Tough economy driving unethical practices in attorneys handling RAF claims, LPC tells Parly
Standing Committee on Public Accounts chair Songezo Zibi.
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News24
2 hours ago
- News24
South Africans feel the pinch as take-home pay drops again
South Africans' real take-home pay declined by 1.1% in May from the previous month, according to BankservAfrica. The drop marked the third consecutive monthly decline in consumer salaries, reflecting the strain of a sluggish local economy and mounting global volatility, the Johannesburg-based lender said in a statement on Wednesday. Its data tracks about 3.8 million salary earners in South Africa. Real take-home pay totalled R14 832 in May, compared with R15 003 the month before, BankservAfrica said in a statement. The gauge has yet to recover to a record R16 368 set in February 2021 in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, its data showed. The month-on-month decline came despite a 5.8% year-on-year increase in average take-home pay, which continues to support household purchasing power, the bank said. However, stagnant economic growth in early 2025 and persistent global headwinds are weighing on momentum. 'The upward trend in take-home pay from mid-2024 to early 2025 has been a positive development after some years of dismal growth,' said independent economist Elize Kruger. 'However, recent months reflect a U-turn, with 2025 proving to be a volatile year so far.' Downward revisions to both domestic and global growth are weighing on confidence and delaying investment decisions, which are hampering economic activity, BankservAfrica said. Until clearer signals emerge, both households and investors are expected to tighten their belts, Kruger said.
News24
2 hours ago
- News24
Capitec backs Schreiber; Court halts Lungu's funeral: Today's top 7 stories in 7 minutes
News24 brings you the top 7 stories of the day. Graphic: Sharlene Rood News24 brings you the top stories of the day, summarised into neat little packages. Read through quickly or listen to the articles via our customised text-to-speech feature. Gallo Images/Sharon Seretlo Joburg Mayor Dada Morero survives motion of no confidence - City of Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero survived a motion of no confidence brought by the DA. - The DA claims Morero failed to address service delivery issues in the metro. - A motion against council Speaker Nobuhle Mthembu was also put forward by Al Jama-ah. Kidnapped Gqeberha woman dropped off by abductors, reunited with family - Lindsay Knowlden, a 65-year-old woman kidnapped in Gqeberha on Saturday, has been reunited with her family unharmed. - She was dropped off on a street in Bethelsdorp around midnight and taken in by a family who contacted her husband and the police. - A ransom was demanded, but the family declined to comment further as the Hawks are still investigating the case. DEFENCELESS | Security sinks, trade routes exposed as frigates, submarines out of action - The South African Navy is severely weakened, with only one operable submarine and one seagoing frigate remaining from a R10-billion arms deal. - Due to funding cuts and negligence, the navy has lost its fighting capability, leaving South Africa's vast maritime area vulnerable to various threats. - The lack of naval patrols also jeopardises South Africa's ability to protect its gas fields and fulfill international obligations for maritime rescue. High Court halts Lungu's funeral in SA after court challenge by Zambian government - The Zambian government sought to prevent former president Edgar Lungu's funeral from taking place in Johannesburg. - The Gauteng High Court in Pretoria ruled in favour of the Zambian government, interdicting the funeral pending an urgent court application. - The legal battle arose from disagreements between the Lungu family and the government regarding the planning of a state funeral in Zambia. Supplied/Capitec Capitec backs Schreiber's 6 500% fee hike for home affairs database checks - Capitec supports the Department of Home Affairs' fee hike for real-time identity checks, citing the need for upgrades to improve the stability of the online verification system. - Capitec will absorb the additional costs for the current financial year, ensuring no fee changes for its clients. - TymeBank criticised the fee increase, arguing it would negatively impact digital inclusion and compliance with anti-money laundering laws, leading to a sharp response from the home affairs minister. Supplied/VW Why the VW half-tonne bakkie doesn't happen for SA - VW will build the Tengo, a compact, front-wheel drive crossover, at its Eastern Cape plant, instead of the Saveiro bakkie. - The compact bakkie market in South Africa has declined due to security concerns and the rise of crossovers offering better features. - VW chose the Tengo because it believes it better responds to current market demand than the Saveiro, despite the latter's appeal. Daniel Hlongwane/Gallo Images Asenathi Ntlabakanye: How burly Bok newbie shed 20kg training on scrum guru Human's farm - Asenathi Ntlabakanye, a new Springbok prop, lost almost 20kg in weeks through rigorous training on Daan Human's farm. - This weight loss contributed to Ntlabakanye's selection for the match against the Barbarians in Cape Town. - Coach Rassie Erasmus compared Ntlabakanye's situation to Cheslin Kolbe, emphasising that skill and determination matter more than size.
