BEE Partner, South Africa Economy Watch

Net remuneration

This represents the amount of remuneration after deducting the following:

• current and arrear contributions, within specified limits, to approved pension and/or retirement annuity funds that the employer is entitled or required to deduct from the employee’s remuneration
• at the option of the employer, current and arrears retirement annuity fund contributions, within specified limits, which the employee has paid directly to the fund, provided the employee furnishes the employer with proof of payment; such proof of payment must be obtained annually by the employer from the employee (or when the employee terminates employment, if earlier) and retained for inspection purposes

Medical aid scheme contributions in the case of persons aged 65 or older. Read the rest of this entry »

The QSE skills development scorecard only contains one indicator. It is significantly simpler than skills development of non-QSE businesses and easier to obtain a higher score. Unfortunately, because the target is based on terms and calculations used in the Skills Development Levies Act, the SDLA, this is a technical section.

Indicator terminology

Leviable amount

The leviable amount is derived from the SDLA. It the amount that the levy that must be paid to the SETA is calculated on. BEE uses the same calculation and therefore terminology, but sets a target over and above that payable to the SETA. The scorecard sets the target for the indicator as 2% of the leviable amount for QSEs. Essentially, the leviable amount is the annual total net salaries and wages payable by the entity. Read the rest of this entry »

Calculations of BEE Skills Development

The calculations of skills development spend includes expenditure on learning programmes and in-service training programmes. The following calculation assumes the indicator is subject to adjusted recognition for gender.

Measurement of the skills development spend indicator

The calculation of the adjusted recognition for gender is as follows:

A = B/C + C

A = the adjusted recognition for gender

B = the skills development spend on Black employees divided by the leviable amount

C = the skills development spend on Black women employees divided by the leviable amount Read the rest of this entry »

In its earliest and simplest forms, the gold standard meant that the money in circulation, including the money the government minted, consisted of gold coins. When the US officially joined the gold standard in 1879, the value of the dollar was set as equal to the value of 23.22 fine grains of gold, where 480 fine grains made a fine troy ounce. This was equivalent to $20.67 per ounce.

Under the gold standard, the constraint on the creation of bank money posed by reserves is critical. Bank money consists of notes issued as claims to real money, that is, to gold or silver coins, money with intrinsic value. But at any time, most of the public would prefer to use the more convenient paper money, provided they are confident that they can convert the (intrinsically worthless) paper to gold at a moment’s notice. For this purpose, reserves are kept in proportion to the note issue. Read the rest of this entry »

Reserves

The deposits and currency created by the Federal Reserve are the reserves of the modern system. It would seem that if the Fed could control the amount of these reserves, it could thereby limit the ability of banks to lend, and thus control their ability to create deposits. By controlling reserves, the Fed could control the total quantity of money. As we saw earlier, real reserves did constrain banks. It has seemed plausible, and monetarists everywhere have believed, that modern, nominal reserves could provide a similar constraint. But central banks all around the world, including the Federal Reserve, have tried to exercise such control, most recently in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and, in virtually every case, their attempts have failed. Read the rest of this entry »