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Archive for the ‘Engineering News’ Category

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) on Friday published it’s decision on the second phase of the Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff (Refit), and stated that the power purchase agreement could be expected in November.

“The public comments received on the power purchase agreement (PPA) will be reflected in the final revision of the PPA scheduled for the end of November 2009. The other commercial agreements such as direct agreement, fuel supply agreement and transmission connection agreement will be considered for inclusion in the PPA,” said Nersa.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) published an "Issues Paper" at the weekend, in which it summarises Eskom’s recent tariff application and raises questions aimed at supporting stakeholder participation in a process that will culminate in public hearings during January next year.

JSE-listed packaging company Nampak on Wednesday advised shareholders that headline earnings a share, for the year ended September, were likely to be between 45% and 65% lower than the 177,3c a share for the previous year.

Basic earnings a share was also expected to be between 35% and 55% lower than the 88,2c a share for the previous year

Africa has failed to unlock the latent value of its local communities, because it has not looked outside of the box and been innovative, former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa said in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

Speaking at the launch of the Business for Development (B4D) Pathfinder initiative, which would give businesses in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) the opportunity to contribute to the region’s economic development, while ensuring the sustainability of the communities they worked in, he noted that more communities had to become consumers and suppliers in these economies.

The results of the bi-annual Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) economic and capacity survey found that for the first time since 2002, there had been a real notable shift in engineering confidence, as confidence levels for 2009 and 2010 deteriorated.

Since 2005, confidence amongst consulting engineers have consistently remained above 98% showing “exceptional” levels of satisfaction with current working conditions. However, Cesa said that confidence levels for 2009 and 2010 had deteriorated from an index value of 99,8 in December 2008 to 96,2 in June, 96,7 in December and 64,3 for the first six months in 2010.

A new investigation into alleged financial irregularities at staffing and business process outsourcing company, Adcorp, would be undertaken by audit firm KPMG, as a mudslinging match between top management continued.

The JSE-listed Adcorp told shareholders in a statement on Monday that an independent investigation into allegations of financial irregularities made against some senior staff members at the company, had found the allegations to be “vicarious and devoid of any evidence of wrongdoing”.

MTN SA and Vodacom have agreed to lower mobile termination rates (MTR), MTN SA announced on Friday.

"MTN SA can confirm that an agreement has been reached with Vodacom, and is pursuing bilateral negotiations with Cell C and other operators," the company said in a statement.

Global steel production continued to show a steady month-on-month increase in September, rising to 107-million tons, the World Steel Association (Worldsteel) reported on Friday.

However, the production was 0,6% lower than that of September 2008.

South Africa’s migration policy should focus on the interest of its citizens, rather than the interest of immigrants and refugees, a think tank said on Thursday.

The country had to become more welcoming to skilled immigrants and had thus far neither managed the costs, nor exploited the benefits, of migration, the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE), which brought together international and South African experts on migration, senior government officials and business representatives at a workshop, stated.