Editor’s notebook: Bank gives vivid glimpse of our sorry spending
FNB Retail segment released a sobering statement this week when it revealed that approximately 56% of middle-income consumers (those who earned between R7000 and R60000) spent all their monthly income in less than five days of receiving it.
For many consumers it’s only a matter of living from one salary payment to another, and the reality is that their monthly salary just doesn’t last for 30 days.
But it is all the more reason why financial discipline requires deliberate steps and why, as difficult as they may be to accept, Johann Rupert’s controversial comments about saving instead of consuming ring true.
Employers of domestic workers may soon have to contribute to the Department of Labour’s Compensation Fund as changes are being proposed to the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Bill to benefit domestic workers injured on duty.
The amendment, if adopted, will end years of discrimination. See our story on it on page 7.
Advocate Shamila Batohi, our new National Prosecuting Authority boss, who hails from Kwazulu-natal, was an avid table tennis player.
Even as teenager, she was feisty and determined.
You can read all about her on pages 5 and 18, while on page 9 is the story of how one man had a very narrow escape.
Sabelo Masondo, who is lucky to be alive after he escaped from a lion’s jaws, tells his story.
It doesn’t end there, though, as the great carnivore is still on the loose and causing fear and panic in the Ozwathini village in Zululand.
The yellow-jacket protests are spreading beyond France’s borders as protesters take to the streets – sometimes violently – because of the squeeze on household budgets caused by fuel taxes – something that South Africans are all to keenly aware of. The story is on page 11.
On a gloomy note, we are leaving a dark (and hot) future for our children, according to some of the world’s leading climate-change scientists, who say we’ve dallied too long and missed the chance to reverse the damage we’ve been doing.
A startling article in Influence (page 19) explains in no uncertain terms how there is a great deal to be done in terms of changing to clean energy, given that globally we belch out the smoke and fumes of the 5 billion tons of coal we use each year.