PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT, ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION

Office rentals in Rosebank, Parktown move downward
JOHANNESBURG's central business district (CBD) office market faces yet another disincentive as rentals in nearby decentralised areas such as Rosebank and Parktown decline, narrowing the historical gap between the two nodes. Latest vacancy figures from the SA Association of Property Owners (Sapoa) show vacancies are growing in the decentralised office nodes of Johannesburg, with areas closer to the CBD suffering the most.
(©www.bday.co.za)

Property listings trend is predicted
A transaction of R1,5bn that will make Growthpoint Properties the largest property loan stock company on the JSE Securities Exchange is expected to start a trend to convert direct ownership of property portfolios into property listings. With this transaction, Growthpoint will acquire 51 properties from Sentinel Mining Industry Retirement Fund and the Mine Employees' Pension Fund (MEPF). This will boost its total portfolio value to R1,65bn. Market capitalisation is projected to hit R1,2bn.
(©www.bday.co.za)

City Lodge capitalises on casino developments
HOTEL group City Lodge is spending R30m on the construction of two new hotels one in Kimberley and one in Pietersburg.
(©www.bday.co.za)

Protea Hotels puts resorts on the path to break even
When the group took over Aventura, it was bleeding badly Aventura, the state-owned leisure group, owns resorts which encompass some of SA's most spectacular natural resources including the Blyde River Canyon, the natural springs at Warmbaths and Keurbooms Nature Reserve. A total of 17 resorts fall under the Aventura banner, with more than 1000 chalets spanning much of the country from Plettenberg Bay in the south to Messina in the north.
(©www.bday.co.za)

Move to sell resorts in Free State
Aventura keen to shed struggling resorts. Government is considering a proposal by the management of Aventura to sell three of the state-owned leisure group's unprofitable resorts as part of a plan to restore the organisation to profitability.
(©www.bday.co.za)

BoE admits to R27m exposure to Dockside nightclub
BoE Bank had a R27 million exposure to the Dockside entertainment and nightclub complex at Century City, which was liquidated and auctioned late last week, Don Bowden, a director of the bank, said yesterday.
(©www.busrep.co.za)

Denim man buys Cape club for a R20m song
Cape Town clubbing complex Dockside has been sold for R20-million at an auction - less than half the R56-million it took to establish. But there's still no word on who the new owners are as the winning bidder, a man clad in cut-off denim pants and jacket, left the auction room immediately after he acquired the property on Wednesday.
(©www.iol.co.za)

AECI: A different growth model for an ageing industrial group
Now that AECI, the specialist chemicals and explosives group, has been greatly slimmed down, it no longer has to prove that an ageing elephant can dance. It is still one of SA's oldest industrial groups. But it no longer has the capacity to invest in hefty R&D and large industrial projects. And its days of handwringing and pleading for protection are over. Instead, it faces a different challenge: it will still need to produce attractive growth in an industry that tends to be capital-intensive and cyclical.
(©www.fm.co.za)

Study on for new Free State waste facility
The environmental-impact assessment (EIA) for a proposed commercial hazardous-waste treatment facility in the Sasolburg industrial complex, in the Free State, is under way. At present, South Africa has no commercial facility for the treatment and destruction of hazardous and nuisance organic waste. This is despite the fact that the country produces more than 100 000 t of organic hazardous waste a year, which occurs in solid, liquid and gaseous forms, including typical examples, such as persistent organic pollutants, polychlorinated biphenyls and pesticide residues.
(©www.engineeringnews.co.za)

Sasol and Germany's Lurgi form joint venture to make synthetic gas
ENERGY group Sasol and German metallurgy technology firm Lurgi Metallurgies said yesterday they planned a joint venture to develop synthetic gas
(©www.bday.co.za)

Striking steel workers told to leave
Striking workers at Highveld Steel in Witbank were ordered off the premises by management on Wednesday. MWU-Solidarity spokesman Dirk Hermann said employees were told to leave the steel manufacturer otherwise the police would be called in.
(©www.bday.co.za)

NEWS FROM AFRICA

Diamond deal eludes De Beers in Angola
Eight months after halting new investment in Angola, diamond giant De Beers remains at odds with the Angolan government over rights to mine and market local gems, a company spokeswoman said. Talks on technical issues with a special government commission have progressed, “but the impasse is more political”, spokeswoman Anny Pereira said.
(©www.bday.co.za)

Angola to have world's biggest kimberlite mine
Canadian mining group Southern Era says it aims to begin construction of the world's largest kimberlite diamond mine in northeastern Angola by the year's end, in a joint venture with an Israeli company. "We hope to begin construction this year and production by the middle of next year," Bernardo Campos, a member of the mine's management committee member, said on Wednesday. Welox, a division of the Israeli-owned Leviev group which has a 49% share in Angola's sole diamond marketing syndicate, Ascorp has committed $18m to the 168ha project.
(©www.bday.co.za)

