The launch of the Tshwane Municipality’s online wayleaves management system should be welcomed – and emulated – by other local authorities in South Africa. The processes involved in securing permission and the associated bureaucratic bottlenecks
Browsing: Dirk de Vos
While there is and likely will always be fundamental disputes amongst economists and policymakers about the best models and policies for economic growth, there is now wide consensus on one thing: increased Internet and broadband access causes increased rates of economic growth
South Africa could become one of the fastest-growing renewable energy markets in the world, according to a recent study. This is not bad for a country that in 2011 had almost no renewable projects on the table and was the 12th highest carbon-emitting nation in the world
Telkom may be planning to spin off its copper-based network assets into a special purpose vehicle (SPV), a speculative news report suggests, but it’s unclear why the company would agree to such a move. In an entry posted late on Thursday night, a consumer forum site said it had spoken to unnamed sources – the website didn’t
Much has been made about green industry being a new vehicle for industrial development in South Africa. It is part of the industrial policy action plan. For now, the focus is mainly on increasing the local content of components, which fall under the renewable energy independent producers’ procurement programme
Google’s planned US$12m (R120m) investment in a US$260m solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant near Kimberley in the Northern Cape is simply a sound investment decision and will generate good publicity for the cash-rich online giant, according to industry analysts. On Thursday, Google announced that
Our economy and its industrial base is power intensive and South Africa has one of the highest power consumption-to-unit of gross domestic product ratios anywhere. Cheap and abundant energy has, for a long time, represented our comparative advantages and shaped our economy. It has allowed South Africa to avoid
It’s been nearly two months since Eskom presented its proposed tariff increases to the public as part of its third multi-year price determination (MYPD3) for 2013/14 through to 2017/18. Although there have been some useful inputs from civil society, there has not been any real engagement from
The introduction by South African mobile operators of next-generation long-term evolution (LTE) networks does not amount to much. But we can’t ignore it because these networks are the first bit of evidence of a future of lost opportunities to deliver cheap, properly fast and ubiquitous broadband
US President Barack Obama’s former White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is reported to have said, when confronted with the 2008 financial crisis: “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you