DEMAND AND SUPPLY

Comair has been accused of price collusion based on an e-mail allegedly sent by the airline to government. Do you deny the charge of collusion? The collusion claim is unfounded. The e-mail was directed to the government World Cup task ...

QUANTITATIVE EASING
By Carol Paton
What is quantitative easing? The creation by a central bank of money from nothing - by printing money, but more literally with the press of a button: central banks buy corporate or government bonds, providing government and private comp...

DON'T RUSH TO DEREGISTER
By Razina Munshi
Hopes that deregistering a company from paying value added tax (Vat) will save money may not be entirely justified, a tax attorney has warned. A higher Vat threshold announced by the SA Revenue Service (Sars) in March last year has ...

WINNERS & LOSERS

WINNER Dimitri Philippou Virgin Enterprises took his Cape Town firm Bodtrade 54 to the UK Intellectual Property Office over his use of the word virgin - and lost. He has now registered the trademark "You can't be a virgin all yo...

MAN IN CHARGE
By Thebe Mabanga
Mpho Makwana has had to bring all his marketing skills to bear in his latest role as acting chairman and CEO of Eskom. Throughout January, he has had to sell a bitter pill : Eskom's application to increase the electricity price 35%/year for three...

ZEROING IN ON CORRUPTION
By Ian Fife
What would you do if a cop or an official asked you for a "cooldrink" - the common term for a bribe in SA? Perhaps the answer would be to hand them a zero-rand note. That's the solution an Indian NGO by the name of 5th Pillar th...

WAITING FOR PRAVIN
By Evan Pickworth
Finance minister Pravin Gordhan and Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus have both hinted in the past week that an announcement on inflation targeting will be made come February 17, budget day. Government is under political pressure from ...

COMINGS & GOINGS

Aaref Osman Construction holding company Sea Kay has appointed Osman, a former banker and housing department director, as CEO as from March 1, and Anthony Green to the board with immediate effect. Maurice Radebe

MALTESE FALCON
By Linda Stafford
Hardly a week went by in the mid-1990s when gaming baron Ernie Joubert and his former model-boss wife, Leigh, did not have their smiling faces in one or another society magazine, living it up at the flagship Caesars Hotel & Casino (now...

HAND OUT AGAIN
By Thebe Mabanga
The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Company (PBMR) developing SA's nuclear reactor has made its last bid to stay afloat. The company's funding problems, reported in the FM last August, have now come to a head. Its annual report, r...

WINE IN NUMBERS
By Shannon Sherry
R26,2bn was the SA wine industry's 2008 contribution to the country's GDP of R2,28 trillion. 3 839 wine producers operated in SA in 2008, the last year fo...

WORTH THAI-ING OUT
By Yvonne Fontyn
If you enjoy things Thai you'll get a kick out of the Kai Thai spas that have opened in Gauteng. Furnished in authentic Thai style, with dark wood and Buddha figurines, they offer all the traditional massages. The one in Greenside...

ON THE HIGH ROAD
By Matebello Motloung
Themba Mthombeni's determination to make his start-up business, Duma Travel, more than just a booking agency is definitely paying off. In seven years the staff has grown from a handful of people to 80 across the country - making it one of SA...

SEE IT ALL, KNOW IT ALL
By Kate Thompson
Garmin's new top-of-the-range automotive GPS, the Nuvi 1410, is a sleek and smooth upgrade on previous offerings. The first thing you'll notice when you crack the 1410 out of its box is its huge screen. Measuring 11 cm (excluding ca...

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

MOSIUOA LEKOTA, COPE president, on what he called "the latest scandalous revelations, coming soon after [Zuma's] fifth marriage, that he has fathered a child with another partner" ...