Tanzania Breweries Limited said it would enhance public awareness on responsible drinking to rid the nation with effects of harmful drinking.

The Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange listed breweries company which leads in the country in terms of market share, said it would increase efforts to promote responsible drinking and discourage the harmful use of alcohol, including binge drinking, underage drinking and drink driving.

The declaration from the beer maker comes at the time Tanzania is marking Road Safety Week which reaches in climax in Geita Region this week. TBL is one of partners who support various activities under the week.

TBL Group Executive Director, Robert Jarrin said education on responsible drinking are one of declarations reached by breweries companies and other companies which produce alcoholic drinks in 76 countries during Global Beer Responsible Day held recently.

He said the brewing companies in partnership with governments and NGOs, workers and customers to support campaign to promote responsible drinking.

"As producers of beers and other alcoholic drinks, it is our responsibility to educate our customers to drink responsibly and for the sake of their health and instead of causing harmful effects including failing to participate in production activities due to drinking.

TBL Training Officer, Gasper Tesha said the company has been conducting training to various groups in the society and continues to reach out to the people through seminars, mass media and leaflets which have been distributed by the company to areas of public gathering.

He said one of the objective for promoting responsible drinking to make sure the society is rid of harmful effects of alcohol drinking.

They have been promoting responsible drinking for entertainment and boosting their health. He said responsible drinking would help to reduce road accidents because statistics show alcohol drinking is one of the causes of accidents in the country.

DOCUMENT

16th September 2016 in

Interviews & Speeches

Delivered By Tony O. Elumelu, CON,

at the Opportunity Africa Conference Wilmington, Delaware, USA

Friday, September 16, 2016

Senator Christopher Coons, Former State Representative Don Blakey; Distinguished speakers and guests;

Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am delighted to be with you this morning for the fifth ‘Opportunity Africa Conference.

I want to start by thanking Senator Chris Coons and his wonderful staff for inviting me to his home state to speak with his constituents. I’ve met with Senator Coons in Washington but nothing speaks more warmly of friendship than an invitation to one’s home.

I also want to thank you, Senator for your commitment to the continent and people of Africa.

I will start by saying that on the surface, Senator Coons and I appear very different.

He was born and raised in the United States, and I, in Nigeria. He has spent many years as a public sector leader, while I have focused my career almost exclusively in the private sector. And we have both achieved much success in our chosen endeavours.

However, if you look more closely, we are not so different.

We were both born in 1963.

And we share a deep belief in the inherent value and dignity of the African people and a commitment to DELIBERATELY and UNAPOLOGETICALLY, unlocking the potential of the continent.

The Senator’s interest in Africa, began as a student when he wrote critically about the Apartheid government in South Africa and the unfortunate U.S. foreign policy of “Constructive Engagement” with this racist government and through his experiences, living in Kenya.

Both of these experiences influenced how he approached the concept of governance including in the United States itself, and caused him to change his political affiliation.

So, Africa CHANGED YOU, Senator, in a very fundamental way, and now you are giving back by using your platform in the U.S. Senate to help CHANGE AFRICA and to CHANGE THE NARRATIVE ABOUT AFRICA!

So, in a word, a key theme in the Senator’s life has been “CHANGE.” In my life, the key theme, in a word is “MADE.”

I was born in Africa, educated in Africa and have spent my whole career working in Africa. You might say, I was MADE IN AFRICA and I MADE IT IN AFRICA!

And like the good Senator, I seek to CHANGE THE NARRATIVE ABOUT AFRICA from one of UNDERDEVELOPMENT and OVERWHELMING POVERTY to one of OPPORTUNITY AND PROSPERITY.

For too long and for too many people the continent “Africa,” evokes images of poverty, disease, hunger and backwardness. Even worse these images conjure a sense of hopelessness!

People believed similar things about China, Brazil and India not too long ago, but now that these countries are economic powerhouses, the narrative has changed.

Senator Coons and I, and I believe everyone here, want the same for Africa’s 54 countries.

