{jcomments on}OMAR, AGNEWS, BXL, le 09 février 2010 – Irish Independent- February 09, 2010–TULLOW Oil moved a step closer to taking control of operations in Uganda, which it part owns, after the Irish-founded explorer’s Canadian partner, Heritage Oil, ended a sale and purchase agreement with Italy’s Eni.
RWANDA
Rwanda: Gov’t, World Bank Sign Financing Pacts
Edmund Kagire/The New Times/allafrica.com/9 February 2010
Kigali — The Government of Rwanda today signed six agreements with the World Bank (WB) which will see the bank finance various government programs to the tune of $120.3 million.
The signing ceremony for the funds, which will go mainly to the agriculture and energy sectors, took place yesterday at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.
World Bank Country Managerm Mimi Ladipo, who appreciated the government for good planning and resource management, signed on behalf of the Bank while Finance Minister John Rwangombwa represented the government.
Close to $70m of the signed money will finance the Electricity Access Scale-up and Sector-Wide Approach Development Project which is aimed at increasing the national electricity access to households to 16 percent by 2012 and at least 50 percent access by public institutions in the education and health sectors as well as local government.
The project is jointly financed by USAID, JICA and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Also entailed in the agreement is the $8.3m Sustainable Energy Development Project funded by GET and Africa Renewable Energy Access (AFREA).
Speaking at the signing ceremony, the State Minister for Energy, Collette Uwineza Ruhamya, said that the two grants will be crucial in supporting government plans to expand and extend the national grid, as well as development plans.
“The contribution of the World Bank towards the electricity access programme will allow us to add 100,000 new connections to the grid and to expand our transmission and distribution network.”
Ruhamya said that the biggest chunk will go into purchasing equipment to facilitate the rollout.
The WB also availed $34 million towards the 4-year Land Husbandry, Water Harvesting, and Hillside Irrigation Project which is expected to be implemented at a total cost of $200m.
The money secured by the Government last year, will be used to expand farming land through terracing, erosion control and small scale irrigation on the abundant hilly land used for farming.
According to Agriculture Minister Agnes Kalibata, the donor-funded $200 million project to irrigate about 12,000 hectares of land and terrace more 20,000 hectares of hillside marginal land will help boost agriculture production as well as food security.
“This project was designed in 2009 and it looks at how we can increase productivity at the hillside. The World Bank has been supporting us in other areas but it is the first time we are receiving support towards water holding capacity and irrigation possibilities on hillsides.”
The money will employ “a watershed approach to introduce sustainable land husbandry measures for hillside agriculture on selected sites and will develop hillside irrigation for sub-sections of each site”, the Bank said in a statement.
Another agreement signed will see WB provide $8m to the on-going 2nd phase of demobilizing members of armed groups of Rwandan origin and members of the Rwandan Defence Forces.
The project targets demobilizing an estimated 5,500 members of armed groups, 4,000 RDF soldiers and provide reinsertion support for those demobilized along with approximately 10,000 family members of armed groups.
Other agreements include the Public Sector Capacity Building Project which will see the WB contribute $6m to the Public Financial Management (PFM) Reform Strategy Basket Fund.
The $20m basket fund is aimed at building human resource capacity and putting in place modern effective systems and procedures for financial management. It will jointly be funded by the government and donors.
Rwangombwa commended the WB’s consistent support for the country’s development plans and pledged the government’s commitment to use the resources to attain the desired goals.
“The World Bank is one of our key partners in the struggle to eradicate poverty and develop the country. This is just some of the support it gives us, but the biggest support we get from the bank comes through the general budget support,”
On her part Ladipo said that the Bank will continue supporting the country’s development plans as long as the government continues to display high levels of effectiveness as it is today.
UGANDA
Tullow poised to take total control of Uganda field
By Thomas Molloy/Irish Independent/Tuesday February 09 2010
TULLOW Oil moved a step closer to taking control of operations in Uganda, which it part owns, after the Irish-founded explorer’s Canadian partner, Heritage Oil, ended a sale and purchase agreement with Italy’s Eni.
Yesterday’s announcement leaves Tullow with no rival to buy the remaining stake. Any deal must be approved by the Ugandan government and will be followed by a deal with either Chinese oil company Cnooc or France-based Total to develop the infrastructure needed to get the oil from Uganda to the coast.
Shares in Cnooc fell yesterday in Hong Kong trading after reports said the company, which is China’s biggest offshore oil producer, may spend as much as $2.5bn (€1.83bn) on a stake in Tullow’s Ugandan assets.
A deal of this size would be the largest deal in three years for Cnooc, which already has stakes in several African countries as well as Indonesia and Australia. Jiang Yongzhi, Cnooc’s Beijing-based spokesman, said yesterday the company didn’t comment on “market rumours”.
Any deal with Tullow may include Total as an equal partner in the fields in the country’s Lake Albert Basin, local media reports say.
Chinese companies are snapping up mines and oil fields all over Africa as the nominally Communist country attempts to secure the supplies of energy and minerals needed for China’s double-digit economic growth.
The company said in November that the Ghanaian government hadn’t allowed it to bid for assets held by Kosmos Energy LLC in the African nation. In 2005, Cnooc abandoned an $18.5bn bid to acquire California’s Unocal because of US political opposition.
– Thomas Molloy
Foster Wheeler Receives Contract from Uganda for Feasibility Study
Posted on: Tue, 09 Feb 2010 /www.tradingmarkets.com
Feb 09, 2010 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) —
Foster Wheeler AG announced that its Global Engineering and Construction Group has been awarded a contract by The Government of the Republic of Uganda to undertake a feasibility study for the development of an oil refinery with a capacity of up to 150,000 barrels per day in Uganda.
According to officials, the Foster Wheeler contract value for this project was not disclosed and will be included in the company’s fourth-quarter 2009 bookings.
Foster Wheeler said its scope of work will include the development of the location and configuration of the planned refinery, which will process Ugandan crude. The study, which is scheduled for completion in mid-2010, will also include the assessment of options for the development of the oilfield, crude transportation, and an evaluation of the relative economics of developing the new refinery versus alternative options, including pipelines, for exporting the crude oil.
“We are pleased to be involved in the first oil refinery project in Uganda. Our proven track record in objectively evaluating a wide range of options for upstream oil and gas field development and for attaining the optimum configuration for grassroots refineries, together with our expertise in projects in remote locations, mean we are ideally positioned to help the Ugandans achieve a viable, realistic plan for implementing this important project,” said Umberto della Sala, president and chief operating officer, Foster Wheeler AG.
“This process attracted 35 companies which expressed interest in undertaking the study. Out of these, six were contacted to submit their proposals and the proposal of Foster Wheeler was considered the best,” said Fredrik Kabagambe-Kaliisa, the Energy and Mineral Development Permanent Secretary for the Ugandan Government.
Foster Wheeler AG is a global engineering and construction contractor.
New strategies needed in fight against HIV among adolescents
www.monitor.co.ug/By Joseph Waninda /Posted Tuesday, February 9 2010
In Summary
With 135,000 new HIV infections annually of which over 19,000 are children, the number of children that requires treatment will continue to increase.
According to statistics from Uganda’s Ministry of Health and UNAIDS, about 110,000 children are living with HIV/Aids in the country. Of these, 50,000 children are in need of Anti retroviral treatment. With 135,000 new HIV infections annually of which over 19,000 are children, the number of children that requires treatment will continue to increase.
In order for HIV treatment to improve the quality of life for HIV positive children, it has to be taken in the right dose, at the right time and in the correct manner or what is called adherence.
If adherence to HIV treatment is a challenge for adults, it is even worse for children and most especially adolescents. Whereas adolescence is a challenging stage in development, adolescence with HIV is even worse.
According to research findings, HIV positive adolescents on ART want to fit in and “be normal” like their colleagues , they do not want others to see them take their drugs (especially in boarding schools). When they travel they forget to take their medication.
Given the stigma associated with HIV, many adolescents are apprehensive about disclosing their HIV status to parents, friends and sexual partners. They may be unwilling or fearful of facing the potential consequences of disclosure, primarily rejection. Because of failure to disclose, they can not rely on their parents, friends and partners for support to adhere to treatment.
In addition, there are few places where “adolescent – friendly” services are available, where young people can feel at ease and have their needs addressed. Many providers still lack knowledge about specific paediatric ART issues, and do not have the skills to communicate with caretakers and clients around complex and sensitive issues such as disclosure, dealing with stigma, and the very real challenges of adherence.
Adherence means taking the right dose of medication at the right time all the time. Adherence is very important in ARV treatment because it can improve a person’s health and quality of life and enable him or her to live longer. If adherence is very good, the amount of HIV in a person’s body will reduce very quickly after a few weeks or months. This allows their immune system to start to recover, so that illness is reduced and health is regained.
A very high level of adherence is necessary for ARV treatment to work effectively. Missing even a few doses of drugs can cause treatment to fail and opportunistic infections or drug resistance to develop.
HIV – positive adolescents may have difficulty adhering to their medicines because of drug fatigue, feeling it is too difficult/not worth it/don’t care; stress of taking the drugs at the right time every day; being too busy; not involving others – alternative caretakers and health workers; and, concerns about disclosure and stigma.
Health care providers can play a central role in aiding an adolescent’s psychosocial adjustment following an HIV diagnosis and should be trained to help them cope with an HIV – positive result and to adhere to their treatment.
