Business Day Spotlight

In this edition of the Business Day Spotlight, the public sector wage bill is in focus as finance minister Tito Mboweni is set to give his national budget speech for the year on Wednesday 26 February.

Our host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined by Matthew Parks, parliamentary co-ordinator for the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) to discuss some of the options available to Treasury in its efforts to cut costs.

With Minister Mboweni expected to cut as much as R150bn in spending over the next three years, a number of economists have flagged the public sector wage bill as one of the few things that the government can address to achieve these savings.

Instead of cutting jobs, Cosatu says there are other avenues that can explored such as greater control of wasteful spending and corruption, and running the SA Revenue Service more effectively.

In this edition of the Business Day Spotlight, we on the progressive of the South African Rand in global currency markets.

Our host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined Nolan Wapenaar, head of fixed income at investments house, Anchor Capital and Jameel Ahmad, global head for currency strategy and market research at financial markets specialist, FXTM.

In the first part, Wapenaar joins us on the line to give a status update on the local currency. He says 2019 ended with a bull market for emerging market currencies which benefitted the Rand. This positive sentiment was driven by easing relations between Washington and Beijing, together with revelations around Brexit and the US Federal Reserve’s monetary policy.

In the second part of the discussion, Ahmad joins us on the line from London to give an international view of the Rand. He says the Rand has not had a good start to the year, having been one of the worst performers against the “Greenback.” Only Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho and Brazil have had worse performance against the US Dollar, Ahmad says.

He highlights the impact of the coronavirus, global trade, commodity prices as factors to keep an eye on for the year ahead.

In this edition of the Business Day Spotlight, we are looking at the health and prospects of the African economy beyond SA.

Our host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined in studio by Neville Mandimika, an economist and fixed income strategist at Rand Merchant Bank who gives his insights on what it means to do business in the rest of Africa.

The discussion begins with by looking at where should people be investing their money on the continent. With all the doom and gloom around the SA economy at the moment, Mandimika says a number of investors are turning to the rest of Africa for growth opportunities and higher returns.

Currencies then come into focus as Mandimika highlights the need for local businesses looking to expand beyond SA’s borders, to keep an eye on foreign exchange as this could pose a big operating risk.

In this edition of the Business Day Spotlight, we look at some key business and economic takeaways from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation (SONA) delivered in Parliament on Thursday.

Our host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined in studio by Annabel Bishop, chief economist at Investec and Nema Ramkhelawan-Bhana, head of global markets research at Rand Merchant Bank to discuss the issues.

The conversations starts with struggling power utility, Eskom, an issue that the President quickly admitted in his speech was dire and need to be address.

The panel agrees that President Ramaphosa was quite upfront in addressing the problems the country faces, and that it was encouraging that he chose to address the power country’s power generation struggle head on.

The discussion then moves to the issue of public finances. How will these government programs be finance?

Ramkhelawan-Bhana and Bishop also highlight references made sovereign wealth fund and a state bank, together with statements about the ease of doing business in SA.

In this edition of the Business Day Spotlight, we take time explore possible issues that may be relevant to the business community when President Cyril Ramaphosa delivers the year’s state of the nation (SONA) address this week.

Our host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined in studio by Annabel Bishop, chief economist at Investec for this discussion.

For this week’s address, Bishop says the business community will likely be focused on economic growth, unemployment and energy.

With state owned enterprises being a constant feature in the headlines, Bishop says Eskom will probably be a main talking point on the night.

Listen in to hear the full discussion and thoughts around these and other questions.

Business Day Spotlight is a MultimediaLIVE Production.

In this edition of the Business Day Spotlight, our focus is on developments in one of SA’s most important industrial sectors – mining – as this year’s edition of the Mining Indaba concluded on Thursday.

Our host Mudiwa ‘MobbJustice’ Gavaza is joined in studio by Jason van der Poel, partner and head of the energy sector group at law firm Webber Wentzel and Henk Langenhoven, chief economist at industry body, the Minerals Council SA, to talk about the sector.

