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financialmail.co.za
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Reuters/Jon Cherry
ANOTHER WEEK
TANK DEFIES TORNADO An old army tank stands unscathed amid the rubble of devastating tornadoes that ripped through six states in the US at the weekend. The twisters spread death and destruction and were powerful enough to derail a freight train and send a family photo 209km. But this tank, outside an American Legion post in Dawson Springs, Kentucky, stood firm against the storm
AFRICA’S LARGEST ECONOMIES
BY THE NUMBERS
report in March this year, Zuma was meant to pay back the loan in R69,000 monthly instalments over 240 months, but he defaulted. He is now about R250,000 in arrears. Louise Brugman, a spokesperson for VBS curator Anoosh Rooplal says Rooplal cannot comment about Zuma’s loan because of client confidentiality. Zuma’s spokesperson, Mzwanele Manyi, tells the FM that the status of Zuma’s loan with VBS is confidential, and declined to comment further. VBS began litigation against Zuma in 2019, after he had fallen into arrears, VBS began at the high court litigation in Pietermaragainst itzburg. BrugZuma in man confirms 2019, after that the case is he had fallen still before the into arrears court and says with the the presiding repayment judge has yet to of his bond rule. on upgrades VBS collecto his home tions manager Shaun Havenga submitted a certificate of indebtedness to the high court in Pietermaritzburg regarding the divorce proceedings involving Zuma and his wife Thobeka Madiba-Zuma. That document, dated August 19 2020, showed that Zuma owed VBS R6.9m on July 31 that year. Zuma’s bank statements from March 2018 to August 2020, also filed in his divorce proceedings, showed that VBS was debiting him a monthly amount of at least R66,417.05 on either the 15th or 16th of the month. VBS ran debit orders against Zuma’s Absa cheque account in March, April, May, June and July 2018. The VBS debit orders came off in March, April, and May but bounced in June and July. At the start of March 2018, that Zuma cheque account had a negative balance of over R330,000. From August 2018 to August 2020, no VBS debit orders were run against the account. At the end of August 2020, the Absa cheque account had a positive balance of about R209,000. x
$432.3bn
is the size of Nigeria’s economy, making it the largest in Africa (in dollar terms)
10% of Nigeria’s GDP
is the contribution of its finance sector, up from just 1% in 2001. However, petroleum, its largest export, is still the main driver of its growth
$2,100
is its GDP per capita. Using this measure, Nigeria doesn’t feature in the top 10 in Africa
African countries with the highest GDP over time $bn 1990
2005
2020
1
SA
SA
Nigeria
432.3
2
Algeria
Nigeria
Egypt
363.1
3
Nigeria
Algeria
SA
301.9
4
Egypt
Egypt
Algeria
145.2
5
Morocco
Morocco
Morocco
112.8
6
Libya
Libya
Ethiopia
107.6
7
Sudan
Angola
Kenya
98.8
8
Cameroon
Tunisia
Ghana
72.4
December 16 - December 22, 2021
Source: World Bank, Statista