HIV positive adolescents need assistance in learning to navigate health care systems as well as seeking and arranging medical care. Additionally, the structure of health care visits should be covered with a focus on adherence to appointments. It is also important to note that while many HIV positive adolescents would not be eligible for medications yet, an intervention should begin to prepare them for medication management.
Some factors have been seen to increase adherence and these include disclosing to the adolescent and including them in maintaining the drug regimen; seeing the results of what happens when one stops taking the drugs (falling sick); a good relationship between the caretaker and the child; and social support from other caretakers/family members, the health worker, and/or treatment supporters.
Critical components of an intervention that would help adolescents cope with HIV positive results include individual counseling, individual sessions, group sessions, and the availability of other services such as an HIV – positive peer buddy system, individual counseling, nutrition services and management.
Involving adolescents in support groups is important because they realise they are not alone in their age group and that other teenagers have the disease. It also helps them talk to someone about what they face.
Other critical skills that HIV positive adolescents need are HIV/AIDS education, stress management, social skills training, and problem solving skills.
The capacity of the health care centres, caregivers of HIV positive adolescents and community should therefore be strengthened to provide a supportive environment for these boys and girls, including providing appropriate counselling and psychosocial support, which will enable them embrace the future to which they are entitled.
The writer works with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
josephw@hcpuganda.org
TANZANIA:
BAE settles with U.S. over bribes to Saudis
February 9, 2010/www.worldtribune.com
LONDON — The United States has reached a settlement with a Western defense major over allegations that it relayed billions of dollars in bribes to Saudi Arabia. ShareThis
BAE Systems has reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department over allegations that the company relayed $2 billion in bribes to Saudi princes in the 1990s. The company also agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to submit false statements to the U.S. government.
“The company very much regrets and accepts full responsibility for these past shortcomings,” BAE said on Feb. 5.
Executives and officials said the U.S. settlement — in which BAE would pay $400 million — ended about two years of negotiations with the Justice Department. BAE had been under investigation for relaying $2 billion to then-Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, son of the defense minister and a leading figure in military procurement.
“Any company conducting business with the United States that profits through false statements will be held accountable,” U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lawrence Grindler said. “The alleged illegal conduct undermined U.S. efforts to ensure that corruption has no place in international trade.”
BAE, the second largest defense contractor in the world, said it also agreed to pay nearly $50 million in fines to Britain’s Serious Fraud Office. The police unit had been investigating BAE concerning illegal payments to officials in the Czech Republic, Romania, South Africa and Tanzania.
“We’re satisfied with that global settlement,” BAE chairman Richard Oliver said. “It allows us to draw a very heavy line under the legacy, the historical issues.”
The company also agreed to plead guilty to a British charge of failing to keep proper accounting records in Tanzania. Executives said BAE has already implemented measures to prevent bribery to foreign procurement officials.
“We’re obviously pleased to see uncertainty removed for our shareholders,” Oliver said.
Still, British parliamentarians called for an independent inquiry into the alleged BAE bribes. They said the government of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair had blocked a police investigation into an alleged $130 million slush fund established by BAE for Saudi princes and others responsible for weapons procurement by Riyad.
About three months after the British police investigation was closed in December 2006, BAE received an $8.9 billion contract for the supply of 72 Eurofighter Typhoons to Saudi Arabia. The first Eurofighters were delivered in 2009.
“The British government was up to its neck in this whole business,” Vince Cable, deputy chairman of the Liberal Democrats, said. “Government ministers were almost certainly fully aware of what was happening.”
CONGO RDC :
Pushing for “Zero Tolerance” on Sexual Violence in DRC
By Ramona Vijeyarasa, RH Reality Check, Southeast Asia/February 9, 2010
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been torn by violent conflicts since its independence from Belgium in 1960. Beginning in 1998, the Second Congo War involved seven foreign armies, these major actors driven largely by desires for control over natural resources, including diamonds, copper, zinc and coltan, these “economic forces and mineral resources fueling the war”. A peace accord in 2003 has not prevented sporadic fighting nor have the international peacekeeping forces been able to prevent rebel forces from intensifying assaults in the Ituri and North-Kivu provinces of the country in recent times.
Along with these conflicts has come widespread violence aimed at the civilian population, especially women. There is no shortage of reports or data documenting the abhorrent extent of sexual violence in the DRC. Primarily meant to protect the population, armed forces have been complicit in sexual violence on many levels. Human Rights Watch (HRW) in their 2009 report “Soldiers who rape, commanders who kill” looks at the inability of the DRC peace accord in 2003 has not prevented sporadic fighting nor have the international peacekeeping forces been able to prevent rebel forces from intensifying assaults in the Ituri and North-Kivu provinces of the country in recent times. government, military and judiciary to stop rape and the complicity of some of these actors in perpetuating sexual violence. Similarly, the group Doctors Without Borders (DWB) states, “more than three quarters of the women that we have treated have been raped by unknown armed soldiers.”
In 2004, DWB treated 270 rape victims over the course of the year in North Kivu. Today, they treat that many victims of rape on average every month. While the nearly 54 percent of those affected are between the ages of 19 and 45, a startling 40 percent of victims are girls under the age of 18. Women are targets working in the fields. Women are targets walking home. Women are targets virtually everywhere.
Since 1999, the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) has been on the ground trying to create peace. The UN has recently extended the MONUC mandate until 31 May 2010, with the next few months specifically aimed at protecting civilians as well as facilitating the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of Congolese armed groups and repatriation and resettlement of foreign armed groups. For years now, DRC President Joseph Kabila and MONUC have pushed a “zero tolerance” policy against sexual violence and misconduct by the armed forces. This objective has obviously not been met. The Kimia II military operations (in Swahili and Lingala, Peace II), which saw MONUC lending support to the DRC army (FARDC), despite the army being implicated in grave human rights violations, failing to stop sexual violence. Considered by UN human rights actors, like Special Rapporteur Philip Alston to be a “catastrophe” for human rights, Kimia II has been replaced by the FARDC’s new operation “Amani Leo” (“Peace Today”) which commenced in January 2010. It can only be hope that the renewed MONUC mandate and Amani Leo operations make some progress towards the “zero tolerance” policy, which has seemed until now, just a policy on paper.
The power of such a zero tolerance policy, if implemented and effective, cannot be understated. It is not simply a question of a completely unacceptable situation with regards to women’s security. Central to the issue is the sheer lawlessness that results when the armed forces are the perpetrators of violence. Some potentially effective strategies have been proposed to achieve justice for victims and put an end to sexual violence, including by the Office of the UN Senior Adviser and Coordinator on Sexual Violence in the DRC. Their strategy talks of combating impunity for cases of sexual violence by strengthening the judiciary and putting in force the DRC’s 2006 laws on sexual violence. They also highlight the need to reduce vulnerability and exposure of women to sexual violence, with more effective responses from security forces and better vetting to exclude from security forces “individuals who lack integrity”.
Persistent calls have been made directly to President Kabila from political leaders in the US and Europe for an end to the sexual violence. During a visit to Goma, the capital of North Kivu, in August of last year, Hillary Clinton pushed for “no impunity for the sexual and gender-based violence” in her meeting with Kabila, after first meeting with refugees at the Magunga camp. In December of last year, commenting on President Kabila’s declarations against violence, the Swedish European Union Affairs Minister Cecilia Malmstroem, whose country held the EU presidency until December of last year, reiterated “Congolese authorities are responsible for making sure the policy of zero tolerance is not merely words, but is also translated into reality”.
This is not an entirely new step. The EU has long been calling for an end to sexual violence in the DRC, with a resolution from January 2008 of the European Parliament noting that women in the eastern part of the DRC are being “systematically attacked on an unprecedented scale” with the atrocities against women structured around rape, gang rape, sexual slavery and murder having “far-reaching consequences including the physical and psychological destruction of women”. It further notes that although the DRC Humanitarian Action Plan 2008 reported 32 353 rapes during 2007, this was probably only a fraction of the total number.
Despite global pressure, reports on the ground are less hopeful. According to Refugees International, enforcement of the zero tolerance policy “especially of senior commanders, remains effectively non-existent”. Considered a “lawless world”, it is difficult to know what it will take to put an end to the rapes. Justice is weak in the DRC. UN Resolutions 1325 (2000) and 1820 (2008) on women and peace and security explicitly call for an end to sexual violence and demand the immediate end by all parties to armed conflict of all acts of sexual violence against civilians with immediate effect. Resolution 1820 specifically states that, among other things, rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide. Yet, in practical terms, on a day to day basis, where can women find refuge?
The complexity of addressing these issues should not be underestimated. I am writing this piece now in an effort to join other NGOs, UN agencies and activists from the international community pushing to make sure that the past years of sexual violence do not remain the norm. I am writing as a reminder that “zero-tolerance” does not simply mean a reduction in numbers and must not only be words on paper. The global community MUST watch to ensure that President Kabila’s commitment to the ELIMINATION of sexual violence is made real.
KENYA :
Mbeki in Kenya for talks on Sudan’s peace process
Tuesday 9 February 2010 /www.sudantribune.com
February 8, 2010 (KHARTOUM) –The former South African president Thabo Mbeki and the head of the African Union Panel on Darfur (AUPD) met today with senior Kenyan officials to brief them on the work of his panel and garner their support.
