Kenya, one of Africa’s leading economies, is enjoying an investor boom amid the economic crisis that has hit South Africa and Nigeria occasioned by a persistent commodity prices slump.
The leading economy in East Africa grew by 5.7 percent last year and it is projected to expand at an average of six percent up to 2018.
The stability of the Kenyan Shilling, which is the most stable of all the leading eight-currencies traded across the continent and one of the best performers this year, has been a major attraction for investors, Bloomberg reported.
In South Africa and Nigeria, the two leading economies on the continent, their national currencies have been struggling in the past two years, scaring investors away and forcing several to close down operations.
The Rand hit an all-time low against the dollar in August while bonds and shares struggled as the political battles between President Jacob Zuma and his Finance minister, Pravin Gordhan intensified.
The industrial slow-down in China, which is one of the biggest markets for African commodities caused the slump in the two nations, whose economies are commodity-driven, relying heavily on gold, diamond and oil for revenue.
In Nigeria, a shortage in foreign currency reserves has hit investors hard. They have been forced to cut down their staff size and other closed operations due to the crisis.
The West African nation is in its worst economic crisis in 25 years, after it slumped into recession in August, Sahara Reporters reported.
The drastic reduction in oil production following militant attacks in the Niger Delta region in May further compounded the situation.
Last week, the rand became the world’s most politically volatile currency while in Nigeria, the naira hit a record low of 445 to the dollar, in a country where the black market forex has nearly crippled the economy.
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Home Affairs official charged with fraud
A 30-YEAR-OLD man appeared in the Scottburgh Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday on a charge of fraud.
Home Affairs official, Nobert Masuku (30), was arrested on Monday after accepting R1 500 from a foreign national in exchange for a birth certificate at Park Rynie Home Affairs office.
The case was remanded until 6 December for further investigation. He was granted bail of R2 000 by the court.
The foreign national was also arrested and appeared with Masaku.
“It is alleged that the official attended to a foreign national at the Park Rynie Home Affairs offices in January 2014 and provided him with a fraudulent birth certificate in exchange for payment of R1 500,” said police spokesperson Captain Vincent Pandarum.
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SA ranked the top place to be CEO … if you want to be richer than society
New York – If your life’s goal is to be a highly paid chief executive officer, the US is the place. But if your dream is just to be richer than society, South Africa and India are great bets too.
In either case, probably best to avoid Thailand, Poland and China.
A Bloomberg ranking of CEO compensation at companies filling benchmark indexes in 25 of the world’s largest economies shows the biggest salaries – by far – are written in the US Heads of S&P 500 businesses get pay packages averaging $16.9m (R241.4m), about 2.6 times more than what their counterparts reap abroad. In second-place Switzerland, CEOs get 1.6 times the average.
In China, pay is 90% below the average – at least based on disclosures by companies in the Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 Index. They typically report annual compensation of about $640 000. But heads of state-owned companies, for example, enjoy valuable perks including housing and entertainment that sometimes go unmentioned in filings.
The deck gets shuffled a bit in a second Bloomberg ranking, comparing CEO pay to estimated income generated per person – a rough gauge of what chiefs get relative to the society where their companies are listed. That puts pay for CEOs in South Africa and India ahead of the US.
There are myriad reasons behind the international disparities in packages.
One of most important is size. The US is home to many of the world’s largest publicly traded corporations.
Cost of living explains some of it, too. It’s much more expensive to live lavishly in North America and Western Europe than in places like Thailand, where CEOs take home roughly $60 000 – less than in every other nation ranked
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High Data Costs Are Limiting Full Internet Usage In Africa
High data costs are limiting full internet usage in Africa with 20MB being used per month despite the increasing mobile penetration, a leading global internet company has said.
Opera in a State of the Mobile Web in Africa 2016 report said the data costs are highly prohibitive.
“Data remains prohibitively expensive for many mobile users in Africa. This means that even if smartphone penetration is increasing, many people don’t use their devices to their full benefit,” said the company.
“Whilst someone in Germany on an ‘average’ salary can afford 500MB after working for just one hour, a Nigerian will have to work around three and a half days to afford the same.”
The internet company added that over half of Africans find internet unaffordable.
“Indeed, it’s not surprising that 53% of Africans can afford only 20MB per month,” said Opera.
This observation comes at a time when the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe is reviewing Zimbabwe’s exorbitant data charges.
“We have asked ourselves the question how can we make data affordable such that it is a tool for development rather than a privilege, that price is used as a basis for discrimination. We are in the process of directing our mobile operators with regards to a floor price, a basis minimum price that we feel data should be provided at,” said Potraz chairman Ozias Bvute.
“In the next month or two, we should be at a point where data is affordable.”
According to a report on the state of prepaid market-cost of communication prepared by Research ICT Africa, Zimbabwe has the third most expensive mobile data in Africa with the cheapest monthly 1 GB data package in the country set at $30.
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Kenya Pops On Investors Radar As Commodity Prices Slump Hits Africa’s Top Economies
Kenya, one of Africa’s leading economies, is enjoying an investor boom amid the economic crisis that has hit South Africa and Nigeria occasioned by a persistent commodity prices slump.
The leading economy in East Africa grew by 5.7 percent last year and it is projected to expand at an average of six percent up to 2018.
The stability of the Kenyan Shilling, which is the most stable of all the leading eight-currencies traded across the continent and one of the best performers this year, has been a major attraction for investors, Bloomberg reported.
In South Africa and Nigeria, the two leading economies on the continent, their national currencies have been struggling in the past two years, scaring investors away and forcing several to close down operations.
The Rand hit an all-time low against the dollar in August while bonds and shares struggled as the political battles between President Jacob Zuma and his Finance minister, Pravin Gordhan intensified.
In Nigeria, a shortage in foreign currency reserves has hit investors hard. They have been forced to cut down their staff size and other closed operations due to the crisis.
The West African nation is in its worst economic crisis in 25 years, after it slumped into recession in August, Sahara Reporters reported.
The drastic reduction in oil production following militant attacks in the Niger Delta region in May further compounded the situation.
Last week, the rand became the world’s most politically volatile currency while in Nigeria, the naira hit a record low of 445 to the dollar, in a country where the black market forex has nearly crippled the economy.
Source