A motorist was slapped with a R18 000 speeding fine for clocking 220km/h, n a 120km/h zone along the South Coast, the KwaZulu-Natal department of transport said on Monday.

Transport MEC Mxolisi Kaunda in a statement commended the Park Rynie’s Department of Transport’s Road Traffic Inspectorate team for arresting Ivan Botha, 28, on August 14, for speeding in a Golf 6 GTI at 220km/h on the N2 national route.

Kaunda said in a statement that Botha had been held in custody at the Scottburgh police station.

“The Scottburgh’s magistrate today [Monday] handed down a fine of R18 000,” said Kaunda.

“[This] should be a great lesson to all who endanger our lives. Speedsters are like murderers, because at any moment their actions could lead to devastating consequences, including death and maiming of other road users.

“More so, we commend the great work of the department’s Road Traffic Inspectorate team in the Park Rynie station, who always catch speedsters travelling to the South Coast. It is high time all road users, especially motorists, started taking our call for road safety seriously, and realise that it’s about life and death,” said Kaunda.

Abuja — The Presidency has denied media reports that President Muhammadu Buhari is seeking emergency powers to tackle the nation’s economic challenges.

The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, said in a statement to our correspondent late last night that the economic management team was considering several measures to urgently reform the economy but they had not yet been communicated to the president.
The vice president’s spokesman stated that those measures had also not been passed to the Federal Executive Council and the National Assembly.
He said: “The economic management team has indeed been considering several policy options and measures to urgently reform and revitalise the economy. Some of these measures may well require legislative amendments and presidential orders that will enable the executive arm of government move quickly in implementing the economic reform plans.
“As far as I know, this has not been passed on to the president, the Federal Executive Council or the legislative arm of government. So, at this point, there are no further details to share.”

A newspaper report yesterday said Buhari would be seeking emergency powers from the National Assembly to get the economy out of recession, shore up the value of the naira, create more jobs, boost foreign reserves, improve power and revive the manufacturing sector.
The report said the decision was based on a proposal from the economic team headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo
In the bill, the executive will be asking for the President to be given sweeping powers to, among other things, set aside some extant laws and use executive orders to roll out an economic recovery package within the next one year.

Mixed reactions

However, before the denial by the vice president’s office, the proposal had already found acceptance among industrialists and experts as well as some legislators who spoke to Daily Trust.

Many industrialists and experts said such proposal was long overdue and should be granted by the National Assembly.
Some senators and representatives interviewed said the request should be specific to avoid “issuing a blank cheque to the President”.

A ranking senator who spoke to on condition of anonymity said that the granting of the sweeping power to the President would negate the principle of separation of powers between the Executive and Legislature.
“What will be the function of the National Assembly if we grant these powers to the President? He has to be specific on what he wants. Approving this will amount to issuing a blank cheque to him. This will not be good as it will bring about dictatorship,” he said.
He said it would be very difficult for the bill to sail through at the National Assembly.
But on his part, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Senator Samuel Anyanwu (PDP, Imo East) said they would support it if it would stimulate the economy of the country.
“Anything that would revamp the economy, reduce unemployment and put food on the tables of Nigerians would be supported as you know hunger is everywhere in the country,” he said.
Anyanwu, however expressed reservations about the request to empower the President to vire projects in the Appropriation Act without recourse to the National Assembly.
When contacted, the Senate Leader, Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South) said, “I haven’t seen the details of the bill, therefore I won’t comment on it.”
Also, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Baba Kaka Bashir Garbai (APC, Borno Central) said that they would support anything that addressed the challenges facing the country.
When contacted, the spokesman of the House of Representatives, Abdulrazak Namdas (APC, Adamawa) said the House would wait until such a time the president formally notifies members of his decision.
“For now, it’s in the realm of speculations. As you know, the House is currently on recess, but when we resume and if he eventually forwards the request, we’ll look at it and know what to do. But for now, we can’t say anything concrete,” he said.
However, an APC member in the House told Daily Trust that should the president write the National Assembly for such power, he might face serious challenge as many lawmakers would demand full explanation on what exactly he would want to achieve.
“There will be serious problem from the opposition. Some of us in APC too can be critical. For example, members will say let the president tell them the exact things he’s thinking about doing. What if he retrenches the workforce or reverses the minimum wage? What if it will have adverse effects on tax while industries are down? What if he says taxation should be escalated to 100 percent?
“So, we can’t just give him blanket powers. But if he says something like they’ll ban rice importation, that one is positive; he doesn’t need any powers from the National Assembly for that. Even among APC members, there will be resistance.”
Experts differ