The Kenyan media reported that Mbeki held talks with President Mwai Kibaki and former president Daniel Arap Moi. The South African figure was accompanied by former Burundi President Pierre Buyoya, deputy African Union representative to Somalia Wafula Wamunyinyi and the South African ambassador to Kenya.
Kenya was the host of the decisive talks that led to the birth of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended two decades of civil war between North and South Sudan in 2005.
The Daily Nation newspaper said that Kibaki promised Kenya’s commitment to ensuring peace and stability in Sudan, despite concerns over the slow implementation of the CPA.
He further stressed that CPA had remained resilient despite various challenges, and that its signatories must sustain commitment to the full and speedy implementation of its remaining aspects.
During a special AU summit in Abuja to discuss Mbeki’s report on Darfur, Kenya said that success of the CPA would send a positive and re-assuring message of peace and stability in the Sudan.
Mbeki expressed concern over the escalating intertribal and ethnic violence in South Sudan over the last year.
“[South Sudan] President Salva Kiir is concerned. People are dying. That can be avoided … it should be avoided … to save lives and for stability” Mbeki said.
He warned that the violence could affect Sudan’s first democratic elections in more than 20 years, scheduled for April this year.
On Darfur, the AUPD chair said that the plans to establish the hybrid court are going as planned expressing confidence that it will produce the desired results.
“It will inspire confidence among the people of Darfur that justice will be done,” Mbeki told journalists after a meeting with president Moi.
“The court will be made up of Sudanese judges who will be joined by judges to be appointed by the AU,” he added and noting that his team was determined to resolve the Darfur conflict before the country’s general elections that are slated for April this year.
The hybrid court was a proposal drawn up by the panel primarily to defuse the row between Sudan and the International Criminal Court (ICC) which issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir.
The panel did not make a formal opinion on the indictment though it said that the ICC cannot handle all Darfur war crime perpetrators.
At a meeting between Mbeki and the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the latter told the panel that the judges had the final word on the case against Bashir and the others.
“He said the decision was with the judges and if anybody wanted to change any of those decisions or make an impact, those people would have to appear before the judges,” Mbeki explained.
Sudanese officials including Bashir have rejected the idea of the hybrid court saying it violates the country’s sovereignty but it is not clear if Mbeki has been able to overcome this hurdle.
Darfur rebels and critics accuse the AU and the panel led by Mbeki of seeking to protect Bashir from prosecution.
Last year, the former Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Maher Al-Sayed who was a member of the panel said that the AUPD’s goal “was to find a way out [to Bashir] from the dilemma of the ICC that sparked a great deal of controversy”.
“Incriminating the president is out of question and fundamentally unacceptable” the former Egyptian foreign minister said in an interview with the Egypt based Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper.
Mbeki was reportedly outraged over Maher’s statements and sent a “strongly worded letter” to the Egyptian foreign ministry protesting them.
(ST)
ANGOLA :
Comment: CAF’s decision to ban Togo is shocking
9 February 2010 /news.myjoyonline.com
I love football like everyone else, but the disturbing news is CAF decision to ban Togo from taking part in the next two African Cup of Nations Tournaments. I have been stretching the news and reports in all directions to work out how somebody could ultimately use the events as they unfolded to arrive at such a judgement. And there is nothing out there to validate the decision, other than CAF trying to be unnecessarily antagonistic and mean to the government and the people of Togo.
Togo’s government withdrew the national team from the tournament after the terror attack resulting in the death of two of their members. The players among themselves resolved to carry on with the tournament but the government insisted it’s over and asked everybody to come home and take part in the burial of the dead. So where did Togo err? CAF argument is that the government faulted its rule of non-interference. A provision which provides that government of member states desist from meddling in purely football matters.
But this is where it all get awkward, taking in to account the specifics of this case.
How do you square a non-interference with a government’s decision to back out of a tournament and ask her contingent to return home with a section of the team dead. Even if you put emotion aside, you would have expected CAF to know that the situation Togo found herself in Angola exceeded the frontiers of ordinary football.
Those social misfits attacked Togo’s National team not because they have got anything against Togo but to put themselves on the political agenda that they also do matters. Togo as a state has the right under international law to protect the people of Togo whether at home or abroad. What the government did is to simply exercise that right.
How would the people of Togo perceive their government if they had not taken the team home and there was second attack like the rebels promised? You can always argue that that is hypothetical but that is what good management is all about. You have to consider all possible situations and make provisions for them.
The resolution to get the team home was to guarantee the safety and the lives of the remaining contingent. That decision cannot be questioned.
CAF may want us to think that they were only sticking by the rule but the rule of law also means that the rules be applied in all fairness. Besides, the law like the textbooks say is organic. Its object is to serve the need of society not put the vulnerable in misery. If they value the law and the operation of the law, perhaps Togo’s unique experience is an opportunity to mend their rule book taking into account the question of security and what they mean by non-interference.
And you can’t equally blame Togo’s national team like a section of the report tried to make us believe that they failed to follow security protocol. Football like we all know is played in an atmosphere of fun and enthusiasm not gun shuts. If Togo knew everything about the security dynamics of the region and the proximity they stood to physical death they might as well decided not to travel to Angola in the first place.
My suspicion is that after a near escape from absolute disaster – because the other states could have removed their teams for the same security reasons – CAF is out trying to save some pride and make the rest of the world feel it has a stronger grip over African football.
With no intention to take anything away from the people of Angola for their effort in staging the championship, but was it CAF idea to stage the 2010 Nations Cup in a country they had all the information that it had a serious underlining security issues? So if the tournament had run into the wall with a security setback, why are they trying to make to Togo feel evil? The decision that the Togo government took is a natural decision that any other government would take given the same scenario.
Immediately after the Togo issue came up in Angola, the sceptics jumped forward trying to question Africa’s readiness to host the world cup. Sure, Africa is ready to host the World Cup and South Africa would do it. What CAF need to do is to pay particular attention to the security details and leave Togo alone. The people of Togo need peace of mind to get back into the game we all love.
Credit:Enoch Addotey.
SOUTH AFRICA:
President Zuma to Deliver State of the Nation Address
South Africa’s government has announced that President Jacob Zuma is scheduled to deliver the state of the nation address to parliament in Cape Town Thursday.
| Washington, DC
www1.voanews.com/Peter Clottey / 09 February 2010
South Africa’s government has announced that President Jacob Zuma is scheduled to deliver the state of the nation address to parliament in Cape Town Thursday.
Symbolically, the address coincides with the 20th anniversary of the release of former President Nelson Mandela from prison.
Mandela served 27 years on charges of sabotage, and other crimes allegedly committed while leading the movement against apartheid.
Political analyst, Somadoda Fikeni says the release of Mandela, and his subsequent election as president of the South Africa transformed the country and the world.
“I do think that it is full of symbolism because it is been held on the 20th anniversary of the day Nelson Mandela was freed from prison after 27 and half years….it was an event that was the turning point in our history because it marks the beginning of the end of apartheid era and the beginning of a negotiated settlement that will give democracy. It therefore means it’s a time for reflection on what has been achieved and what has not been achieved in the last 20 years,” he said.
The opposition African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) has criticized the government’s decision to hold President Zuma’s state of the nation address at night.
The government, however, explained that Zuma’s important address will take place in the evening to ensure all South Africans have a chance of listening to his speech.
Fikeni said the government made the right decision to hold the state of the nation address in the evening.
“A decision was taken to allow for the activities during the day to mark the 20th anniversary of Mandela’s release. But also, a decision was taken to make sure that you do have a situation where people at home would be watching this after their work and during the prime time period for the news,” Fikeni said.
According South Africa media reports, President Zuma is expected to demand greater accountability and more prudent leadership from his cabinet ministers and provincial premiers in his second state of the nation address on Thursday.
Fikeni said the expectations of South Africans are high ahead of the speech.
“They would want him (President Zuma) to assure the world and the country that arrangements for hosting the World Cup will go well and the country is ready…They would like to hear what programs are there to push back the frontiers of poverty and unemployment, which are at a very high level… what programs are there to deal with HIV/AIDS, which is one of the highest in the African continent,” Fikeni said.
Mandela supported reconciliation and negotiation following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, and also helped lead the transition towards multi-racial democracy in South Africa.
Discovery, Imperial, MTN, SABMiller: South Africa Stock Preview
February 09, 2010/By Nicky Smith and Nasreen Seria/Bloomberg
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — The following is a list of companies whose shares may have unusual price changes in South Africa. Stock symbols are in parentheses after company names and prices are from the last close.
South Africa’s FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index rose 248.90, or 1 percent, to 26,041.96 in Johannesburg.
Adcock Ingram Holdings Ltd. (AIP SJ): The largest maker of over-the-counter drugs said Baxter Healthcare SA may buy a 51 percent stake in Adcock’s critical care unit. Adcock added 60 cents, or 1.1 percent, to 55 rand.
Discovery Holdings Ltd. (DSY SJ): JPMorgan rated the stock as “overweight” in new coverage. Discovery shares were unchanged at 30.50 rand.
