Southern Africa: Angola to Take SADC Defence and Security Presidency

12 August, 2007 in SADC

source: allAfrica
Angola Press Agency (Luanda)

12 August 2007
Posted to the web 12 August 2007

Luanda

Angola will take up the presidency of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Defence and Security organ, during the Summit of heads of State of the Organisation scheduled for August 16-17, in Lusaka, Zambia.

The information was supplied to ANGOP by Angolan Planning minister, Ana Dias Lourenço, short before leaving Luanda for the Zambian capital, to attend the Summit preparatory meeting.

In Lusaka, Ana Dias Lourenço will attend from Monday, a “Task Force” meeting group made up by heads of State, aimed at analysing matters related to regional integration of Finance, Planning and Development, Industry and Commerce sectors.

According to Ana dias Lorenço, on August 14, the SADC ministers council will debated about matters of political and economic nature, as well as some matters about the work of the organisation’s secretariat.

At the Cabinet Ministers meeting, the [continue reading]

Zimbabwe: New Party, ZPP Raises Suspicion

12 August, 2007 in Zimbabwe

source: allAfrica
Zimbabwe Standard (Harare)

12 August 2007
Posted to the web 12 August 2007

Caiphas Chimhete
Harare

A new political party, the Zimbabwe People’s Party (ZPP), is headed for what might turn out to be a bruising legal encounter with another opposition party, after allegedly snatching its logo and concept.

The ZPP has over the past few weeks flighted full-page advertisements in the media, Its spokesperson is Justin Chiota, described as the interim president by unidentified officials who answered the telephones at the party’s offices in Harare.

Last week, in a telephone conversation with The Standard, Chiota strongly denied an internet news report linking him to the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO).

Chiota said if the ZimDaily website was a local newspaper, he would have “taken it to the cleaners” for libel.

He denied the website report that ZPP had been formed with the mandate to split votes in next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections in favour of Zanu PF.

For three weeks, The Standard had been trying to arrange an interview with Chiota, whose political background includes candidature in the 2000 parliamentary elections.

According to the Wikipedia free Encyclopedia, he contested the Harare North constituency as a candidate of the Zimbabwe Progressive Party (ZPP), ending up with 222 votes, against the winner’s 18 976.

The winner was [continue reading]

SA: How much tax do you pay?

12 August, 2007 in South Africa

source: IOL
August 11 2007 at 01:47PM

By Melanie Peters

People pay up to 65 percent in direct and indirect taxes, says a retired bank economist in a report commissioned by the trade union Solidarity.

Although not everyone agrees, the union’s general secretary, Flip Buys, said according to the research carried out by retired Absa Bank economist Adam Jacobs, the average taxpayer forks out around 25 percent of his salary in direct taxes and another almost 25 percent in indirect taxation like VAT, fuel levies and local government taxes.

He then pays another approximately 15 percent of his income for medical premiums, school fees, security company payments and other necessities for which he has, in fact, already paid through his taxes.

This double taxation means that the average taxpayer spends around 65 percent of his income before he can begin to take care of his family.

Buys said the average employee’s net tax burden had gone up by approximately 200 percent since 1994. “The reason is that people are taxed to pay for services from the state, but they then have to pay extra for their own health care, education, safety, electricity, housing, pension and other services.

“In other words, the average employee works for the state from Monday to Wednesday. On Thursday he works for services like healthcare and education, which only leaves Friday’s income for his family.”

Of the country’s 47 million people, eight million are employed in the formal sector. Only [continue reading]

Zim internet service providers struggle to buy spying equipment

12 August, 2007 in Zimbabwe

source: ZimOnline
Friday 10 August 2007

By Nqobizitha Khumalo

BULAWAYO – The Zimbabwe Internet Service Providers Association (ZISPA) says it is struggling to raise funds to buy intercepting equipment currently pegged at US$1 million each in a fresh huddle for the Harare authorities.

President Robert Mugabe last week signed the controversial Interception of Communications Bill that allows state security agents to pry into private mail and electronic communications in what political analysts said was a sign of tightening of repression by the Zimbabwean leader.

Under the new law, service providers who defy the law by failing to install the spying equipment face up to three years in jail.

Shadreck Nkala, the ZISPA chairperson, said internet service providers were currently in a fix as they could not afford to buy and install the spying equipment as required under the new law.

Nkala said service providers were not in position to buy the equipment anytime soon because of the prohibitive cost adding that virtually all of them will be pushed out of business if they were asked to buy the equipment without government support.

“If we have to remain in business, we need to look at [continue reading]