TechCrunch
2 hours ago
- TechCrunch
Better Auth, an authentication tool by a self-taught Ethiopian dev, raises $5M from Peak XV, YC
It's rare to see a solo founder building a widely adopted developer infrastructure tool. Even more so, if the founder happens to be from Africa. Bereket Engida, a self-taught programmer from Ethiopia, is quietly building what some developers say is the best authentication tool they've ever used. Engida's startup, Better Auth, offers an open-source framework that promises to simplify how developers manage user authentication, and it's caught the attention of some big name investors. It recently raised about $5 million in seed funding from Peak XV (formerly Sequoia India & Southeast Asia), Y Combinator, P1 Ventures, and Chapter One. But the most interesting part here isn't who's on the startup's cap table: Engida says he built the entire product back home in Ethiopia before he set foot in the U.S. Engida told TechCrunch that he started programming at 18 after a friend declined to help him build an e-commerce search app, and he started working on the project himself. He went on to land some remote software jobs and eventually built a web analytics platform that lets developers monitor user behavior on their websites. But throughout his various jobs, Engida says he kept seeing an issue popping up everywhere: authentication. Every app needs to manage how users sign in and out, reset passwords, and sometimes administrators need to handle permissions and user roles. But he found existing tools were either too limited or rigid — companies like Auth0, Firebase and NextAuth offer managed services, but they store user data externally, limit customization, and are expensive at scale. 'I remember needing an organization feature. It's a very common use case for most SaaS applications, but it wasn't available from these providers,' Engida told TechCrunch. 'So I had to build it from scratch. It took me about two weeks, and I remember thinking, 'This is crazy; there has to be a better way to solve this'.' He then scrapped that project and began working on a TypeScript-based authentication framework that would let developers access user data via open-source libraries, support common permissions use cases — like teams and roles — out of the box, and scale with plug-ins. Techcrunch event Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW 'The idea was that you could add advanced features in just two or three lines of code,' Engida said. Why developers love it Over six months working mostly from his bedroom in Ethiopia, Engida built the first version of the library that would go on to become Better Auth. When he posted it to GitHub in September 2024, developers quickly saw the potential. Since then, Better Auth has clocked 150,000+ weekly downloads, 15,000+ GitHub stars, and a community of over 6,000 Discord members, the startup claims. Better Auth's pitch is simple: Let developers implement everything from simple authentication flows to enterprise-grade systems directly on their databases and embed it all on the back-end. Unlike hosted services, Better Auth is an open-source library that developers can integrate directly into their codebase, keeping all user data on premise, in their database. For companies wary of handing over critical user information to third parties, this feature alone is a major point. The library has also found unexpected traction among early-stage AI startups, which need to build custom authentication flows that integrate with proprietary APIs, manage tokens securely, and be able to scale without racking up high costs. 'We first heard about the product from numerous startups we've worked with,' said Arnav Sahu, partner at Peak XV and former principal at Y Combinator. 'Their auth product has seen phenomenal adoption among the next generation of AI startups.' Better Auth marks Peak XV's first direct investment in an African founder. Engida says Better Auth, currently free to use, will focus on improving its core features and launch a paid enterprise infrastructure that plugs into its open-source base. This will give developers the flexibility to self-host or opt for Better Auth's cloud add-ons as needed. He's also thinking about how to scale without trading away the product's community-built feel. On the roadmap, therefore, is hiring a small team to help maintain the codebase, expand documentation, and support enterprise users. For now, though, Engida is still writing most of the code himself. Better Auth, which just graduated from YC's recent Spring batch, is the third Ethiopian startup to pass through the accelerator, following drone-based digital health platform Avion, and food delivery platform BeU Delivery. 'Building this feels important not just because people love the product, but because of what it represents,' said Engida. 'There aren't many Ethiopian founders building global products. For many, it feels almost impossible. So seeing that traction gives hope for other people to try to be more ambitious.'