Imperial Holdings Ltd. (IPL SJ): The holding company that is disposing of its banking division to Nedbank Group Ltd. (NED SJ), said its banking unit’s full-year profit after tax for the year through December rose as much as 22 percent to 440 million rand ($57 million). Imperial added 60 cents, or 0.7 percent, to 86.75 rand. Nedbank added 3.35 rand, or 2.9 percent, to 120.60 rand.
Indequity Group Ltd. (IDQ SJ): The investment and insurance group will split into two divisions and keep the insurance unit listed on the JSE Ltd. The rest of the company will be spun off into an unlisted company. Indequity was unchanged at 1.17 rand.
MTN Group Ltd. (MTN SJ): Africa’s largest mobile phone operator is among six bidders for Nigerian Telecommunications Plc, known as Nitel, the country’s Bureau of Public Enterprises said. The winning bidder will be announced on Feb. 16. MTN added 2.25 rand, or 2.1 percent, to 109.25 rand.
Net 1 UEPS Technologies Ltd. (NT1 SJ): The smart-card technology company reports second-quarter earnings. Net 1 was unchanged at 150 rand.
SABMiller Plc (SAB SJ): The brewer’s Amalgamated Beverages Industries Ltd. said an agreement has been reached with labor unions to raise wages and benefits by 8.3 percent, ending a strike. SABMiller’s shares rose 3.35 rand, or 1.7 percent, to 203.45 rand.
Spar Group Ltd. (SPP SJ): The grocery and liquor retailer holds its annual general meeting. Spar rose 26 cents, or 0.4 percent, to 72.86 rand.
Wilson Bayly Holmes-Ovcon Ltd. (WBO SJ): JPMorgan raised its recommendation on the stock to “overweight” from “underweight.” Wilson Bayly shares fell 40 cents, or 0.4 percent, to 97.60 rand.
Shares or American depositary receipts of the following South African companies closed as follows:
Anglo American Plc (AAUKY US) fell 1.1 percent to $17.80. AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (AU US) dropped 3.9 percent to $35.80. BHP Billiton Ltd. (BBL US) declined 2.1 percent to $57.26. DRDGold Ltd. (DROOY US) slid 1.6 percent to $5.71. Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI US) fell 3.6 percent to $11.20. Harmony Gold Mining Co. (HMY US) dropped 2.6 percent to $9.21. Impala Platinum Holdings Co. (IMPUY US) fell 1.2 percent to $23.61. Sappi Ltd. (SPP US) slid 0.8 percent to $3.89. Sasol Ltd. (SSL US) gained 0.7 percent to $35.19. Telkom South Africa Ltd. (TLKGY US) rose 0.1 percent to $16.93.
–Editors: Alastair Reed, Antony Sguazzin.
Zurich South Africa May Cut a Fifth of Staff, Business Day Says
By Renee Bonorchis/Bloomberg/Feb. 9
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — Zurich Financial Services AG’s South African unit may cut as much as 20% of its workforce, Business Day reported, citing Guy Munnoch, chief executive officer of the insurance company’s local unit.
Zurich employs about 1,000 people in South Africa and is reorganizing its business after making a loss in 2009, the Johannesburg-based newspaper said, citing Munnoch. The job cuts may be completed by the end of April, Business Day said.
SABMiller Strike In South Africa Ends After Wage Deal Reached
www.nasdaq.com/Feb 9, 2010
JOHANNESBURG -(Dow Jones)- Striking workers at SABMiller PLC’s (SAB.JO) soft drinks unit in South Africa will be urged Tuesday to endorse a wage settlement agreed overnight, their union said.
Members of the Food & Allied Workers’ Union are due to return to their jobs Tuesday and Wednesday and the union said job security is part of the agreement reached with SABMiller’s Amalgamated Beverage Industries Ltd.
The union after weeks of negotiations since workers walked off the job Dec. 22 accepted ABI’s offer to increase wages 7.8%, dropping demands for a 9.5% increase.
“We are most pleased that we have reached an agreement with FAWU which ends the strike at ABI,” said John Ustas, managing director of the soft drinks business. “We will now focus on welcoming those employees who went on strike back to work, ensuring that we fully normalize our operations.”
Ustas said under the agreement workers’ pay and benefits will increase 8.3% in total, while the minimum wage will rise to 7,235 rand ($944) a month. The company and union have among other things also agreed to overtime pay for weekends and a 45-hour workweek.
ABI, one of the largest producers and distributors of Coca-Cola Co. (KO) products in the southern hemisphere, has previously said that despite incidences of violence and intimidation at some plants and depots, its operations were operating as normal during the strike.
The Service Employees International Union, which has members in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, Monday lent its support to the strike in South Africa. The U.S. union at the time said that if ABI didn’t agree to FAWU’s demands, it would support a consumer boycott of Coca-Cola products.
-By Robb M. Stewart, Dow Jones Newswires; +27 11 783 7848; robb.stewart@ dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
Two decades after Mandela’s release, South Africa struggles
Marius Bosch/Reuters/Tue Feb 9, 2010
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Twenty years after Nelson Mandela was freed from prison, South Africa is a vibrant democracy but the millions still living in poverty are now looking for leadership that can tackle its economic problems.
World
Mandela’s release on February 11, 1990, after 27 years in apartheid-era jails, set in motion the country’s transformation to democracy which culminated in historic all-race elections in 1994 and his inauguration as the country’s first black leader.
Some critics say Mandela’s legacy has been blighted by his successor Thabo Mbeki’s sacking as president by the ruling ANC and the latest sexual scandal involving current President Jacob Zuma which has damaged the party’s image.
South Africa’s change to democracy has been heralded as a miracle. Mandela’s reconciliation drive won over hardline white conservatives, previously segregated communities are integrated and most blacks and whites now treat each other with respect.
But two decades on, many black South Africans still live in grinding poverty in squalid shantytowns, official unemployment is just under 25 percent and analysts say actual joblessness is much higher. “The challenges are identical. If there are three categories of things, it will be unemployment, inequality with a racial overlay and poverty. The changes between 1990 and 2010 are not profound,” said independent political analyst Nic Borain.
Crime is rife and South Africa has one of the world’s highest rates of violent crime. The country also has to deal with one of the heaviest global HIV/AIDS caseloads.
RICH POOR GAP
Income inequality between different race groups has increased from 1995 and the World Bank describes South Africa as a country with “extreme differences in incomes and wealth.”
At least 34 percent of South Africa’s estimated 50 million people live on less than two dollars per day, according to the World Bank.
The economy under the African National Congress, which has been ruling since the end of apartheid in 1994, saw its longest spurt of growth on record until the fallout from the global financial crisis pushed it into recession at the start of 2009.
Although Africa’s biggest economy emerged from recession in the third quarter of 2009, analysts said its growth prospects lagged other emerging market peers — a situation which can only be changed through significant restructuring to address infrastructure and labor market constraints.
Two decades after Mandela’s release, South Africa needed to put in place real change to address economic structural problems and the low potential growth rate, said Peter Attard Montalto, emerging markets economist at Nomura International.
“There is currently no one to lead South Africa to this consensus. We need to hunt for the next Mandela, not the nation builder, the economic revolutionary,” Attard Montalto added.
Despite the obvious problems facing South Africa, much has changed since Mandela was released.
A strong black middle-class has emerged, a whole generation of schoolchildren born after 1994 — known as the “born frees” — have grown up in an multi-racial society and basic services like water and electricity have been extended to millions.
“The only black people you interacted with (prior to 1990) as a normal kind of person were servants and deeply poverty-stricken people. That is no longer the case and there is a general deracialism of wealth at least,” political analyst Borain said.
(Editing by Giles Elgood)
AFRICA / AU :
International Judges Dismiss Charges Against a Sudanese Rebel
By MARLISE SIMONS/www.nytimes.com/Published: February 9, 2010
International judges dismissed a war crimes case against a Sudanese rebel leader on Monday, saying there was not enough evidence to try him on charges that he played a key role in the killing of 12 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur in 2007. Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, a leader of the United Resistance Front, voluntarily traveled to the International Criminal Court in The Hague last year to attend hearings in the case. The court’s prosecutor had accused him and two others of organizing an attack in which about 1,000 rebels stormed a peacekeeper base in Darfur, and fled with equipment and vehicles.
Genocide charges against Bashir could be reinstated
By Zukiswa Zimela/ www.caribbeanlifenews.com/February 9, 2010
JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 3 – The International Criminal Court is to review its earlier decision not to add genocide to the charges against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir.
“It was a legal error to reject the genocide charges against President al-Bashir,” said prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo in a press statement.
The initial warrant for Bashir’s arrest, issued on March 4, 2009, indicted the Sudanese president on crimes against humanity including murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
The court also charged Bashir with directing attacks on civilians not taking part in the war and pillaging, but it rejected the prosecutor’s charge of genocide.
The ICC Appeals Chamber has ordered the Court to look at the genocide charges afresh, saying that the Court applied an incorrect standard of proof to the evidence presented by the ICC prosecutor. The decision is not a ruling on Bashir’s guilt or innocence, it only directs the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber to reconsider whether the Sudanese president should face trial on the charge of genocide.
“The prosecution maintains that President al-Bashir’s intention is to destroy the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa. Hunger and rape are his weapons. This is genocide,” said Moreno-Ocampo.
Even if the Pre-Trial Chamber now adds this serious charge to the already weighty international arrest warrant for Bashir, he does not appear to be in any danger of imminent arrest; he is preparing to contest presidential elections in Sudan in April.