BP wants to be first to drill in Angola's ultra-deep waters
LUANDA Oil major BP intended to be first to drill in Angola's ultra-deep waters this October, a senior company official said
(©www.bday.co.za)

HOUSING NEWS AND LAND ISSUES

Housing policy shift to get poor involved in saving
T HE housing department wants to get more recipients of low-cost housing subsidies to pay a portion of the costs towards the development of their homes, raising fears that the destitute will be excluded in housing delivery.
(©www.bday.co.za)

Forces to remain in Philippi
Cape Town Police and the army would continue to maintain a heavy presence in the Philippi area after chaos erupted early yesterday over demands for housing, free water and electricity. Police were forced to fire stun grenades and teargas canisters to disperse hundreds of people.
(©www.bday.co.za)

Cape Town faces land hunger
In terms of the Budget, the province can provide about 22,000 houses a year in the Cape Town area.
(©www.bday.co.za)

Cape Town faces land conundrum
Cape Town has seen at least three land invasions in recent weeks in the area of black townships, but opinions vary on how to resolve the political crisis immediately and how to solve the problem in the longer term.
(©www.bday.co.za)

MEC to probe alleged Cape housing scam
Western Cape Local Government MEC Pierre Uys is to investigate allegations that two Democratic Alliance city councillors were involved in a housing scam. The United Democratic Movement went public this week with allegations about Gawa Samuels and Wilma Brady. The party alleges that they favoured friends and family in the allocation of houses in Cape Town's unicity.
(©www.iol.co.za)

PAC wants fast-track land restitution
Pan Africanist Congress secretary-general Thami ka Plaatjie has reiterated a call for the government to abandon its market-based land reform programme for a Zimbabwe-style expropriation process with minimum compensation. Addressing a forum on the land issue here on Wednesday, Plaatjie said the government's stance on the Bredell land invasion showed it applied different standards to the concerns of white farmers and those of poor landless black people. "Where white farmers are involved there's a conspiracy of silence but in Bredell the government took a confrontational position."
(©www.iol.co.za)

Someone is behind land invasions
There is growing concern among politicians from different parties and the Western Cape government about who is behind the land invasions and housing protests which turned violent in Khayelitsha last week and in Philippi on Monday - but nobody seems to know. Premier Gerald Morkel, while hesitant to point a finger at any party, suspects someone is instigating the invasions.
(©www.iol.co.za)

Land grabs not orchestrated, say protesters
The lack of suitable housing is the driving force behind the spate of land invasions and protests in Cape Town in the past few weeks, and political leaders seem to get involved only after they have been approached by communities or once a crisis has begun to unfold, a Cape Argus investigation has found.
(©www.iol.co.za)

Gunfight erupts between landless and cops
Police exchanged fire with hundreds of people protesting against poor housing conditions early on Monday, forcing the closure of several arterial roads from Mitchell's Plain into Cape Town. A crowd of about 500 residents of the Sweet Valley informal settlement near Duinefontein Road gathered about 4am and set tyres alight in Vanguard Drive and at the intersection of Duinefontein and Lansdowne Roads.
(©www.iol.co.za)

MINING NEWS

Num, Chamber of Mines sign two year wage agreement
The Chamber of Mines and National Union of Mineworkers on Thursday put ink to paper to seal a two-year agreement on wages and working conditions. The 11th hour agreement pulled the mining industry back from the brink of mass action earlier this month after Num members rejected the chamber’s original proposals.
(©www.bday.co.za)

Southern Era to mine Angolan diamonds by mid-2002
Canadian miner Southern Era is to begin construction of the world’s largest Kimberlite diamond mine in northeastern Angola by the year’s end in a joint venture with an Israeli company, a mine official said. “We hope to begin construction this year and production by mid next year,” Bernardo Campos, a member of the mine’s management committee said.
(©www.bday.co.za)

SA's mining output rises year on year
SA's mining production rose a seasonally adjusted 1,6% year on year in the second quarter of the year, Statistics SA (Stats SA) reported yesterday. However, the seasonally adjusted value of mineral sales at present prices for the quarter ended May declined 7,1% compared with the previous quarter, Stats SA said. After adjustment for seasonal factors, total mining production for the second quarter this year was up 0,6% compared with the first quarter
(©www.bday.co.za)

Metorex secures the right to mine zinc for 15 years in Burkina Faso
Metorex secures the right to mine zinc for 15 years in Burkina Faso METOREX group had been given mining rights in Burkina Faso's Perkoa region, where one of the world's biggest zinc reserves is located, the government said on Friday. Minister of Mines Kader Cisse said the SA-based group would be allowed mining rights for 15 years, with annual production pegged at 120000 tons. The project entails an investment of 48,3m. It would create 300 jobs.
(©www.bday.co.za)

