News in Brief

SA’s culture of greed ‘must be fought against’

South Africans needed to work together to prevent a culture of greed and corruption, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said yesterday. “Let me tell you that from where I stand and what I see, this corruption is a disease that a hospital or health system cannot solve. It will require an important set of decisions that all of us make morally in South Africa,” he said at the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit in Johannesburg. “Let us join with all those millions of honest people we have in South Africa, who are in government and out of government… the honest people need to have their voices heard.” He said the country’s leaders and its people must fight underlying factors of corruption, such as greed and selfishness. “If we don’t do that we give in to culture that says ‘I want everything now… even if I can’t afford it’. We are creating a wrong type of culture.” And leaders needed to be humble. “In South Africa we have too many pretenders, who say one thing in public, but do other things in private.” The country needed to be careful about “overhyping” the ANC’s national conference in Mangaung at year-end. “It will have its own South African character… but at the end of the day it is a political contest. That’s what democracy is about.” Local leaders needed to talk more instead of “shouting at each other in the public space”, Gordhan said. – Sapa

World food prices leap 10% in July

World food prices rose 10 percent in July as drought parched crop lands in the US and eastern Europe, the World Bank said yesterday, urging governments to shore up plans that protected their most vulnerable populations. From June to July, maize and wheat prices rose by 25 percent each and soya bean prices by 17 percent. Only rice prices fell, by 4 percent. Overall, the World Bank’s food price index was 6 percent higher than in July last year, and 1 percent over the previous peak of February 2011. – Reuters

Qatar to oppose $31bn Glencore bid

Qatar Holding, the second-largest investor in Xstrata, will vote against Glencore’s $31 billion (R261bn) offer for the mining house unless it improves the terms, making it virtually impossible for the current deal to go ahead. Qatar said yesterday that it planned to vote against the bid at next week’s shareholder meeting, in its first statement since voicing opposition to one of the mining sector’s largest deals in June. – Reuters