Among the numerous and unnecessary laws that are dreamt up by bureaucrats and politicians who don’t trust us to do anything on our own, is one labelled, magnificently, The Space Affairs Act. This week’s news is that in accordance with the Act, The Space Affairs Council is being appointed. However, it seems they will not concern themselves with serious matters like which child’s turn it is to have the space next to the window or whether your blue-horned helmet is obscuring the view of the man behind you at Loftus. Bafflingly, it will offer advice to the Minister on how the nation ought to handle matters out there, above the clouds. Indeed a long way above the clouds. It “includes meeting SA’s international commitments for the peaceful use of outer space.” For a nation that has yet to meet its domestic commitments for ensuring the peaceful use of air, land and water, these words seem rather grand.
A long time ago, I spent two years scratching through data collected by one of the world’s earliest artificial satellites. Built and operated by Canada, and launched by the USA, the satellite could not avoid passing overhead South Africa from time to time. While there, it diligently counted and measured and probed chunks of outer space above this southern tip. Then, with one expectant eye on the Nobel Physics Prize committee, I arranged the numbers in neat tables and graphs. Understandably, these caused not a flicker of interest in Stockholm. The good news I suppose was that all this happened well before 1993 when the Act was signed into law. Doubtless, today I would have to appear before the panel of pointy-eared, silver-garbed councillors with my ID and utility bill to collect the permits required before having an affair with the nation’s ionosphere.
ABSA are coming to the preference share market with a R3bn issue. The initial offering will not be available to the public, but this may not be a bad thing. If we have interpreted the listing document details correctly, the all-important “percentage of prime-rate” dividend level will be set by ABSA only after the issue is placed. Sounds a bit mean, but it will be nice to have all this extra liquidity in the secondary market at the end of the month.
From these irrelevant passages, you will have gathered that there is not much happening in the markets as we go into the four-day long-weekend. Those of us sad enough still to be at work are just killing time until Governor Mboweni lets us in the secret that he and the MPC have been hatching for two days. Incidentally, why does it take so long? Does anyone at the meeting change their mind in these two days of tea and biscuits around the long polished table on the 31st floor?
So that’s it. No change to the repo rate, although the ante-penultimate sentence was pretty hawkish and had dealers scrambling for the “Sell” button. Equity market indices seem relieved and are trudging back upwards after a day when they dribbled lower.
Please take care this weekend.
James Greener
13th April 2006
[* The satellite was named Alouette]