And yet it is true that, today, Africa is home to:

– Two thirds of the world’s HIV/AIDs infected persons and 90% of its orphans;

– 90 million kids who are out of school;

– Over a dozen undemocratic or insufficiently democratic governments;

– Millions of people who are caught in civil conflicts and vulnerable to starvation.

Wanting change should not blind us to the current realities; indeed these facts should make us all ever more committed to achieving change.

But that is not the whole story about Africa.

– Africa is the cradle of mankind and ancient civilizations;

– it is home to amazing cultures, that have touched the world in music, art and literature;

– it gave us the extraordinary example of Nelson Mandela;

– However, most importantly for me, Africa is a continent of a generation of entrepreneurs. Home probably to the largest group of entrepreneurs on this planet.

Africa is also the home of a young and growing middle-class that has strong purchasing power. A middle-class that likes baseball caps, iPhones, Kias, CNN and Beyonce. In other words, in Africa lies a huge growing market for American products.

Clearly, over the last two decades, something has been happening in Africa!

SUCCESS is happening in Africa!

Opportunity is happening in Africa.

And I am living proof of this!

I’ve enjoyed success in banking, but also in growing agricultural products for our people, providing healthcare, investing in power to drive our economy, resources that can bring value to our continent.

And ALL in Africa!

I have been very successful in these sectors using an economic philosophy I developed called Africapitalism.

Africapitalism advocates long-term investment in strategic sectors that generate both economic dividends for investors and social dividends for society.

So, I am a successful Africapitalist today, but I started out just like one of those young men and women in the clip you just saw of the beneficiaries of the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s $100 million Entrepreneurship Program.

The continent of Africa has given me so much!

And I understand and embrace the responsibility to GIVE BACK to the continent by PAYING IT FORWARD and creating more Tony Elumelus to help transform Africa.

Through the Tony Elumelu Foundation’s $100 million Entrepreneurship Program, we seek to INSTITUTIONALISE LUCK and DEMOCRATISE OPPORTUNITY by giving every budding or aspiring African entrepreneur the chance to benefit from it. It is open to all African citizens, regardless of age, gender, nationality or commercial sector.

We are training, mentoring and seeding 10,000 African business over the 10 years, creating 1 million new jobs and $10 billion in additional revenue across Africa in an effort to ignite the economic transformation of Africa.

These entrepreneurs will achieve financial success while creating home-grown solutions to local problems in core areas such as food, education, health, water and sanitation etc., delivering African solutions to African problems. Or, in other words helping, to implement the Sustainable Development Goals from the private sector.

This is the story I want to tell about Africa. This is the new narrative of Africa.

I travel all over the world, preaching that Africa is “OPPORTUNITY.”

And if I am the opportunity preacher then Senator Coons is the Choir Master because for the last 5 years, he has been organizing this conference that could not be more aptly named and reflective of what is happening on the continent “OPPORTUNITY AFRICA.”

He is not only bringing that message to Delaware, he is taking it to Washington DC. And he is demonstrating it through concrete policy actions.

U.S. policy towards Africa has largely and steadily been improving since the late 1990s. It’s not been perfect but it’s gotten better with each successive President since William Jefferson Clinton.

Looking back, from the 1960’s through most of the 1980s, U.S. Foreign policy towards Africa focused on supporting despots in the Cold War alliances and then, following the collapse of the Soviet empire, wrote Africa off completely in the 1990s.

However, during his second term in the late 90s, President Clinton began to engage with the continent and even came on a state visit to sub-Saharan Africa, something no U.S. President had done in almost two decades.

It was also in the final year of the Clinton presidency that the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act was passed, which helped to lay the foundation for a new US-Africa relationship; one based not on humanitarian assistance, but on partnership for mutual economic benefit – and one that allows entrepreneurship to be the engine of social development.

President George W. Bush built on this with the AGOA renewals and enhancements and the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account which was a multi-billion dollar programme to incentivise African countries to embrace democratic reforms and govern justly, in return for US assistance to develop their infrastructure and commercial sectors.

President Bush must also be credited for the multi-billion global AIDS program that has helped to keep millions of HIV-infected persons healthy and by extension Africa’s workforce and economies healthy.