A spokesperson for the Sudanese government told media the timing of the ruling was political and could hinder elections to be held in Sudan in April this year.
“This procedure of the ICC is only to stop the efforts of the Sudanese government toward elections and a peaceful exchange of power,” said Rabie Abdelati, a senior information ministry official.
Bashir is relying on the support of African Union (AU) countries and some Arab states who have refused to back the charges against him. This is despite the fact that 30 African states are members of the ICC.
Dismas Nkunda, co-director of the International Refugee Rights Initiative, says most African states are still under the impression that Western countries are trying to interfere in African affairs.
“African states feel as though they are targets. Most of the serious crimes against humanity are committed in Africa. Several former AU heads of states have been tried by the ICC. The decision made by the AU was a political,” Nkunda told IPS by phone from Kampala. “The ICC has made the legal decision.” (IPS/GIN)
Haiti earthquake relief efforts are still falling short
By Peter Slevin/Washington Post Staff Writer /Tuesday, February 9, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI — Nearly one month after a powerful earthquake brought this country to a halt, Haiti is tumbling headlong through a crisis that has not begun to abate, with evidence everywhere that current relief efforts are falling short.
Despite the good intentions of the United States and the world community, weary relief workers say the coming weeks will severely test the resolve of those foreign contributors and the resourcefulness of a Haitian government that remains all but invisible.
Pressure will grow on a fledgling food distribution network backed by U.S. soldiers that so far has largely managed to deliver only rice. From surgery to shelter to sanitation to schooling, the needs are vast and the international commitment unproven.
“The need is so overwhelming. You can’t have an initial push, and then it stops. That just won’t be enough,” Lane Hartill, an Africa-based Catholic Relief Services staff member, said as he walked toward a sweltering encampment of 30,000 people who have spent every hour outdoors since the Jan. 12 earthquake. In the distance, the dun-colored shapes of the makeshift shelters might have been an impressionist painter’s rendering of despair.
The sadness is sometimes suffocating, yet the agony of last month’s earthquake is being overtaken by the urgency of now. Every day, tens of thousands of Haitians face a grueling quest to find food, any food. A nutritious diet is out of the question.
No shelter, no jobs
Shelter is a slender part of the equation because, for those who lost their homes, there is so little shelter to seek. Hundreds of people join lines before the early dawn in hopes of scoring a sack of white rice, but there is nowhere to line up for a tent, a shelter kit or a home any sturdier than a blanket hanging from a clothesline.
Hardly anyone is being paid. For the vast majority, a daily job is out of the question. Every school in the capital is closed, an estimated 75 percent of them destroyed. Many businesses and government offices simply no longer exist. There is no postal service — and if there were, much of the Port-au-Prince population would not be found at home.
The medical calamity has moved beyond the horrific early days of assembly line amputations. Overwhelmed doctors and nurses are now facing converging streams of need, from untended wounds and the illnesses born of poor sanitation to the ailments of a population that had inferior health care long before Jan. 12.
There are not enough crutches for amputees or people to teach them how to adjust to the physics of their new bodily dimensions. The demands for treatment of all kinds, including postoperative care and rehabilitation, are “massive,” said Thomas Kirsch, a Johns Hopkins University physician and disaster expert working here with the International Medical Corps.
“We’re seeing as many as 500 people a day in our dinky little health-care center,” Kirsch said, after spending a 10-hour shift doing triage in the courtyard of the state university hospital. “We send paralyzed patients out with their families and say, ‘Good luck.’ ”
The psychological pressure is also building. On the morning of the 24th day after the quake, Claude Douge’s family felt it was losing its collective mind. The power was out, food was scarce, a mother was crying and two children were sick. Douge, a journalist with money to spend, had been searching fruitlessly for antibiotics for two days.
“I got everybody together and said, ‘Look, life’s not going to be like it was before. That’s over. You have to learn to fight,’ ” explained Douge, whose own effort to face Haiti’s new reality included deleting the names of 15 people from his mobile phone. They’re all dead, killed in the earthquake.
At the same time, Port-au-Prince is far from the city of cadavers that it was in the first week after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck about 5 o’clock on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. Every day sees more sidewalk commerce and open shops. Limited amounts of food are arriving from the countryside, and the United Nations has found a way to deliver rice after nearly three weeks of false starts.
The U.N. World Food Program expects shipping arrivals in Port-au-Prince to provide 16,500 metric tons of rice and 6,100 metric tons of cooking oil and enriched corn-soya flour by early next week. U.S. government staff have given 6,000 Haitians two-week contracts clearing streets in neighborhoods chosen by Haitian officials, and the U.N. Development Program has employed about 35,000 more.
“Sector by sector, we’re trying to make sure we just continue to solve problems and do better every day,” Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, told reporters last week. Shah said Haiti will be facing a medical emergency for “many weeks to come.”
At times, U.S. officials have offered sunnier assessments considerably at odds with reality. A State Department spokesman, Gordon Duguid, said in Port-au-Prince on Day 14, “It’s a week now that there’s no problem for bread.” The top USAID official in Haiti told reporters on Day 19 that “the Haitians are leading the process in all the areas that are necessary.”
‘Surreal decisions’
Lorraine Mangones has a less charitable view from her vantage point as executive director of FOKAL, a cultural foundation sponsored by the Open Society Institute. The business community was “already on its knees” before the earthquake, she said, while the state was “already weak and kept getting weaker and weaker.” The future, she said, will be “hell.”
“It’s not making big decisions,” Mangones said of the government run by President René Préval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. “It’s not making small decisions. It’s making occasional surreal decisions, like, ‘Let’s open the schools in Port-au-Prince right away.’ ”
She added, “Nobody’s listening, of course.”
Street-level governance has a randomness all its own. In the past two weeks, crews in yellow public works department T-shirts have begun to appear in the capital, pawing through rubble with large digging machines. One crew spent two days removing debris from Caelle Jean-Baptiste’s collapsed pharmacy as she watched from across the street.
Asked why the government crew was tackling this particular mess, Jean-Baptiste explained that her brother knows someone at the public works department who dispatched the team and the equipment. She paid the crew for its time.
U.S. Army Col. Rick Kaiser, who oversees the military’s infrastructure strategy, said the earthquake created enough rubble to fill New Orleans’s Superdome five times. It will be years before the rubble is gone and sufficient housing is built. In the meantime, beyond food, temporary shelter is looming as the next large-scale relief issue.
“That is the issue we are focusing on right now and will need to focus on for the next three to five months,” said Tim Callaghan, leader of the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team. “This is critical, and we’re working as hard as we can on it.”
Over at the university hospital, where foreign doctors are living their own daily MASH experience, emergency room physician Gene Gincherman from Potomac has been coping with what he describes as “Civil War-era diagnostics.” The electrical generator is not strong enough to power the X-ray machine consistently. There are not enough blood-pressure sleeves. There is no oxygen and often not enough medicine.
Gincherman fears that Haiti’s national emergency could get worse as the crisis endures and the world’s attention span ebbs. He said, “We’re so afraid that once it gets unsexy, it will be forgotten.”
Obama to Africa : Drop Dead !
Written by /Rudi Stettner /www.rantrave.com/09022010
Nancy Pelosi continues to rack up astronomical bills to fly her family around on military jets , spending over two million dollars on military flights for herself and her family over a two year period according to the Judicial Watch web site, which reported as follows on January 28 of this year.
“Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Air Force detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s use of United States Air Force aircraft for Congressional Delegations (CODELs). According to the documents, obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Speaker’s military travel cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over a two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol. The following are highlights from the recent release of about 2,000 documents:”
The figure included private travel for adult members of Pelosi’s family that was entirely unrelated to government business. But don’t worry. The Obama administration has found a way to balance the budget, by freezing the spending on AIDS treatment in Africa, According to Breitbart News, which reports as follows.
‘President George W. Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), launched in 2003, focused largely on treating patients in urgent need of medicine, but the new US administration’s programme has shifted away from emergency treatment. “George W. Bush is a hero in this country,” said Peter Mugyenyi, who heads Uganda’s Joint Clinical Research Centre, a leading AIDS treatment clinic. Uganda received 929 million dollars (678 million euros) from PEPFAR between 2003-2008 and used much of those funds to provide some 150,000 people with Antiretroviral therapy. But the US switch in emphasis means that clinics are now being forced to turn new patients away. ”
For many AIDS sufferers in Uganda, the freeze on accepting new patients will be a death sentence for those who are newly diagnosed with the disease. In some cases, a family member who is being treated with AIDS medications might resort to sharing medication with afflicted family members. This can result in the creation of drug resistant strains of the virus, which would require costly research for new and effective medications.
The PEPFAR program is now changing its emphasis to AIDS testing and prevention. Those who are diagnosed with HIV can now find out that they are infected. With no drugs available for the newly diagnosed, many are deciding that testing is futile.
Although the Bush administration is roundly vilified by its successor, part of its strategy abroad was to fund medical treatment and development projects in countries that were targeted by radical Islamists and other enemies of America. It is clear that America’s assistance to Uganda created a great deal of good will.From a moral and even a coldly political perspective, the freeze on AIDS spending in Uganda is a poor idea. In our times, there is little assurance that Uganda’s AIDS problems will stay in Uganda. Such epidemics have a way of crossing national borders and oceans as well.
