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Money
March 09, 2010
SA finds spending hard habit to quit
Michael Bleby
Business Day
Spending is a hard habit to break. South Africans, stung by recession and high debt, want to cut spending and save, but are finding it hard to do, a survey shows. At first glance, the figures from the latest MasterCard worldwide purchasing priorities index are confusing. The proportion of consumers pledging to save more over the first half of this year actually slipped, to 42% of respondents from 47% six months ago. The number planning to save less fell, to 23% from 29%. The number saying they would save the same jumped to 36% from 24%. At the same time, uncertainty about economic prospects has soared.
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Retirement
March 09, 2010
Hands off retirement funds, union tells Patel
Staffer
Business Day
THE United Association of SA is opposed to Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel’s plans to invest retirement funds money in development projects. “Patel and his fellow Cabinet ministers would do SA a huge favour by focusing their attention where it is needed the most: on service delivery, the country’s water and sewerage crisis, the repair of thousands of potholes in our roads, the electricity crisis, etc, before casting an eye on the savings of the country’s private citizens,” union spokesman André Venter said yesterday.
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Health
March 09, 2010
Focus ‘must be on HIV prevention’
Luphert Chilwane
Business Day
The government needed to intensify its campaign to reduce new HIV infection rates as it could not sustain big increases in its budget for HIV/AIDS treatment, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said yesterday. Speaking at the release of this year’s Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria report in Johannesburg, Motsoaledi said it was important to refocus on efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission and to set priorities for government interventions. He said the government provided voluntary counselling and testing at most public health facilities, but use of the service had remained a major challenge.
Insurance
March 08, 2010
How much life insurance is enough to provide for your family’s needs?
Bryan Hirsch
Business Day
Many of us have difficulty in understanding how much life insurance is enough to protect our loved ones in the event of premature death. How do you go about calculating exactly how much protection is needed to provide for a family when your biggest enemy in the years ahead is inflation? For a young couple today, with small kids, it is hard to decide how much cover will be needed in the event of the breadwinner’s death. A person needs to ensure against events which would have a detrimental effect on their finances.
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Corporate governance
March 08, 2010
Reporting standards convergence ‘crucial’
Sanchia Temkin
Business Day
The convergence of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is crucial to investor and financial stability, according to a new global study released last week by the International Federation of Accountants (Ifac). The latest survey of 157 accountancy organisations in 123 countries found that the adoption, implementation and enforcement of IFRS is vital as investors need clear, reliable, consistent data. Company presidents and CEs said the Ifac needed to continue to lead the convergence of standards developed by its independent boards, relating to auditing and assurance, education, ethics and public sector accounting, and to support their implementation.
Health
March 08, 2010
We must not falter in AIDS battle
Michel Kazatchkine
Business Day
Ten years ago I was in Durban to attend the International AIDS Conference. Many things about that conference I will never forget, but three moments in particular I remember vividly. When Nkosi Johnson spoke at the opening ceremony, I stood up with everybody else to applaud his courage. When Justice Edwin Cameron urged us “to make the future different”, I knew the future of the response to AIDS was about to change. And when then-president Nelson Mandela said that something needed to “be done as a matter of the greatest urgency”, I surely was only one of thousands of people who resolved to fight even harder.
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