS Region in South Africa helps builders in organisations of all sizes, from startups to enterprises, as well as educational institutions, NGOs, and the public sector across Africa, to innovate and grow.

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann

South African COVID-19 Threat Levels Announced

South Africa is expected to move from a Level 5 to a Level 4 lock-down as of 1 May. Level 4 makes provision for limited economic activity and the easing of some movement. A curfew from 20:00 to 05:00 will kick in, it will be mandatory to wear a cloth face mask, you will be able to buy hot foods for delivery, but you still can’t buy alcohol.

Grade 12 and grade 7 pupils will return to school from May 6. Other grades will return to class on a staggered basis between May and July, as the Covid-19 restrictions are gradually eased.

To read President Ramaphosa’s speech about South Africa’s COVID-19 status, and the transition between levels, click here.

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2], [3]. Image sources: [1], [2].



Andrew Stegmann
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SARA Webinars: How African Visa and Immigration Specialists are Dealing with the COVID-19 Crisis

Relocation Africa’s Immigration Lead, Lynn Mackenzie, served as Panel Facilitator, and was joined recently by a number of immigration specialists from around Africa, to discuss their response to the COVID-19 situation in their respective countries.

Two live webinars, in partnership with the South African Reward Association (SARA) were hosted to discuss the topics, and we invite you to watch the recordings below so that we can share these insights with you.

The first webinar deals with the COVID-19 response in South Africa and Nigeria. Lynn is joined by Tracy du Plessis (South Africa), and Kunle Obebe (Nigeria).

The second covers the response in Ghana, Senegal, and Kenya. Lynn is joined by Paa Kwesi Hagan (Ghana), Joyce Anti (Senegal), and Brian Githaiga (Kenya).

We hope you enjoy the content. If you have suggestions for future webinars you’d like to see, please feel free to reach out to us via marketing@relocationafrica.com.

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email info@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].