Many observers in business reckon that South Africa's labour laws are too restrictive and actually hamper employment and damage business. Well, be that as it may, the Labour Relations Act is now being amended - this time to address labour broking and child labour (among other things), so it remains to be seen whether its critics are correct as our
labour laws set a new course.On the digital TV front, it appears the plans are in place... But
where's the money? The Department of Communications is confident it can successfully "kick-start" the rollout of digital terrestrial television (DTT) despite the funding shortfalls experienced by some of its key entities. However, as Democratic Alliance MP Marian Shinn said: "One wonders why funding was not secured before projects were embarked on... if one looks at DTT, (the deadline) is a couple of months away and set-top boxes have not been acquired." A fair question - it's usually a good idea to have all the funding arranged
before beginning a project.
Kudos for Cape Town:
Amazon Web Services is ready to expand to the Mother City. The new AWS Developer Support office will provide technical assistance for customers.
Here's a bit of a surprise on the environment front... Scientists have reported that
the Arctic Ocean could be a significant contributor of methane. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and the scientists report finding concentrations of the gas close to the ocean surface, especially where sea ice had cracked or broken up.
Now it's our turn to help... Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (OUTA) went 'outa' to bat for us against e-tolling but, as you know, those legal eagles don't come cheap and
now the alliance needs cash to continue the fight. It's running an SMS fund-raising campaign this week to raise the money needed to continue its battle, so it's time for us to break out those wallets...
Remember, whatever you donate will be a darn side less than you motorists would be dishing out to Sanral as tolls.
Rod Baker, content director
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Microlender African Bank sees itself nearly doubling its customer base by 2014 as competition for market share in the unsecured loan market intensifies. The growth of this market has, however, raised concern of a credit bubble - which bankers have dismissed as unfounded. 
South African banks and retailers are likely to be slow to adopt near-field communications (NFC) technology for mobile payments because of the high costs of installing point-of-sale terminals and other enabling infrastructure. 
Preliminary estimates indicated that R500bn would be required for the construction of the Gauteng-to-Durban corridor, of which an estimated R100bn would be needed for the development of the port precinct, Transport Minister Sbu Ndebele said in Parliament late last week. 
Fin24 reports that R1,15bn belonging to investors in Cash Managed Funds (CMF) and ten other companies has allegedly been blown by Corporate Money Managers (CMM), and that the curators of the company - and ten others - are trying to recover money for people who invested in CMF. 
FoodFirst-Floriade 2012, the Dutch non-profit coalition connecting a network of policymakers, business people, government officials, academics and civil society, is partnering with EMRC International and Rabobank for this year's Africa Finance & Investment Forum (AFIF) to be held at the Rabobank Headquarters, The Netherlands, from 17-19 June 2012. 
The Small Enterprise Finance Agency (Sefa) will have access to millions of rands of funding from the balance sheet of the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), says the Minister of Economic Development Ebrahim Patel. 
The Department of Communications is confident it can successfully "kick-start" the rollout of digital terrestrial television (DTT) despite the funding shortfalls experienced by some of its key entities. 
A group of retired chartered accountants are to be moved in to the Further Education and Training (FET) Colleges to work as chief financial officers (CFOS). 