Energy ended up being a main talking point at this year’s indaba as mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe revealed government’s plans to allow our mining companies to generate energy for self-use and further plans to start a power generating company outside of Eskom.

The discussion explores policy and economic implications of such a move would be for miners and what government still needs to do for the plan to be implemented, before shifting to highlight some of the other topical issues that came out of the indaba.

Listen in to hear the full discussion and thoughts around these and other questions.

Business Day Spotlight is a MultimediaLIVE Production.Economic news of the week: Mining Indaba keeps an eye on power supply

In this Special Report, we take time to look at work being done to aid in finding missing children in SA at a time when cases are on the rise.

Our host Mudiwa Gavaza joins Emily Vacher, Facebook’s Director of Trust and Safety at the company’s offices in Johannesburg to discuss their partnership with the South African Police Service (SAPS) to help find missing children by sending Amber Alerts to the Facebook community in SA.

Through the Newsfeed feature on Facebook, the system will enable people to instantly share important information about a missing child and suspected abductor, such as a photo, hair colour and clothing with their friends, family and groups.

A former FBI agent having worked in the Child Abduction Team in the US, Vacher explains that the SAPS will assess each case against some set criteria before authorising Amber Alerts. The police will then notify Facebook, that a verified alert is active, then Facebook will send it to the news feeds of people located in targeted search areas in SA.

In this edition of Business Day Spotlight, we round up the week’s top economics news from state owned enterprise being bailed out yet again to the possible effect of the corona-virus on SA’s economy.

Our host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined by Jee-A van der Linde, an economist with NKC African Economics to explore these how these developments could affect SA.

The first part of the discussion focuses on national carrier, South African Airways (SAA). Earlier this week, the Development Bank of SA gave R3.5bn in funding after national Treasury placed the airline in business rescue last year in December.

In the second half, the discussion shifts to the corona-virus which has been spreading in China, with about 8,000 people infected so far, and has started to be found in other parts of the world. The outbreak has disrupted the flow of business in China which had a knock on effect on global financial markets, he says, though the full impact can only be assessed after some time has passed.

Listen in to hear the full discussion and thoughts around these and other questions.

Business Day Spotlight is a MultimediaLIVE Production.

In this edition of Business Day Spotlight, we round up the week’s top business and economics news from international summits to the ruling party’s meeting over the weekend and interest rate cuts.

Our host Mudiwa ‘MobbJustice’ Gavaza is joined by François Conradie, a senior political economist with NKC African Economics to explore local and international economic developments affecting SA.

The discussion looks at SA’s participation in global economic gatherings – the UK Africa Investment in London and the World Economics Forum in Davos, Switzerland which took place this week. President Ramaphosa was noticeably absent from these events despite his investment drive, choosing to send a delegation in his place. It is definitely good for SA to have a presence there but he says it was probably more important for him to tend to issues at home like the ANC’s National Executive Committee lekgotla. Conradie says the ANC was likely making an effort to present a united front with this past weekend’s meeting and remarks from the President.

The discussion shifts to news from earlier in the week that the International Monetary Fund has revised its growth forecast for SA down from 0.9% to 0.8% for the year, together with the SA Reserve bank’s decision to cut interest rates.

Listen in to hear the full discussion and thoughts around these and other questions.

Business Day Spotlight is a MultimediaLIVE Production.

In this edition of Business Day Spotlight, we look how how a new player in the insurance industry is attempting to reduce the cost and waiting times for insurance in SA through technology.

Our host Mudiwa Gavaza joins Ernest North, co-founder at Naked, the artificial intelligence based insurance platform at their offices in Parktown, Johannesburg.

In an insurance market dominated by large players like Hollard, Outsurance, Liberty and Old Mutual amongst others, Naked, has now entered the home cover market with its building and contents products as it continues its efforts to disrupt the traditional business model.

The discussion also explores trends that will likely shape insurance over the next decade, economics pressures currently facing consumers, the role of technology in changing how businesses work and the advantages of using AI to detect fraud.

Listen in to hear the full discussion and thoughts around these and other questions.

Business Day Spotlight is a MultimediaLIVE Production.