President Barack Obama upheld the previous initiatives and created the Feed the Future Global Food Security programme to boost agriculture in 20 countries, a sector that delivers 3 times the development gains as any other investment in development and of course, he created the Power Africa initiative, which seeks to expand access to electricity for the 600 million African who lack access to power today, through public and private sector partnerships, an agenda that Senator Coons championed to preserve, through passage of the Electrify Africa Act in the U.S. Senate.

And it had leveraged nearly $150 billion in private capital to address this critical development issues.

That is what I call “Shared Purpose,” a key characteristic of Africapitalism.

And I know that if we get power right in Africa, it will unlock millions of new jobs and economic growth in multiple sectors by reducing the cost of doing business and attracting new investments.

So, U.S. policy towards Africa over the last two decades has been improving, regardless of which party has held the presidency.

As you go into your presidential elections this year, I urge Americans to ensure that the candidates and new Administration seek to build on this progress.

Both candidates are promising change in key policy areas, especially in the foreign policy arena.

But I want to say to you today, that SOME THINGS DON’T NEED TO CHANGE!

What they need, is to be expanded and scaled up.

In other words, we need MORE U.S. engagement in Africa through mutually beneficial trade and investment.

Incidentally, that is exactly what I, and 200 other US and African political and business leaders, will be discussing next week at the US-Africa Business Forum in New York – how to strengthen mutually beneficial economic ties between the African and American peoples.

We also need more security co-operation that protects both Americans and Africans from the undesirable elements of this world – and where the root cause is poverty, that I believe can only be truly fought by giving people the economic tools to better themselves.

And, very importantly, we need to work in “Shared Purpose” on complex solutions to complex challenges in Africa.

So when you meet, write, call and email your political candidates and representatives, of all races, and the elected President in November, tell them that when it comes to Africa, you want “More.”

By “More”, I mean more engagement, more positively impactful policies and more development and commercial investment in Africa.

In closing, I want to thank you all for coming out today to EXPLORE AND FURTHER OPPORTUNITY IN AFRICA.

I am an unashamed optimist and I believe that working together, in “Shared Purpose” we can help usher in economic transformation that will catapult Africa into a strong regional player in the 21st century global economy.

And going back to the defining themes that illustrate the impact that Africa has had on Senator Coons and myself, I believe that we will collectively be able to look back, in 2030, and know that while Africa “MADE US” or “CHANGED US,” we have together “MADE CHANGE” happen in Africa and for Africans, through a virtuous cycle of opportunity and prosperity.

Thank you.

Tony O. Elumelu, CON
Chairman, Heirs Holdings & Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation

Twitter: @TonyOElumelu and Instagram @TonyOElumelu
Twitter: @Heirs_Holdings and Instagram: @HeirsHoldings
Twitter: @TonyElumeluFDN and Instagram: @TonyElumeluFoundation

By Rodrigue Rwirahira

Rwanda's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 5.4 per cent in the second quarter but saw a decline in some sectors, a report by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) shows.

The 2016 quarterly report, which closed in June, also put the GDP at current market prices at Rwf1,549 billion, up from Rwf1,428 billion in the same quarter in 2015.

The sectors that contributed to the growth, according to the report, includes agriculture, which grew by 3 per cent; services, which registered 9 per cent growth; and tourism (limited to hotels and restaurants), which registered 4 perc ent growth.

However, the industrial sector, according to the report registered a -2 per cent growth against a 10 per cent growth rate registered during the same quarter of last year and the previous quarter of this year.

According to Yusuf Murangwa, NISR director-general, the drop in the industrial growth was occasioned by the struggling mining and construction sectors, which registered negative growth due to external shocks.

"In agriculture, food crop growth was 4 per cent in 2016 season A, whereby export crops experienced a sharp decline of -23 per cent mainly due to a drop in coffee output (-37 per cent), although tea increased by 4.7 per cent," he said.

Murangwa explained that the -2 per cent drop in industry sector resulted from poorly performing mining and construction subsectors, which, he said, saw a slump in mining registering -13 per cent and construction activities hovering around -6 per cent.

