South African politicians fined for travel rorts
Five members of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) have been convicted of fraud for rorting their travel expenses.
All of them have received suspended jail terms.
The five MPs are the first of 20 to face court on charges of colluding with travel agents to inflate travel costs and pay for extras.
They have been fined up to $17,000 each and have been given suspended sentences.
Related Travel Information
Given that they've got team-mates from two other countries, perhaps some might view South Africa's desire to experiment during the Afro-Asia Cup, which starts at SuperSport Park on Wednesday, as selfish.
Of course, seeing that they're providing more than two-thirds of the playing staff, a bit of self-indulgence is forgivable.
Between them stand-in skipper Shaun Pollock and newly appointed South African coach Mickey Arthur (who is looking after the African XI for the series) were somewhat apologetic in their assessment of the Africa side's plans for the three-match series.
"There are a few fairly nice innovations we are going to try over the
South Africa has named a squad of 24 players to take part in a tournament organised by the Confederation of African Rugby in conjunction with the International Rugby Board, to start next week in Windhoek.
The tournament will enable a country, other than South Africa, to qualify as the African team at the IRB's Under-18 championship in Dubai next year. As defending champions South Africa does not need to qualify.
South Africa will take part in the Windhoek tournament along with Namibia, Tunisia, Morocco, Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda, Kenya, Madagascar and Zimbabwe. The tournament runs from 24 August to 3 September 2005.
The
Banks and resources led South African stocks lower on Wednesday due to a cautious earnings outlook at Standard Bank, profit-taking and the threat of high oil prices hurting profits.
The blue chip top-40 index dropped 1.36 percent to 14,081.84 points, while the all-share index fell 1.28 percent to 15,515.28 points, after touching 15,479, recording its biggest one-day fall since the July 7 London bombings.
"The whole market is seeing profit-taking," Ryan Wibberley, a trader at Investec Securities said.
"The profit-taking is slightly overdue and is healthy for the market; it can't go up in a straight line."
Wibberley said marginally weaker metal prices also
South African shipping group Grindrod lifted first-half headline earnings 73 percent due to strong shipping markets and a weaker rand and said it expected the match the performance in the second half.
Basic headline earnings per share rose to 444.1 cents from 256.2 cents in the same period last year, the firm said in a statement on Wednesday. Grindrod had said it was expecting growth of up to 75 percent.
"I think full-year (headline earnings) will be around double the half year but in the next two to three years (growth will slow to) 15-20 percent and maybe better if the rand
The Tata group has received approval from South Africa’s Strategic Equity Partner Company (SepCo) for the roll-out of a telecom firm, Second National Operator (SNO).
SepCo is a special purpose vehicle (SPV) which was set up for the roll-out of SNO. The approval provides the Tata group’s telecom arm Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) an access to the South African market which is so far dominated by the monopoly player, Telekom.
VSNL would be operating through Tata Africa Holdings (Pty) Ltd, the investment arm of the Tata group in South Africa. Tata Africa has operations in eight African