In a former colony of Great Britain, a desperately ill person will react with understandable gratitude if it is noted that a life saving clinic is a “gift from the people of the United States of America. I am sure President Obama would not mind if his picture were to hang in such a clinic.
Continuing to fund the natural growth of an AIDS treatment program in Uganda is in America’s interest. It is morally praiseworthy as well. George Bush, who had no familial ties to Africa understood this. It is for this reason that he is warmly praised and fondly remembered. In the second year of his presidency, it is time for President Obama to learn what came naturally to his predecessor.
We must continue to cut spending. Perhaps humanitarian programs could be funded with a national lottery or with special postage stamps known as semipostals, in which a surcharge on each stamp bought is forwarded to a particular charity. In the former Soviet Union, money was raised penny by penny for causes deemed worthy by the government. Perhaps this might be a way to make America’s good will into a grass roots effort.
What would be most interesting would be to see Nancy Pelosi and her imperious entourage travel on Jet Blue and to send the savings to the impoverished people in Africa, Haiti and elsewhere who are being helped by programs established by George Bush.
Just a parting thought. How many days of AIDS treatment could be paid for with the money spent on drinks on a Nancy Pelosi private military flight? Just asking.
Reprinted with Permission from Rudistettner.com
UN /ONU :
USA :
Strike by Zimbabwe State Workers Takes Hold; US$600 Monthly Demanded
Public Service Association President John Tagara said civil servants have been waiting in vain for salaries to be increased since the formation of a government of national unity in February 2006
| Washington
www1.voanews.com/Gibbs Dube/ 09 February 2010
A strike Zimbabwean state workers demanding monthly compensation of at least US$600 a month from around US$150 at present took hold around the country on Monday with little sign of negotiations in progress.
The strike began on Friday with a mass meeting of public workers in Harare though there was no official strike call by unions for state workers.
Sources in Harare said there was little sign of negotiations in progress between representatives of the striking workers and the government.
Public Service Association President John Tagara said civil servants have been waiting in vain for salaries to be increased since the formation of a government of national unity in February 2006. At that time the government introduced a stipend of US$100 monthly, promising more as revenues increased.
“We have been patient for too long and now is the time for us to show the government that we are demanding decent salaries,” Tagara said. He said civil civil servants in Bulawayo joined the strike on Monday.
VOA was unable to reach Public Service Minister Eliphas Mukonoweshuro for comment on the situation and any continuing discussions with unions. The government has said it can only afford to increase salaries by US$16.
Tagara told VOA Studio 7 reporter Gibbs Dube many government workers have joined the strike nationwide, paralyzing most public institutions.
VOA Studio 7 correspondent Peter Nthambe reported that Mukonoweshuro told reporters in Harare on Sunday that the government could not afford to meet public worker demands for salaries and allowances.
Institutions hit by the strike included the court system, schools, and the Office of the Registrar, which issues passports and certificates of birth and death.
CANADA :
Black history goes contemporary
February events aim to have ‘more critical and more anti-racist focus’By Rachel Kuper, Assistant News Editor
www.queensjournal.ca/2010-02-09
Black History Month is a time to speak about contemporary issues of race, Black History Month Co-ordinator Anna Thomas said.
“Black History Month is this weird construction that has implications I don’t believe in and the history presented isn’t necessarily an accurate reflection of reality,” she said.
Thomas said Black History Month is often presented in a very positive way and celebrates Canadian multiculturalism while ignoring more negative issues.
Thomas said the story of the Underground Railroad traditionally presented during Black History Month says the railroad ended in Canada which gives an unrealistic perception of what Canada was like for escaped slaves.
“The fact that Canada was the end of the railroad perpetuates the idea that Canada never had slavery or racism,” she said, adding that the story of the Underground Railroad is one problem when it’s presented by itself because negative or contemporary stories are often forgotten.
“It’s presented as ‘underground railroad, people were liberated and here we are in this wonderful multicultural Canada,’” Thomas said. “We’re trying to have a more critical and more anti-racist focus to the month.”
One negative history which is often ignored during Black History Month is about a black community in Halifax called Africville, she said. The residents of Africville paid taxes but didn’t receive services like garbage removal or running water. They were evicted in the 1960s.
Thomas said a documentary about Africville will be playing this month.
On Feb. 18 an event called The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere: Anti-Black Racism Following the 2005 Boxing Day Shooting deals with racial profiling in the wake of the murder of 15-year-old Jane Creba on one of Toronto’s busiest streets in broad daylight.
Thomas said she thinks this kind of event takes a critical look at notions of race and racism.
Black History Month is co-ordinated by the Ontario Public Research Interest Group and Queen’s Coalition Against Racial and Ethnic Discrimination. Other organizations hosting events are the African and Caribbean Students Association, cultureSHOCK!, the Arts Centre and Immigration Services Kingston and Area and Reelout Film Festival.
Thomas said she’s also planned an Africa Days event with discussions, presentations, a dinner and an African drumming workshop. She said she hopes the event will highlight the potential for Queen’s to create an African Studies department.
Thomas said she thinks Black History Month is very relevant to Queen’s.
“Queen’s as a campus has had a history of racism and ignorance about a lot of marginalized people,” she said.
Many events, such as film screenings and radio programming are geared towards educating the wider Queen’s population.
Thomas said she thinks black students have a different experience at Queen’s.
“It’s important to highlight the history of the people who are usually marginalized in the institution and in the institutions curriculum,” she said, adding that students usually learn about western traditions of art, literature or science and so students of other descent don’t often learn about their heritage.
Thomas said black history is often taken out of context and dehistoricized.
“The place of marginalized voices within the academy is often covered in a cursory way,” she said, adding that instead of learning about black history in chronology like western history there will often be one day out of the year for black history. This pattern is similar in other classes too, she said.
“Students have a right to see themselves reflected in what their learning,” she said. “Black History Month isn’t a solution to the lack of black history within wider disciplines but it’s a start.”
Western Canada to suffer from isotope shortage
With Ontario facility still off-line, shutdown at Netherlands reactor will squeeze world supply even further
Gloria Galloway and Steven Chase/Ottawa — From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail /Tuesday, Feb. 09, 2010
.Western Canada is likely to bear the brunt of a looming medical-isotope shortage, experts warn.
When a leak first shut down Canada’s isotope-producing reactor last year, the resulting shortage of radioactive material was most acutely felt in Eastern Canada.
This time, however, Christopher O’Brien, president of the Ontario Association of Nuclear Medicine, said it is Western Canada that will likely shoulder the worst.
That’s because Lantheus, the U.S.-based distributor that supplies much of the East, is now better positioned than Covidien, the distributor responsible for most of the West.
“As we know with the last shortage, the West was mostly spared and the East got battered,” Dr. O’Brien said.
“This time around, we think the West is going to be really battered and the East will fare a little better.”
Doctors have been grappling with a decline in isotope production since last May, when Canada’s NRU nuclear reactor in Chalk River, Ont., was shuttered for repairs.
But supply is deteriorating further because the aging Petten reactor in the Netherlands – which has helped fill the void while Chalk River sits idle – will be turned off on Feb. 19 to repair leaks. It is expected to remain closed until summer.
This means supplies will shrink until the Chalk River facility can be restarted. Chalk River and Petten together normally produce about 70 per cent of the world’s supply of an isotope called technetium 99, used in 85 per cent of diagnostic imaging procedures.
Canadian medical officials warn a lack of supply could hamper diagnoses of life-threatening illnesses such as cancer and heart disease. (Isotopes can’t be stockpiled because they decay rapidly.)
Doctors don’t yet know how they are going to work around isotope shortages. “Between the beginning of March until the NRU is restarted, we will go through very tough times,” said Jean-Luc Urbain, president of the Canadian Association of Nuclear Medicine.
Canada had hoped to restart the Chalk River reactor in time to cope with the long-expected Petten shutdown.
But Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. chief executive Hugh MacDiarmid said technical problems have delayed the project. He now projects an April restart date. “We’re driving very, very hard to do that,” he said.
A federal Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman said Canada has created a system of early notification for the health-care system and, as a result, doctors have been warned by the suppliers to expect disruptions in March.
“The isotope industry and international community have been mobilized to co-ordinate reactor schedules and to maximize supplies where and when possible, and to explore new possible sources in 2010,” Patti Robson said in an e-mail.
“For instance, Belgium has added a cycle to its reactor schedule, South Africa will continue to operate at elevated levels, and France has agreed to delay a scheduled outage.”
But Belgium, South Africa and France can’t make up all the shortfall. They are smaller-scale operations that have traditionally supplied 30 per cent of global consumption.
Nuclear-medicine doctors fear that the health of their patients will be jeopardized.
Opposition critics say the Harper government must bear some of the blame for not developing a plan to deal with potential shortages after the NRU was shut down for several weeks in late 2007 to make safety adjustments demanded by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
“The stars are lining up for a perfect storm here – a busy time of year, major production down, isotopes not as available,” NDP natural resources critic Nathan Cullen said.
Even if isotopes are available from the world’s smaller reactors, the law of supply and demand will make them very expensive, said Mr. Cullen.
The opposition Liberals plan to hold informal hearings on Parliament Hill today about the isotope situation.
Experts have suggested Poland or China may eventually serve as alternative suppliers of medical isotopes.
