Business
Kouga will embark on the construction of a plastic road, the first in Africa: plastic waste is pelletised and added to the tarmac mix used for paving the road. If this initiative works, it should be supported.
Much has been made of the truly dismal RMB/BER business confidence index that has fallen to 28 points in the first quarter of this year. Statistically 7/10 business persons are negative about the South African economic prospects. How does one achieve growth when three quarters of those, who are supposed to drive this, have no faith?
Which are the world’s best wines by country? Take a look:
Economics
Is it possible to grow an economy, paying attention to exclusion and inequality: inclusive prosperity? A Harvard professor believes that we could move away from what he describes as a perverted Keynesian model; yawn, take a look: https://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2019/02/economists-for-inclusive-prosperity-efip.html
The hemline index: my secretaries tell me – God forbid that I should look – that mid-calf dresses are the rage. That hardship (no pun intended) should go together with dropping hemlines is almost too much to bear… https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/what-your-skirt-length-can-tell-you-about-the-econ/p070r0np
Property
Inclusionary housing: the city of Joburg approved regulations which provide that any development application, for 20 dwelling units or more, must include a minimum of 30% of the total units, set aside for inclusionary housing. If one reads the definitions, the term means a dedication of such units to low income and low middle-income households. https://www.stbb.co.za/wp-content/uploads/City-of-Johannesburg-Inclusionary-Housing-2019-STBB-Newsflash-March-2019.pdf
Has Nedbank created a private sale platform for their customers? Judge for yourself: https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/technology/you-can-now-search-for-properties-on-nedbanks-banking-app-19701778
Compare this to the hoohah created by a similar FNB offering: http://propertyprofessional.co.za/2018/11/01/are-agents-threatening-to-boycott-bank-over-new-app/
Apparently the EAAB has launched a transformation initiative in terms of which (estate agent) PDA individuals are exempted from keeping trust funds and being subjected to audits: http://propertyprofessional.co.za/speakers-corner/
Practice
The Legal Practice Council has issued a notice that the Afrikaans-language tests for prospective attorneys and advocates are to be scrapped. The current admission exams will be the last to be offered in Afrikaans. The two remaining universities offering the LLB degree in Afrikaans, Stellenbosch and North-West,, are in the process of scaling down their Afrikaans offering. Whatever; the fact is that one needs a common language in our courts and that, like business, English will become the de facto standard.
Who to sue? Who does one sue when your child is injured on a school’s premises while attending a fashion show organised by someone else? The finding was that the claimant should have sued the organiser and not the school.
http://www.saflii.org.za/za/cases/ZASCA/2019/10.html
Postnuptial agreements: unregistered postnuptial agreements, bind only the parties who signed them but not others. In this case a husband undertook to maintain his spouse and acknowledged that she was entitled to ½ of his estate. No mention of divorce was made. A prior court held the husband to his undertaking on divorce. On appeal, the SCA held that this undertaking was not given in contemplation of divorce and struck the prior order down.
Mans v Mans SCA, not yet available onSaflii; ask me for a copy (kindly made available to me by adv. Crots).
Where a plaintiff is unconscious and all his physical needs had been taken care of, the truth of the matter is that it is not possible to compensate him for his loss. It is like paying a dead person money in order to compensate him for the loss of his life.
I have an article by Pauw on this topic following the case of NK v MEC for Health: http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZASCA/2018/13.html Ask me for a copy.
Quotable
I love therapy! There’s nothing like talking to someone who has no emotional tie to your life. Mendes
Comment
Racism may be defined as discrimination directed against someone of a different race based on a belief that one’s own race is superior. This week past, two black guys had a go at each other after one call the other a QuaQua k*f**r. MEC Faith Mazibuko was taped screaming abuse at presumably a mixed audience. Racism? Not strictly speaking; hate speech, abuse of power; probably.
Faith: a storm in a teacup as brewing on the subject of the regulation of sangomas via the Traditional Health Practitioners At. The proposal holds that such a practitioner should hold a certificate issued by the state. I will be most interested to see on what basis such certificates are issued? Factually traditional healing would appear to work as much by faith as by the actual potions administered? Yet, there may be something in what these guys do: an avo farmer I knew in the Soupansberg area, would hold intermittent public feasts at which a highly rated, imported sangoma cast a spell on his lands. He swore that it worked – even to the extent that the monkeys would avoid his lands!
Sometimes the effontry displayed by those who lead us is breathtaking. Our Icasa chair was sentenced to 20 years in prison for fraud and money-laundering. His attorney accepted the verdict but made representations why, despite the conviction, the chairman should not be removed from his post. Duh!
All equal? This week past the Council of Education Ministers announced that it was phasing out the modularisation of matric examinations; i.e. allowing a matric pupil to write his final exams over two years. I confess to having mixed feelings about this. That allowing a pupil to write the same exam as another having twice the time, can certainly not produce results which are on par. If one extrapolates this to postgraduate study: is a full-time masters degree equal to a part-time masters done over several years? This is an awkward question as the one test favours the ability to produce/reproduce information and the other restricts this on a time basis.
An interesting aside is one in which adversaries, faced by the British Army, was rated; at the top of the pile is the Gurka, which have been integrated into the British Army to this day. A close second are the Maori of New Zealand: it required a force of 4.5 times greater to subdue them.
Lighten up
My Therapist told me “Write letters to the people who you hate and burn them later”. I did that…. But now, what should I do with the letters???
A man was walking in the street one day when he was brutally beaten and robbed.
As he lay unconscious and bleeding, a psychologist, who happened to be passing by, rushed up to him and exclaimed, “My G*d! Whoever did this really needs help!”
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Tom Eastwick – The Gates, Hilton and Garlington, Hilton | 072 297 2699 | tom@devdirect.co.za
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Author: Dr Daan Steenkamp – Attorney