While some industrialists and experts have expressed support others have expressed concern over the request.
The National President of the Nigerian Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), Ezekiel Essien, told the Daily Trust that industrialists were behind the President in this latest move, describing it as “long overdue.”
“Most of our contracts go to foreigners. All the monies go offshore. They only take local people here as carpenters and drivers. The money goes out of the country,” he said.
An economist, Gabriel Offiong, who is the Chief Executive Officer of an Abuja-based consultancy firm, Moon Global Ventures, said the President was right in that direction as long as it would help to revamp the flagging economy.
“He needs to intervene otherwise we are in trouble. He needs to overrule the period set in the procurement Act so that capital projects in the budget can be delivered before the end of the year,” he said.
He recommended that the National Assembly should give the president the powers he seeks by approving the emergency bill within one week.
Daniel Ikhouria, a development researcher, said: “This is a serious matter because the president is asking for a double edge sword which is anchored largely on his integrity.
“It will be good for the president to also demonstrate the measures that would be put in place to check abuse because if he is asking for the suspension of the procurement law, can we vouch for his lieutenants not to abuse this by awarding contract to themselves?”

The President of the National Association of Nigerian Traders, (NANTS) Barr. Ken Ukaoha said: “we need to do extra ordinary things if we must pull out this economy from the woods and that includes some of the things the president is seeking the National Assembly approval to do.
“For instance, do we need the amount of aircraft we have on the presidential fleet, off course no. And if we need the president to grant waivers for the procurement of a very essential item that would help in propelling the economy, why not?”
Barr Liborous Oshoma in his submission said: “The problem we currently have is one of trust because at every turn in our National life, the government had come out with proposal like this especially in the disposal of assets as we saw with the Ajaokuta steel, Alaja steel and the power holding companies and the exercise did not achieve its intended aim.
“So you would excuse the fears been expressed by some people, therefore what the government now needs to do is to continue to give the assurance that the implementation would be adequately monitored”
In the bill, the president is seeking powers to give contractors 50 per cent mobilization fees unlike 15 per cent obtainable today. “The 15 per cent is grossly inadequate according to the source.
This is why most projects are abandoned because the 15 per cent the contractors get is not enough to substantially execute projects,” an aide of the president said.

Cairo — President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Saturday that public debt reached EGP2.3 trillion and that he "will not hesitate" to take measures to improve the economy.

Sisi made the statements in a press conference held during the opening of a petrochemical complex in Alexandria.

He said the appointment of 900,000 people in the government sector due to public "pressure" and increasing salaries to EGP 228 billion annually instead of EGP 80-90 billion raised the public debt.

He added that it makes up 97-98 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as it stands at EGP2.3 trillion, up from EGP800 billion before 2011.

During his speech, Sisi stressed the importance of economic reform and said "the first effort at reform was in 1977" which was not accepted by the citizens and accordingly the state backed down and kept postponing it up until now.
 

Egypt is currently pushing ahead with reforms which include plans for a VAT tax and further subsidy cuts that were put on hold when global oil prices dropped.

The International Monetary Fund agreed on Thursday, in principal, to lend Egypt $12 billion over three years to support the government's reform programme.

Earlier last week, the government announced a sharp rise in electricity prices by up to 40 per cent on households as part of its plan to eliminate subsidies in the next few years.

Egypt's finance ministry expects a budget deficit of 9.8 per cent of the GDP in the fiscal year 2016-2017. It also expects revenues to reach EGP 669.7 billion and expenses to total EGP 974.8 billion.

The central bank said last week that Egypt's foreign reserves fell sharply by $2 billion at the end of July, reaching $15.536 billion, down from $17.5 billion in June.

The reserves remain to be less than half of what the country had before the 2011 Uprising when they stood at almost $36 billion.