“We are aware of no realistic near-term prospects for imports from new sources such as China or Poland,” a Health Canada spokesman said in an e-mail.
With a report from Shawn McCarthy
AUSTRALIA :
SingTel Profit Beats Forecast
online.wsj.com/ By SE YOUNG LEE / FEBRUARY 9, 2010
SINGAPORE — Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. posted stronger-than-expected third-quarter net profit on strong earnings from its Indonesian associate and favorable foreign exchange rates.
Still, the company is taking a conservative stance on its earnings forecast for this year, pointing out that cautious “corporate telecom spending” and slow demand for business-related services affected data and international telephone revenue growth in Singapore and Australia in the third quarter.
SingTel said in a filing with the Singapore Exchange on Tuesday that net profit for the quarter ended Dec. 31 was up 24% at 990.7 million Singapore dollars (US$697 million), better than the 961.2 million Singapore dollars forecast by six analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires.
Operating revenue was up 20.2% from a year earlier at 4.45 billion Singapore dollars, compared with analysts’ forecast of 4.34 billion Singapore dollars, as the Australian dollar appreciated 27% against the Singapore dollar during the period.
SingTel said pretax profit from its regional mobile units, a key driver for bottom-line growth in recent years, rose 21.3% from a year earlier to 560 million Singapore dollars. Contribution from its Indonesian associate PT Telkomsel rose 53.1% for the quarter, compensating for weak contributions from other units.
The company reaffirmed its existing full-year guidance, saying it expects its Singapore operations’ operating revenue to grow at single-digit levels and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, to post low-single digit growth.
For its Australia business, SingTel expects single-digit operating revenue growth and low single-digit Ebitda growth.
SingTel’s shares were up 2% at 3.01 Singapore dollars on its earnings announcement. In comparison, the benchmark Straits Times Index was down 0.51 point at 2,693.11.
SingTel Chief Executive Chua Sock Koong also said during a press briefing that the company has made no decision to sell or list its Australian unit Optus.
People familiar with the situation told Dow Jones Newswires in January that SingTel wants to sell around 25% of Optus which could raise about 4 billion Australian dollars. One of the people said the proceeds could be used for acquisitions abroad.
CLSA analyst Ashwin Sanketh said it would be a bad move for SingTel to proceed with such a listing without having a significant investment lined up.
“They don’t need the money,” he said, noting the firm’s low leverage and strong cash position. “It’s just ridiculous for them to list Optus and not make an investment somewhere.”
Chua told reporters at the briefing that the firm’s primary investment focus is in Asia, though the firm would also consider opportunities in Africa and the Middle East. She didn’t name specific targets.
She added that the firm would also consider working with its associates on possible investments, as it did when Indian associate Bharti Airtel Ltd. which pursued a merger with South Africa’s MTN Group Ltd. Those talks ultimately collapsed in late 2009 after the South African government balked at the deal structure.
SingTel, Southeast Asia’s largest telecommunications firm by revenue, holds significant stakes in six foreign mobile operators: Bharti, Telkomsel, Thailand’s Advanced Info Service PCL, Pakistan’s Warid Telecom, the Philippines” Globe Telecom Inc. and Pacific Bangladesh Telecom.
SingTel has said it is evaluating investment opportunities in China, and people familiar with the situation have said in the past that the company is interested in taking a stake in Vietnam’s MobiFone. It had also looked at investing in Ghana Telecom in 2007 but chose not to bid for it.
CLSA’s Sanketh said there are very few assets worth investing in Asia at this point, adding that SingTel would have to cast a wider net on the acquisition front into regions like Africa and the Middle East.
“Even there, clearly MTN is a standout choice, and the advantage there is they’ve already done some work thanks to the Bharti talks,” he said.
EUROPE :
CHINA :
Echoes From Davos: Brazil Follows China Into Africa
February 9, 2010/Paul Maidment blogs.forbes.com
Some corridor chit-chat at Davos 2010 comparing the commercial and diplomatic push of two of the BRICs, China and Brazil, into Africa and Latin America respectively. But Mozambique now offers an intersection of the two. Vale, the giant Brazilian mining company that vies with Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton around the world, is about to start operations at a $1.3 billion coal mining project in Mozambique’s Tete province for which it was granted a 25-year license in 2004 (company release). The mines are expected to produce 11 million tonnes of thermal (for power generation) and metallurgical (for steelmaking) coal a year mostly for export, turning Mozambique into the continent’s second-largest coal producer after South Africa.
China’s scramble for Africa’s resources, and to a lesser extent India’s has taken the spotlight, but Brazil’s interest is growing. Last year, Roger Agnelli, Vale’s chief executive, said that while Tete was its first big project in Africa, it was looking to invest in nickel and copper mining in DR Congo, Zambia and Namibia. Brazil’s imports from Africa have risen more than sixfold from 2000’s $3 billion. Its exports, largely food, have grown by eightfold over that time from $1 billion. Brazil’s President Lula da Silva has been a frequent visitor to the continent as part of a drive to encourage more inward Brazilian investment, which has already passed $10 billion.
Like China’s natural resources companies, Vale is bringing hometown support. Brazilian construction company Odebrecht will be building a power station and rail links and a port for the Tete project. The pair will soon have a familiar neighbor, Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (CSN), a Brazilian steelmaker. For its part, Odebrecht already has a big presence in Angola, as does the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras. A commonality of language, Portuguese, may well make the Brazilians feel more at home in Africa than their not universally loved Chinese counterparts–and vice versa–in the BRIC’s global pursuit for natural resources to fuel their growth.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Ma Zhaoxu’s Remarks on the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Charge against the Sudanese President
www.fmprc.gov.cn/2010/02/09
Q: The Appellate Chamber of the ICC recently ordered the first ICC pretrial chamber to reconsider their decision not to charge Sudanese President al-Bashir with genocide. How do you comment on that?
A: Since the ICC sued the Sudanese leader in 2008, China has joined other developing countries in Africa and Arab as well as regional organizations including the African Union and the League of Arab States in expressing its explicit and deep concern. The situation in Sudan is now at a complicated, sensitive and critical stage. All parties concerned are pushing forward the Doha peace talks. Sudan is to hold the presidential election shortly and a referendum in January 2011. We don’t want to see the ICC’s move adding further complications to the resolution of the Darfur issue and North-South peace, which will disturb or even undermine the cooperative atmosphere. China is ready to work with the international community for an appropriate settlement of the Sudan issue on the basis of peace and stability of Sudan.
Asia unseats South Africa in gold race
www.financialstandard.com.au/Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Indonesia, Tanzania and China reported the fastest growing output for gold last year – usurping South Africa, once the world’s largest gold producer, which saw its production levels drop 5 per cent, according to a precious metals expert.
British research specialist GFMS highlighted that global gold mine production grew by 6 per cent last year to a six-year high.
But South Africa saw its production levels decrease by 5 per cent over the same period.
In contrast, China and Australia are leading the pack with South Africa taking third place in the gold production tables, according to the firm’s latest Gold Survey Update.
Despite South Africa’s lower output, the African region overall saw growth by 4 per cent. Four of the world’s top ten global output increases stemmed from the region, led by a doubling in output in Burkina Faso.
Meanwhile, the fastest growing output figures were posted by Indonesia, Tanzania and China.
Which country produces the most gold is being closely watched by world investors, as the growing weight of investment money is poised to enter the gold market in the first half of 2010.
The result is a likely spike in gold prices, arguably to new record highs, said GFMS.
Investor demand will come amid fears of a double dip recession, continuing huge government deficits, very loose monetary policy and a belief that “…notable, if not runaway, inflation is set to return”, said the report.
The consequences to gold prices will be significant – with predictions gold will reach $1,200 an ounce by the second quarter of this year. In comparison, prices in 2009 averaged $972.
Gold peaked at a record $1218 in early December but has since fallen back.
World output was 2,553 tonnes last year, compared with 2,049 in 2008.
Ruth Liew
INDIA :
SingTel to focus on acquisitions to drive growth
9 Feb 2010/REUTERS
SINGAPORE: Singapore Telecommunications is eyeing acquisitions in Asia and the fast-growing markets of Africa and the Middle East to boost growth
after it reported quarterly earnings in line with estimates.
Southeast Asia’s biggest telecoms firm has seen slow growth in Singapore and Australia in recent years, but a strengthening Australian dollar and booming markets in India and Indonesia helped it report a record underlying net profit for October-December.
“SingTel remains an ‘underperformer’ with likely de-rating catalysts coming from competition in India, rising competition in Australia and prospects of a heated 3G spectrum auction in Australia,” CIMB analyst Kelvin Goh said in a note.
Some analysts have said a partial float of SingTel’s fully-owned Australian subsidiary Optus, estimated at about $3.5 billion, to fund expansion in other markets, will be a key trigger for the stock.
The firm said no decision had been made. SingTel, 54 per cent-owned by state investor Temasek Holdings, maintained its outlook for low single-digit growth in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for its markets in Singapore and Australia.
The company earns about three-quarters of its core earnings from outside Singapore. “Our focus remains in Asia. That’s unchanged. We are also looking at some adjacent markets including Africa and the Middle East,” CEO Chua Sock Koong told a news conference when asked about likely acquisitions.