"The drop in construction appears to be due to big projects that were finalised following significant construction activity in quarter two of the previous year, normally we expect to see a slowdown after very high activity," Murangwa added.

While completion of major construction projects, like Kigali Convention Centre, Marriott Hotel, roads and other infrastructure are being cited as some of the factors that brought the sector to a standstill in the concluded quarter, officials sounded optimistic on the upcoming quarters.

According to officials from the Ministry of Finance, the current fluctuations, in terms of GDP growth vis-a-vis the previous quarters, might not see the ministry revise the projections.

Should the country decide to revise projections of the entire economic growth, according to Leonard Rugwabiza, the chief economist at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, changes can only be made after results of the third quarter, which closes this month (September).

"We have not revised our projections yet; taking quarter 1 and 2, we have got the first half of the year, which is roughly around 6.5 per cent, but we are yet to revise the one we have, which is 6.0 per cent until maybe the end of the year," Rugwabiza said.

The economy grew by 6.9 per cent in 2015 after a sluggish global economy and lower levels of commodity prices.

By Appolonia Uwanziga

Rwanda Small Holder Specialty Coffee Company (RWASHOSCCO), a farmer-owned coffee marketing, exporting, and roasting firm, has launched 'online coffee auctioning'.

The company launched the online auction of 24 Rwanda's best 2016 coffees selected by national and international jurors, on Wednesday, at Neo Café Kiyovu in Kigali.

Angelique Karekezi, the managing director of RWASHOSCCO, said the auction attracted various buyers from different corners of the world.

Three companies participated in the auction, including Schluter from South Africa, Melbourne Coffee Merchants and 32 Cup Europe.

The average price was $8.8 per kilogramme which Karekezi described as good compared to the normal coffee price sold this year – at $5.

She added that their goal was to sell the coffee in another mode while seeking ways to improve quality and to address existing challenges.

"This was a trial phase and we hope that in the future we will continue and search for good prices for our farmers," Karekezi said.

Anastase Minani, the chairman of RWASHOSCCO, said the auction was not only about prices but also creating international awareness of the company and farmers cooperatives.

"This is a new way of marketing our coffee because we now have excellent coffee marketed internationally. We hope that we will continue to market it and we encourage our cooperatives to produce such kind of coffee," Minani said.

Japhet Habimana, a member of COCAGI Cooperative from Rusizi, said online auctioning would help them to market their coffee worldwide.

Auctioning online will help us to get reliable buyers in efforts to make Rwanda's coffee more competitive on the international market.

Zambian mealie meal has flooded the resort town of Victoria Falls despite a government ban on the importation of the basic commodity.

The Financial Gazette established that traders were making brisk business selling Zambian mealie meal at popular markets, while others moved around Chinotimba and Mkhosana townships on bicycles selling the product.

Some local shops also had stocks of the Zambian product, which sold for nearly half the price of locally produced mealie meal.

"It is the price and the quantity that matters," said a local trader.

"It all makes economic sense for the suffering residents," he added.

Investigations indicated that Zambian traders brought the mealie meal from across the border daily on bicycles for sale in Victoria Falls.

Some shop owners were now repacking the cheap Zambian mealie meal into smaller packages for resell to impoverished residents for a dollar a packet.

Thembinkosi Ndlovu, the southern region chairperson of the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe, said Zambian mealie meal was being smuggled into the country.

"This is a violation of the country's laws. This is smuggling and I have alerted my national leadership in Harare. We want to find out how it is finding its way across the border when the government has prohibited the importation of mealie meal," said Ndlovu.

"We have to find out what is happening at that border (Livingstone) otherwise we are in full support of the ministerial ban. Our fear now is that the cheap mealie meal will flow to every corner of Zimbabwe, greatly threatening the survival of local millers. The government's statutory instrument is intended to protect local producers who have been under threat from foreign companies," said Ndlovu.

