Latest news with #NationalPlanning
Bloomberg
6 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Zambia Eyes Additional $145 Million From IMF Program Extension
Zambia expects to secure an extra $145 million by extending its existing International Monetary Fund loan program by a year, its finance chief said. Prolonging the southern African nation's existing arrangement that's due to expire in October will reinforce investor confidence, Minister of Finance and National Planning Situmbeko Musokotwane told reporters Tuesday in Lusaka, the capital.
Morocco World
24-07-2025
- Politics
- Morocco World
Marrakech Mayor El Mansouri Refutes Allegations Over Family Land Sales
Rabat – Fatima Zahra El Mansouri, Minister of National Planning and Mayor of Marrakech, has publicly addressed recent allegations circulating on social media regarding the sale of family-owned land in the outskirts of Marrakech, denouncing them as baseless and malicious. In a detailed statement shared with the public, El Mansouri clarified that the land in question is part of a private inheritance belonging to her late father, Si Abdelrahman El Mansouri, who legally purchased the property in 1978 from private owners—not from the state or any public institution, contrary to the claims being spread. 'These lands are private property, not state-owned nor part of tribal or communal lands,' El Mansouri emphasized, noting that the inheritance process began only after her mother's death in 2023, in accordance with Moroccan legal procedures. The family-appointed legal representative carried out the land sales transparently and declared all transactions to the tax authorities, which collected the dues accordingly. El Mansouri also stressed that all proceeds were reinvested into legal and declared projects in Marrakech. The land is located in the rural commune of Tassoultante, under zoning regulations approved in 2017, before El Mansouri held any ministerial or mayoral office. Rejecting what she described as 'defamatory campaigns' targeting her and her extended family, El Mansouri reaffirmed her compliance with legal requirements. She said she declared her assets to the Court of Auditors since first being elected mayor in 2009—a process that included this land and is accessible to the public under the right to information. 'Constructive and responsible criticism is welcome,' El Mansouri added, 'but my integrity and my family's reputation must not be dragged through unfounded rumors.' She confirmed that the family's legal representative has filed a lawsuit against those behind the misleading leaks. El Mansouri urged journalists, civil society actors, and the public to verify information before sharing it. Instead of engaging in unproven allegations and crediting smear campaigns, she concluded, journalists' work should be in service of transparency, truth, and the public good. Tags: family lands el mansouriFatima Ezzahra El Mansourimarrakech mayor
Mail & Guardian
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Mail & Guardian
R700 million for a conversation? Rather spend it on small business grants, classrooms, bursaries or clinics
South Africans know how to 'dialogue' but fall short on implementation. Photo: File Imagine getting up in a shack with no electricity and trekking five kilometres to a clinic, only to be told there's no doctor on duty, and then trekking back home to boil water on a paraffin stove while hoping teachers at your child's school might just make an appearance. Then envision this: your government says it's going to spend R700 million asking how you feel about South Africa. That is what the proposed National Dialogue feels like. A R700 million conversation around the country. It is presented to us as Codesa 2.0, a second chance to relaunch South Africa's broken social contract. But that is the uncomfortable reality. The state is ruling through consultation. Instead of mending what is broken, they are asking us to talk about it. Again. The government maintains it does want to know what people have to say. It is staging two national conventions and dozens of sectoral and provincial consultations. The process will be overseen by an Eminent Persons Group of judges, sports heroes and business people. All very grand-sounding. To many South Africans, though, it has a sense of déjà vu. We've done this before. From izimbizo to developmental plans, white papers to commissions, South Africans have been sharing their stories, their grievances and their aspirations in forums year in and year out. We reported to the Zondo state capture commission about graft. We reported to the National Planning Commission about poverty. We reported to municipal public forums about poor housing and dysfunctional toilets. So what did we do differently? An astounding 32.1% of South Africans are unemployed. The figure for young jobless people is 45%. Load-shedding lost us R1.2 trillion from 2007 and 2023. More than three million learners used pit latrines at schools. These are not new revelations. These are old sores that have been reopened in each forum that this state has held. It is not that South Africans are not saying anything. The issue is that nobody is listening, or doing anything. Dialogue is not a bad thing. Societies do need spaces to think, recover trust and construct common visions. But context matters. Dialogue is not neutral. If it is the state's fallback response to a crisis, that is a warning sign. There is a risk that the state is replacing action with performance. To have a conversation regarding youth unemployment doesn't create jobs. It creates catering, venue, facilitation and transport contracts. That is where R700 million is being spent in a nation where protests about service delivery erupt almost every single week. Imagine what would be accomplished if this R700 million was redistributed. It would fund 28,000 youth small business grants of R25,000 each. It would build hundreds of classrooms, bursaries or rural clinics to give them a stable electricity supply. We're about to spend it debating something that already is. The damage has already been done. Trust is not regained through a microphone. South Africans do not require another process. They require consequences. They require a government that not only hears them but acts in a timely fashion and with regularity. The Codesa 2.0 idea has to be unpacked too. The original Codesa was a negotiation among political parties coming out of a violent, polarised apartheid past. We are not building a democracy. We are seeing it slowly disintegrate. We are not engaging in a reconciliation dialogue. We are engaging in service delivery, accountability and popular displeasure. Framing it as a time of renewal risks sentimentalising a credibility crisis. It is no longer good enough to say that the people should be consulted. Consultation is useless if it does not lead to something. We have sat in too many rooms, completed too many surveys, and read too many commitments in reports. What people require now is action. If there is a dialogue, then it must be measured in terms of its end product; not the number of voices but the number of changes on the ground. The government must stop acting as if it is a facilitator and start acting like it is a leader. If this National Dialogue is to produce the same outcomes that we have seen previously — reports to accumulate in heaps of dust, recommendations that go unheard and citizens who have been used and neglected — then it will be next on the list of expensive experiments in acts of political theatre. People in this country don't look for perfection. They look for honesty, for effort, for growth. If we can't offer them that, then all this commotion is not going to do us any good. Speeches don't run things. The time has arrived to stop outsourcing leadership to words and to lead as if lives depended upon it. Because they do. Vhahangwele Tsotetsi is a political analyst, consultant, social entrepreneur and Project YouthSA chairperson.
Zawya
07-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Appointment of the new Principal Secretary for Trade in the Ministry of Finance, National Planning and Trade
The Office of the President has today announced the appointment of Mrs Natalie Edmond as the new Principal Secretary for Trade in the Ministry of Finance, National Planning and Trade from the 1st May, 2025. Mrs Edmond has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Social Policy from the University of Manchester and a Post Graduate Diploma in Economics for Competition Law from Kings College, in the United Kingdom. Mrs Edmond has over 20 years of working experience in the public service. Mrs Edmond started her career in November 2005 as a senior statistician at the then National Statistics Bureau. In April 2011, she joined the then Ministry of Finance, Trade and Investment as an Economist. Mrs Edmond joined the Fair Trading Commission in January 2012 as a competition analyst and has since held several senior positions within the Commission. In July 2017, she was appointed Deputy CEO. Prior to her appointment as Principal Secretary, Mrs Edmond was the Chief Executive Officer of the FTC, a post she has held since April 2023. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of State House Seychelles.
