About 1,000 women in the village of Muswodi Dipeni, in the northern province of Limpopo, earn a living by harvesting the furry, hard-shelled baobab fruit pods. The seeds and the chalky powder inside the pods have become a global health craze celebrated for their vitamin-packed properties and now used in everything from flavoured soda, ice cream and chocolate to gin and cosmetics.
Cyril Ramaphosa has placed the creation of a public-private infrastructure fund at the heart of an economic stimulus and recovery plan, otherwise constrained by South Africa’s serious fiscal constraints.
In unveiling the plan during a briefing at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Friday, Ramaphosa reported that the South Africa Infrastructure Fund would be established immediately, supported by an executive team within The Presidency, comprising individuals drawn from the public and private sectors.
The alarming agriculture figures that dragged SA into recession were not the result of policy uncertainty about land reform.
Instead, the sector has been weighed down by drought and delayed harvests, with statistician-general Risenga Maluleke saying last week that the decrease "was mainly because of a drop in the production of field crops and horticultural products".
The Central Energy Fund (CEF) said on Tuesday that a weaker rand and a higher international oil price led to more than a R1 under recovery for all grades of fuel in the first 10 days of September, putting motorists in line for yet another hefty fuel price increase.
Banks are worried that South Africa is taking a wrong turn with laws being considered by the nation’s parliament that could leave the economy worse off.