In June this year, the government gazetted Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016 which prohibited the importation of a wide range of goods unless under licence granted by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

The influx of Zambian maize products comes amid revelations that the milling industry in the southern part of Zimbabwe is in a crisis due to an acute shortage of grain.

The Grain Marketing Board, the sole government entity charged with procuring and distributing grain in the country, is now unable to supply grain due to the scarcity of the product.

Local millers are battling to import grain from neighbouring countries such as Zambia and South Africa and even Europe due to financial constraints.

A floating power plant isn't something you see every day. The massive ships look like plants you'd see on land complete with tall exhaust stacks—except these plants are bobbing in the ocean.

They might look odd, but for people in growing economies around the world, the ships are a welcome sight. The floating power plants can dock in the harbor, crank up their turbines and start quickly generating electricity for customers on land.

Many of these ships can be found in Africa and Asia, where electricity is often more scarce than labor and investments and power outages regularly shut down work. But they could also be used to help supply electricity to the more than 1 billion people who don't have any.

"The transmission speed of the generated electricity has become critical as the world's demand for energy increases with each passing day," says Osman M. Karadeniz, chairman of Karpowership, one of the world's largest powership operators.

The numbers bear out his argument. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that world energy consumption will increase 48 percent by 2040. Karpowership, an affiliate of Turkey's Karadeniz Energy Group, is building the kind of massive and mobile equipment that can quickly start meeting that demand. The company is planning to increase its installed capacity to 2.5 gigawatts [GW], enough to power nearly 17 million homes.

A key part of that plan is the company's new Khan class of powerships, the largest such vessels ever built. Each of the vessels is three football fields long. They can generate 486 megawatts [MW], which is more than any previous powerships.

Karpowership recently partnered with GE to supply the transformers for four new Khan-class ship. The transformers send the power the ships generate over wires to local transmission grids, and from there it goes out to end users. GE designed the transformers specifically with the powerships in mind. They have a coating that protects against salt and moisture and can work in temperatures ranging from -20 to 50 degrees Celsius. The devices, which GE makes in Gebze, Turkey, have reinforced mechanical connectors for protection against sea oscillations— a weather phenomenon that's a result of fluctuations in atmospheric pressure at sea level.

Karpowership's power plant vessels only require a depth of 5 meters (16 feet) to operate at ports, which make them suitable for multi-island countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines that have long coastlines. Karpowership's 125 MW Zeynep Sultan ship, for example, is currently berthed and supplying electricity to Amurang, Indonesia, and similar vessels are operating in Africa and the Middle East.

While there may be conflicts, poverty and disease in Africa, President Barack Obama says the broader trajectory of the continent is unmistakable: “Africa is on the move."

At the U.S.-Africa Business Forum in New York, Obama said Africa is "home to some of the fastest-growing economies in the world and a middle class projected to grow to more than a billion customers – an Africa of telecom companies and clean-tech startups and Silicon savannahs, all powered by the youngest population anywhere on the planet.”

One of those young Africans, Frances Udukwu from Nigeria, told VOA what she hopes to highlight during her one-year reign as Miss Africa USA.

“So besides exposing the beauty, the talent and the capabilities of the African women in the diaspora, I see my duty as Miss Africa USA as an opportunity to impact where I am from, which is my homeland in Africa. But also to pay respects to where I reside which is the United States.”

She added “My personal favorite is being able to touch the lives of many young girls and women across not only Africa, but in the States as well,” Udukwu said.

Udukwu attended Temple University in Philadelphia and studied public health.

Only 26 years old, she recently founded a non-profit, The Lead Girl Foundation, to help girls and young women make a life for themselves through entrepreneurship and vocational training. She lives in Washington, D.C., plans to go to law school, and travels to Nigeria often.

Seeking trade partnerships

Obama told the business forum that everywhere he travels in Africa, “from Senegal to South Africa, Africans insist they do not just want aid, they want trade. They want partners, not patrons.”

And that is what Wednesday’s forum, hosted by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker was all about – helping investors and entrepreneurs from both continents connect, as Obama explained: “This is a U.S.-Africa business forum. This is not charity. All of you should be wanting to make money, and create great products and great services, and be profitable, and do right by your investors. But the good news is, in Africa right now, if you are doing well, you can also be doing a lot of good.”