Chinese conglomerate China Wu Yi is building a Sh10 billion housing materials plant in Athi River after bagging major tenders in the country.

The factory, expected to be complete in June, will manufacture precast materials that will also be sold to other construction firms.

The multinational is putting up the plant through its locally incorporated subsidiary China Wu Yi Precast (Kenya) Company Limited.

Its chairman Qiu Liangxin said the project would create a modern building industry base for research, manufacture, sale and demonstration of pre-cast elements in Kenya.

"The development of prefabricated building is significant to the transformation of construction, with advanced guarantee on construction quality and safety," Mr Liangxin said.

"We have been behind various projects in this region and this will be our first building materials producer established overseas."

The factory will sit on 30 acres of land off Mombasa Road. It will include a pre-cast element plant, a display area, warehouse and a construction material supermarket which will introduce materials from China, effectively making it a one-stop shop for building materials in the country.

The supermarket will stock among others stones, ceramic tiles, bathroom appliances, construction electrical fittings, lamps and kitchen furniture.

The pre-casts will include solid wall panels, hollow core slabs, sandwich wall panels, facade panels, lift shafts, staircases and foundation piles.

Customers will be able to obtain the pre-cast materials to fit their housing designs enabling fast and less costly construction.

The firm has partnered with two German technology services providers, Ebawe Anlagetechnik to supply equipment for the concrete pre-casts production and Nemetschek to provide the software for the design of the housing parts.

Industrialisation Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed who presided over the ground breaking ceremony on Saturday said the project was among those the government signed a cooperation agreement during the China-Africa Business Council in Beijing.

"This is basically industrialising the construction sector because this will shorten building period by more than 50 per cent," Mr Mohamed said.
 

"The building and construction industry is rapidly growing and this investment is very timely for our economy and in line with our industrialisation blue print. The number of cement companies around here will no doubt have new demand for cement from this firm."

China Wu Yi, which participated in the construction of the Thika Superhighway, the University of Nairobi Tower, Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital and several apartments in Nairobi is also planning to put up an iron and steel factory in Kenya in the near term.

The plant, whose timelines were undisclosed, will produce over three million tonnes of steel targeting public and private sector projects.

China Wu Yi will also rely on the plants to feed its own projects in the country where it has emerged as one of the largest construction firms.The multinational last year said it had won four construction tenders in Kenya worth Sh10.1 billion.

Its latest contract is the Sh16.4 billion reconstruction and capacity enhancement of James Gichuru Junction-Rironi road.

The road works, meant to ease traffic flow in the capital, is being funded by World Bank and the government.

The Republic of South Sudan became the world's newest nation and Africa's 55th country on July 9, 2011. This brought renewed hope for peace and stability which had been prayer for its citizens for many decades.

The country, being rich in various natural resources, there was high expectation for growth and many believed they would not see another conflict in the country after fighting so hard and for so long to "gain independence."

However, it was not long before renewed civil wars, particularly; the latest one which has led to deaths, destruction of property, and displacement of people, disorganisation of the government and all systems.

The hopes to build a prosperous nation have yet again been dashed despite the peace accord which was signed between the two rival camps-government led by President Salva Kiir and the opposition led by Dr Riek Machar. The said peace deal is already in tatters given an internal party coup against Riek Machar following the replacement of First Vice President by his former chief negotiator with the government, Taban Deng on 23 July.

These political conflicts are not simply internal because their effects go beyond national borders and the region at large. Violence and instability create immediate impacts on local and nearby economies which happen in several ways. There is already a rife in refugees crossing borders to neighboring countries. As the war continues, this poses great humanitarian challenges to the East African countries, especially Kenya and Uganda who share a common border with South Sudan.

The challenges of refugee migration and interventions are a major concern whenever civil unrest occurs. Kenya is currently engrossed in the process of repatriating the Somalia refugees in Dabaab camp due to a number of challenges faced by the authorities. Some of these challenges are the possibility of small arms finding their way through the borders. There are also logistics and infrastructural support that requires phenomenal budgetary support and so forth.

