Cape Town - A roundup of Tuesday's top economic and finance reads on Fin24.
SA super-rich looking for a 2nd citizenship in Europe
Many South African high net-worth individuals (basically the super-rich) are not always looking to relocate to another country, but rather to invest in a "Plan B".
There is a very high demand for European residency programmes, for instance Portuguese and Spanish ones and for citizenship programmes in Malta and Cyprus, according to Henley & Partners.
Treasury slams excess cash on NSFAS books
The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) had R153.8m more cash left than projected at the end of the 2017/18 financial year, it has emerged.
Speaking to Parliament's Standing Committee on Appropriations (SCOA) on Tuesday, Treasury’s deputy director general Dr Mampho Modise explained that at an entity like NFSAS, excess cash was not always a good thing - and in this case, it meant there were fewer transfers to students than there should have been.
During the same period, there were lower payments to students. Budgeted transfers and subsidies came in at R10.12bn, but actual transfers amounted to R7.3bn.
Sanral bears brunt of lack of government clarity on e-tolls
The South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) has collected R5.6bn less in e-toll fees than budgeted mostly because there is no clarity from government about the future of the system, Parliament has heard.
Sanral had a positive cash position of R7.6bn which was 38% less than the R12.3bn that was budgeted. Modise explained that during the year Sanral struggled to raise the R20.6bn budgeted e-toll revenue.
Shoprite labours as poorer shoppers cut spending
Shoprite Holding’s lower-income South African customers are struggling and it’s weighing on the profitability of Africa’s biggest supermarket chain.
“Consumers are under a tremendous amount of pressure and conditions for Shoprite’s core customers at the lower end are particularly tough,” Alec Abraham, an analyst at Sasfin Securities, said by phone before the results were published.
Cell C tops 16m subscribers, turnaround on track
Cell C's turnaround strategy is bearing fruit despite a challenging environment, the mobile operator said on Tuesday.
In a statement, the company said it had increased its subscriber base by 600 000 to 16.3 million and was on track to continue growing.
The first half of the year saw a revenue increase of 5% to R7.8bn and a service revenue increase of 11% to R6.9bn.
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