Obama said during his eight years as president, he has sought to transform the relationship between the U.S. and Africa to one of equal partners. He said this is his last U.S.-Africa Business Forum as president, but he will likely be back as a private citizen.

Apart from increased private investment, the U.S. government has also expanded its presence and economic engagement in Africa

Since 2008, the Commerce Department has doubled its presence on the continent, opening new offices in Angola, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, expanding its presence in Ghana, and re-establishing a presence at the African Development Bank.

Zambian mealie meal has flooded the resort town of Victoria Falls despite a government ban on the importation of the basic commodity.

The Financial Gazette established that traders were making brisk business selling Zambian mealie meal at popular markets, while others moved around Chinotimba and Mkhosana townships on bicycles selling the product.

Some local shops also had stocks of the Zambian product, which sold for nearly half the price of locally produced mealie meal.

"It is the price and the quantity that matters," said a local trader.

"It all makes economic sense for the suffering residents," he added.

Investigations indicated that Zambian traders brought the mealie meal from across the border daily on bicycles for sale in Victoria Falls.

Some shop owners were now repacking the cheap Zambian mealie meal into smaller packages for resell to impoverished residents for a dollar a packet.

Thembinkosi Ndlovu, the southern region chairperson of the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe, said Zambian mealie meal was being smuggled into the country.

"This is a violation of the country's laws. This is smuggling and I have alerted my national leadership in Harare. We want to find out how it is finding its way across the border when the government has prohibited the importation of mealie meal," said Ndlovu.

"We have to find out what is happening at that border (Livingstone) otherwise we are in full support of the ministerial ban. Our fear now is that the cheap mealie meal will flow to every corner of Zimbabwe, greatly threatening the survival of local millers. The government's statutory instrument is intended to protect local producers who have been under threat from foreign companies," said Ndlovu.

In June this year, the government gazetted Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016 which prohibited the importation of a wide range of goods unless under licence granted by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

The influx of Zambian maize products comes amid revelations that the milling industry in the southern part of Zimbabwe is in a crisis due to an acute shortage of grain.

The Grain Marketing Board, the sole government entity charged with procuring and distributing grain in the country, is now unable to supply grain due to the scarcity of the product.

Local millers are battling to import grain from neighbouring countries such as Zambia and South Africa and even Europe due to financial constraints.

By Shame Makoshori

Troubled Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL), which is battling to extricate itself from huge debts, could sack the bulk of its staff after Treasury said it was overstaffed by at least 2 400 people.

Finance and Economic Development Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, has revealed that the beleaguered coal miner could do with only 800 workers.

The move follows deterioration in the company's financial circumstances, even after Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa, ordered the rescission of a decision to sack at least half of the 3 200-strong labour force in 2014, saying management and the HCCL board had to find other ways of turning around the company's financial fortunes.

Government, which owns 37 percent shareholding in HCCL, has tried to keep the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed miner afloat through several support mechanisms but has failed.

HCCL has been undermined by a myriad of problems, including mismanagement. The company sustains a city of at least 55 000 people, who largely depend on the business for survival.

In his mid-term fiscal policy review over a fortnight ago, Chinamasa said HCCL should get rid of the majority of workers on its payroll. The workers are owed US$45 million in salary arrears for the past two years.

HCCL posted a US$115 million loss during the year to December 31, 2015, from a loss of US$38 million during the same period in 2014.

The local mining giant, which is currently mining coal on a contract basis, produces about 150 000 tonnes of coal per month, according to the Ministry of Finance.

It has capacity to double output to 300 000 tonnes.

"Institution of reform measures that will address challenges related to mismanagement at Hwange are unavoidable," Chinamasa told lawmakers.

"Government is exploring scope for shedding off some of Hwange Colliery's non-core operations, including rationalisation of its workforce from the current 3 200 to levels that are commensurate with production. This is necessary to ensure that the company operates at optimum capacity, that way allowing coal production to meet both export and local demand. Non-core operations at Hwange include provision of housing and other related amenities, schools, and health facilities. This socio-economic burden on the colliery company is compromising its core business of coal mining, resulting in… perennial losses," Chinamasa said.