The escalated conflict in South Sudan adds to the negative effects the region has faced since civil war broke out in Somalia in the 1990s. It is documented that Somalia has cost East African countries hundreds of millions of dollars in military spending, and Kenya is particularly suffering from increased insecurity from terrorist group al-Shabaab. The civil war creates more opposition and irregular forces which are environmental factors that favor international terrorism such as al-Qaida, which has already found fertile ground in Somalia.

The longer the violence continues to take in South Sudan, the further it spreads, and the more insidious it becomes, the more difficult the task will be for the country to undergo the kind of social, psychological and economic transformation needed to achieve lasting peace. There are also costs of foregone opportunities for regional development. There is huge business and political risks for foreign investors and neighboring governments. Some of the biggest trading partners with South Sudan have shied off due to the violence.
 

Regional companies and business people operating in the country had made great strides, some of them had their investments destroyed, or have been forced to scale down or halt their businesses because of the unsecured business environment.

Notably, South Sudan crisis is another setback befalling the East African region adding to the reigning political turmoil which has been going on in Burundi, another sick man of East Africa. This happens when there was supposed to be strengthened regional integration and linkages with the country which joined the East Africa Community early this year. The crisis in South Sudan will likely derail EAC multi-billion dollar projects, such as its plans to build an oil pipeline across the region; new roads and rail line through East Africa, the ambitious Northern Corridor projects linking the landlocked East African countries with Kenya's maritime port of Mombasa for their overseas trade, as well as the trade among themselves. If not dealt with in due course and in a meticulous manner, the current armed conflict in South Sudan has the potential to adversely affect the pending regional projects.

As a matter of great concern, the situation in this fragile country must be taken seriously before it indulges the entire region into other associated challenges. There is dire need to take swift and decisive action to resolve the crisis. Peace, security and conflict prevention are imperative pillars in all the projects the East African countries, neighboring countries or regions desire to sustainably achieve. Without due attention paid to these three key issues, our development goals are bound to receive negative impact resulting from conflicts. South Sudan conflict has simply gone out of hand and hence a regional peace process needs to be revitalised and rigorously pursued to bring a lasting settlement to the conflict.

n conclusion, ending all sorts of political conflicts in East Africa remains one of the daunting challenges of the region. Just like the region moved to establish East African Standby Force (EASF), peace building activities must continue in the same approach. Political, security, economic and humanitarian crisis in any member country will ultimately affect the regional economies.

Hotel and leisure conglomerate Sun International [JSE:SUI] announced on Monday that it will exit Nigeria.

In its results announcement for the year to end-June 2016, Sun International said its hotel and casino complex Federal Palace continues to operate in a difficult environment with the Nigerian economy facing a number of crises including the low oil price, Boko Haram and a weakening naira. The country also has still not recovered from the significant impact the Ebola epidemic had on the business.

In addition to problems faced by the country, there are a number of issues specific to the local Nigerian partners in the Federal Palace and these have further exacerbated matters, Sun International said.

Sun International, which had invested more than $50m in its Nigerian operations, said continued setbacks in Nigeria – including the ongoing shareholder dispute – have frustrated all attempts to develop and improve the property.

It also lamented the fact that its employees at the Tourist Company of Nigeria, in which it holds a 49.3% stake, had been put at risk.

“Five of our staff members who were detained by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission earlier in the year have still not had their passports returned to them despite no charges being laid against the individuals, the company or Sun International.

“As a result of the current environment and issues facing the company the board has taken the decision to exit our investment in Nigeria.”
Sun International, however, said it expects the exit to be a protracted process, given the challenges it faces and to ensure it receives fair value for its investment.

In the review period the occupancy of Federal Palace at 41.6% was 6.8% below last year’s figure, with the average room rate up 3.8%.

The company said that despite all efforts to keep costs as low as possible, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) declined 58%.

Sun International said the Nigerian debt has always been, and remains, ringfenced to the Federal Palace, without recourse to the group balance sheet.

Other South African companies which have pulled out or made their intentions clear to exit the country, which is battling its worst economic crisis in decades, include Woolworths, Truworths and Tiger Brands, while MTN took a knock from a massively reduced fine of $1.7bn. After months of deliberations, Nigeria agreed in June to cut the fine initially demanded by almost 70% after MTN threatened to shut down its operations in the West African nation.

Sun International shares were trading 0.63% down at R91.51 by 11:14.