Residential figures still looking good
But the rate of increase is slowing, latest Absa report says HOUSE prices are still on their way up, but the rate of increase has slowed during the past two quarters, compared with figures for the previous half year. This was reflected in the latest Absa residential property market survey for the second quarter of this year. It shows average house prices increasing 12,5% in nominal terms, or 5,7% in real terms, during the second quarter of this year, when compared with the previous period's figures.
(©www.bday.co.za)

Global buyer wanted for Boschendal
No reserve price has been set for SA's leading exporter of premium wines. Anglo American Farms (Amfarm) is preparing to embark on an international roadshow to find a buyer for Boschendal, SA's leading exporter of premium wines. Boschendal was developed in the late 1970s by Amfarm. The acquisition and consolidation of adjacent land in the early 1980s permitted the company to change the property's appellation to Franschhoek.
(©www.bday.co.za)

Homenet group forms new bank alliances
The Homenet group, one of the country’s largest real estate organisations, has decided not to align itself with any mortgage origination companies but rather to strengthen and expand its direct relationships with banks.
(©www.mweb.co.za/property24/)

SA buyers heat up Cape winter
The past two months – traditionally the quietest on the Cape real estate calendar – have seen savvy local buyers piling into the market, particularly in the southern suburbs of Cape Town and the exclusive Atlantic seaboard.
(©www.mweb.co.za/property24/)

Quarterly Housing Review: Third quarter 2000 (Excel & word format)
An analysis of house price trends and residential property market issues in South Africa. How to open a zip/exe file. Click on "Click here to download" 1. There are two options: Choose 2nd option "Save this program to disk". 2. Save in desired directory. 3. Open saved file/files and click on "unzip". 4. In a pop-up screen it will tell you if the file were successfully unzipped. 5. Close window and open unzipped files. Click here to download
(©www.absa.co.za)

Spotted on the ASAQS Classifieds
COST ENGINEER/QS WANTED 12 months contract in Sasolburg: Sound understanding of piping and mechanical measurement principles and extensive experience in the preparation of monthly certificates and the costing of site instructions on medium and large industrial projects. Closing date: 30/8/2001

The Value of Project Management
Continuing with the 6th part in The Value of Project Management Series we now take a look at the first step in the management process:
3.0 Manage the Workplan
If you have been following Steps 1 and 2, you have created a Project Definition and a Project Workplan. Some Project Managers think creating the workplan is the hard part. However, now you must manage the workplan, and ensure that it represents the current status of the project. Just as important, the workplan should always give a good representation of how much work is remaining.
Click here to read on.
(©www.tenstep.com)

CEASA Members meeting
NOTICE OF MEMBERS MEETING TO BE HELD AT THE SAB PARK LANE, SANDTON IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM ON THURSDAY 16 AUGUST 2001 AT 17:30
The meeting features a presentation by Prof P M D Rwelamila, Professor in Project Management at UNISA Business School and a "Discussion regarding the Construction Procurement System" After the meeting the brewhouse will be open to provide refreshments and a forum for informal discussion.

Safeguarding your computer against a virus infection
FREE SOFTWARE!
During the past two weeks a number of new virus infections have manifested themselves in South Africa and members should be careful not to open suspect e-mail attachments.
To assist our members who don't, as yet, have a self-updating antivirus program installed, we present VCatch.
VCatch is a new, free tool, developed to protect your computer from web viruses. Whether you use an Email application, Web based Email, ICQ, or one of the new file-sharing programs (Napster, Gnutella etc.), VCatch is the tool for you. VCatch is a virus protection software. When VCatch is active it will check all the files sent or downloaded to your computer via Email and Web applications. In the event that VCatch detects that a file is suspected to be a virus, the software automatically deletes the file and notifies you.
Get it here!

New members to the CUG
A warm word of welcome to the following members who have joined us in the CUG during the past week:
Alan van Rensburg
Nic Grobler
Sanginkosi Zihlangu
Rod Matcham

Please note that your registration to the CUG will remain in force as long as you remain a member of ASAQS and there is no need to register every year. If you have not received an e-mail confirming your registration contact ASAQS.

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Djuma Safari Cam

Welcome to Djuma Safari Cam, where our Virtual Rangers take you on a game drive through the bush in Djuma Game Reserve, situated in the north-eastern corner of Sabi Sand Game Reserve, South Africa. The morning Safari runs from 05:30 - 09:00 CAT (Central African Time; GMT -2) and the afternoon Safari from 16:30 - 20:00 CAT.