Chua, who began as SingTel’s treasurer before being promoted to chief financial officer in 1999, was closely involved in the company’s overseas expansion drive. She was appointed CEO in 2007.
Facing a domestic market of 5 million people where virtually everyone has a mobile phone, SingTel has spent S$18 billion in recent years buying stakes in India, Indonesia and in the bigger Australian market.
SingTel had supported a bid by Bharti Airtel to buy South Africa’s MTN, but the deal collapsed last year. Among SingTel’s regional units, Bharti led growth in mobile subscribers, up 39 per cent, but still faces a cloudy outlook due to a price war.
In Indonesia, Telkomsel’s mobile subscribers rose by a quarter. In Australia, where SingTel owns second-largest telecom firm Optus, analysts said revenues were better than expected, and income was further boosted by a 27 per cent gain in the Australian dollar over the quarter versus the Singapore dollar.
SingTel’s shares rose as much as 2.4 per cent on Tuesday, outperforming a flat Singapore market.
Record Profit
SingTel, Singapore’s highest valued firm with a market capitalisation of S$46 billion, posted October-December underlying net profit of S$990 million ($695.7 million), up from S$838 million a year ago. This was just below an average forecast of S$995 million from a Reuters poll of five analysts, but its highest ever underlying profit according to the firm.
SingTel’s total global subscriber base grew 22.5 per cent to 284.75 million as of December, helping boost quarterly revenue by 20 per cent to S$4.45 billion.
SingTel’s shares have slipped around 3 per cent this year, underperforming Asian rivals and versus a 7 per cent fall in the broader Singapore benchmark index.
BRASIL:
Johnnie Walker Holdouts Leave Diageo Playing Five-Year Catchup
February 09, 2010/By Andrew Cleary/Bloomberg
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — Diageo Plc, the world’s largest distiller, may take five years to recover sales lost in the recession as emerging markets fail to fill the void left by U.S. and European drinkers shunning pricier drinks.
The maker of Smirnoff vodka and Johnnie Walker whisky is unlikely to surpass the 145 million cases of liquor it sold in 2008 until the 2013 fiscal year, according to the median of eight analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The volume of spirits sold by Diageo probably fell 2.8 percent in the six months ended Dec. 31, led by declines in the U.S. and Europe, the survey shows.
Diageo generates more than 70 percent of earnings in North America and Europe, where it has pursued a strategy of so-called premiumization — convincing consumers to buy more expensive versions of its main brands such as Johnnie Walker Black Label. As consumer confidence waned in both regions, people drank more at home rather than in bars and bought less expensive booze.
“Diageo went through an unusually strong phase of growth in the U.S. through the last decade, but a lot of those drivers for spirits will be a bit anemic,” said Alex Oldroyd, an analyst at Barclays Capital in London. “If they have to rely on emerging markets, it’s going to take some time to get back to the earnings growth they were delivering prior to the crisis.”
London-based Diageo generates about 30 percent of earnings from emerging markets. That’s less than main rival Pernod Ricard SA’s 32 percent and Remy Cointreau SA’s 35 percent, according to UBS AG. Emerging markets such as Brazil exited recession quicker than Europe and the U.S., while economies in China and India continued to grow throughout the financial crisis.
U.S. Liquor Sales
“Right now it’s more or less developed markets bad, emerging markets good, and Diageo is over-reliant on developed markets,” said Andrew Holland, an analyst at Evolution Securities in London. The brokerage has a “neutral” rating.
Diageo’s first-half volume likely declined 4 percent in North America and 5.5 percent in Europe, according to the median estimate. Operating profit probably rose 3.3 percent to 1.69 billion pounds ($2.6 billion), helped by savings from job cuts.
The distiller is due to report the earnings on Feb. 11. Spokesman James Crampton declined to comment on how long volume may take to recover to former levels.
Liquor sales in the U.S. stagnated at $18.7 billion last year and volume increased by the smallest percentage since 2001, the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S. said on Feb. 2. Volume rose 1.4 percent, with the least-expensive liquors gaining 5.5 percent and the most expensive dropping 5.1 percent.
‘Still Challenging’
The Thanksgiving holiday, which traditionally provides a boost to sales, was weaker than the company and the industry had anticipated, Diageo’s North America President Ivan Menezes said on a Dec. 15 conference call with investors. Consumers traded down to cheaper brands “across all categories,” he said.
Johnnie Walker Black Label costs $37 per 750 milliliter bottle at BevMax liquor store, compared with $25 for a bottle of Red Label. Another Diageo product, Tanqueray No. Ten, costs $41 compared with $30 for regular Tanqueray gin.
Diageo’s emerging-market presence spans Africa, Latin America and Asia, with its largest markets including Nigeria, Venezuela and Brazil. First-half volume in the Asia Pacific and international unit — which includes Latin America and Africa — rose 2 percent, according to UBS estimates. Operating profit in the two units grew by 5 percent and 6.5 percent respectively, compared with declines in North America and Europe, UBS said.
“There’s nothing that suggests to me that things have significantly improved yet in any of Diageo’s major markets,” said Melissa Earlam, an analyst at UBS AG in London. “Things are still challenging,” said Earlam, who has a “buy” rating.
Excise Taxes
The U.S. economy has lost 7.2 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, according to Labor Department data. Nouriel Roubini, the New York University professor who anticipated the financial crisis, said last month that the U.S. outlook remains “very dismal.” Europe’s unemployment rate rose to 10 percent in November, the highest in more than 11 years.
An additional concern in Europe is a “risk everywhere” that governments may raise excise taxes on alcohol, just as economies start growing again, said UBS’s Earlam. There is a “very high expectation” of an increase in Spain this year, Diageo’s third-largest European market, she said.
To offset weaker volume growth, Diageo has shed staff in the U.S., relocated its corporate headquarters outside central London, and announced plant closures in Scotland. The cost- cutting program will save 120 million pounds annually from this year and an additional 40 million pounds from 2012.
Julian Chillingworth, chief investment officer at Rathbone Unit Trust Management, said Diageo stock is attractive because of the long-term potential of emerging markets and the spirits industry’s relative “resilience” in a declining economy. The shares have risen 10 percent in the past year.
Moet Hennessy
“Management’s effort to expand in emerging markets is on the right track, and over the next five years that part of the pie will get a lot bigger,” said Chillingworth, who helps manage the equivalent of $17.4 billion, including Diageo shares.
Diageo could restore volume growth faster and bulk up in fast-growing Asian markets by acquiring the 66 percent it doesn’t already own of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA’s drinks unit, said Barclays Capital’s Oldroyd. Chief Executive Officer Paul Walsh has said he is ready to buy the unit “at the right price,” in a deal which brokerage Matrix Corporate Capital LLP says would be worth as much as 10.5 billion pounds.
Buying Moet Hennessy would lift Diageo’s annual sales in China from about 79 million pounds to about the same as Pernod’s 502 million euros ($688 million) in the country, according to Matrix’s head of research Matthew Jordan. The distiller does not provide a breakdown of revenue by country.
“Diageo have done a good job in tough markets, but in a sense it’s beyond their control,” said Evolution Securities analyst Simon Hales. “They need a consumer pick-up and that won’t happen until unemployment peaks. This year it’s just about holding on while things remain tough.”–With assistance from Erik Schatzker in Davos. Editors: Paul Jarvis, Celeste Perri.
Younger consumers less tolerant of bad service
Feb 9, 2010 /By I-Net Bridge /www.timeslive.co.za
Younger, more impatient consumers were inclined to complain or switch providers as a result of bad service, global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company Accenture says.
The group’s annual consumer satisfaction survey revealed that consumers in emerging markets of South Africa, India, China and Brazil expected better service for their buck than five years ago.
Countries value quick turnaround, speedy resolution of customer complaints and convenient service availability most, Accenture said.
“These markets share a common element – a younger and more demanding consumer market. Technology has made the world more accessible to this younger market, and given them easier access to developed markets, either through online purchasing or travel, opening up their purchasing options vastly,” said Nikki Tyrer, CRM Lead Accenture South Africa.
“Given the impatience typically intrinsic to younger consumers, they are more inclined to complain or switch providers as a result of bad service.”
Accenture’s consumer satisfaction survey revealed that when these requirements are not met, consumers were more likely to defect to a competitor than was historically the case.
As many as 69% of all consumers in 2009 switched providers at least once in the preceding year due to poor customer service, with the highest level of defectors switching brands in the retail (31%) and banking (27%) sectors.
“Consumers in emerging markets are an important growth opportunity for many companies, and this market segment should be seen as vital to the success of South African companies, considering that the rate of switching is higher in other emerging markets, with South Africa at a defection rate of 81%,” Tyrer said.
The report found that 74% of respondents were looking for a more convenient customer service, 67% looked for a knowledgeable or better-trained representative, and 66% wanted faster customer service, with 66% looking for more channel options for getting service.
“We all understand the importance of customer service and the impact that good customer service has, not only our image as an organisation, but on our bottom line. However, while customer expectations are on the increase, companies are not cognisant of the full impact of bad service on their business and seem to continuously fall short of providing quality service,” said Tyrer.
Accenture noted the importance for organisations to leave behind the “one size fits all” approach for customers and embrace a service model that provided differentiated service experience based on expectations and a closely understood customer segments.
EN BREF, CE 09 février 2010 … AGNEWS / OMAR, BXL,09/02/2010