HCCL funds projects such as road maintenance, refuse collection, water and sewer reticulation, power generation, running schools and health facilities, housing and recreational facilities.

In addition, the company operates its own railway and road transport system, internal security and telephone system.

These would now be transferred to the Ministry of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development, said Chinamasa.

In June the Financial Gazette's Companies & Markets reported that the HCCL board last year made futile attempts to reopen negotiations for a US$50 million bailout from British tycoon, Nicholas van Hoogstraten, after the beleaguered company turned down his offer in 2013.

This was about the time when the cash-strapped company lur-ched from one crisis to another.

Dramatic events took place at HCCL last year, with the listed firm surprising investors after splashing over US$30 million on second-hand mining equipment, some of which later turned out to be derelict.

A crisis caused by lack of capital and prolonged losses deepened during the year to December 31, 2015, threatening to drag the 91-year old giant into insolvency.

The problems have been amplified by developments on the international commodities markets, where a slowdown in prices has wreaked havoc on mines worldwide.

Van Hoogstraten demanded a raft of reforms that were likely to hand him management control of a company viewed by the State as strategic due to its importance in power generation.

Van Hoogstraten's family interests control about 30 percent shareholding in the firm.

But with debts mounting, and the firm facing industrial unrest from its unpaid workers, amid a working capital strife, the board made a surprise knock on van Hoogstraten's door again, but the tycoon is said to have indicated that the "whole ball game has changed".

"They engaged me nine months ago to see if that offer was still available, but I said the whole ballgame has changed," said van Hoogstraten early this year.

By Pete Lewis

Mining companies granted leave to appeal against class action ruling

South Africa's six biggest gold mining companies have been given leave to appeal against the court decision in May to allow mineworkers sick with silicosis and TB to bring a class action against them.

The Supreme Court of Appeal has granted the mining companies leave to appeal on all aspects of the certification by the South Gauteng High Court of the "big bang" common law class action brought by miners and former miners.

The six companies, who represent the entire industry and the Chamber of Mines in this matter, are African Rainbow Minerals, Anglo American South Africa, Anglogold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony, and Sibanye Gold.

The action concerns some 250,000 to 500,000 sick mineworkers or former mineworkers and their families, spread out over the entire Southern African region.

They will now have to wait while the appeal process, which could go all the way to the Constitutional Court, is concluded.

Meanwhile the six companies have proposed a different route to settlement, outside any judicial oversight. Through the Occupational Lung Disease Working Group (OLDWG), they have suggested that if the mineworkers drop their class action suit, the gold mining industry will help the Department of Health settle the backlog of tens of thousands of existing claims under the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act (ODMWA). The companies have also proposed to help identify the hundreds of thousands of people across the region who are eligible to claim compensation for illness but have not yet done so. These claims would be settled via ODMWA, with the mines offering to "top-up" individual payouts without admitting any liability.

In the long term, the gold mines are negotiating with trade unions and various government departments in a bid to rewrite the compensation laws so that in future, the ODMWA will fall away entirely, and silicosis and/or TB among gold mine workers will be dealt with under the Compensation for Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act (COIDA).

This would improve benefits for some sick mineworkers, and their families if they die, compared to benefits offered by ODMWA.

But the COIDA Fund is even more chaotic than the ODMWA Fund: mired in controversy over mismanagement and possible corruption, and lacking in transparency. Medical doctors are increasingly unwilling to treat injured and sick workers because the fund is failing to pay them for these services. Time lags in settling claims, even for deaths at work, are very long.

In addition, COIDA does not contain important provisions in ODMWA for mandatory heart and lung autopsies for mineworkers. The COIDA provisions for occupationally-related TB are much weaker than under ODMWA.

But COIDA is a cast iron "no fault" system of compensation, so if the mining companies' plan succeeds there will be no further common law suits from any mineworkers – or any other workers, South African or foreign, in South Africa.