I am not going to make any in depth analysis of the budget, in light of the comments below, I will leave that for the economic experts.
I will however repeat my Ronald Reagan quote from below:
“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
An overview of the Budget can be found at Business Day and the full speech on Business Report.
So from a credit management perspective there …

I always thought that I was coping out a bit when I communicated with staff via writing, email in particular. I had this image that I should be out there “patrolling the corridors and talking to the troops and being seen” – probably the result of reading too many motivation management books.
It was nice to read on Slacker Manager and Open Loops that I’m not the only manager that likes the email method of communicating with staff. It would appear, according to Bert Webb of Open Loops, that I am …

” I praise loudly; I blame softly.”
Queen Catherine II

I have just received from Juta, the legal publishers, an email which sets out the outline of the legal cases I will be receiving in my next month’s South African Law Reports. This a pretty neat client service feature.
On the credit management front there seems to be a number of interesting cases reported.

Jim Collins : Author of “Good to Great”

As promised the book review of Good to Great: Why some Companies makes the leap…and others don’t.
While strictly speaking Good to Great does not fit directly in with credit management, I have taken the liberty of reviewing the book here. I feel that although the book sets out the principles of transforming a good company into a great company, many of these principles can be applied at a management level and even a personal level – besides its a very good read.

In light of the modest growth in the 2004 fourth quarter GDP figure the Business Day reports revised predictions on interest rate cuts for April 2005 from economic analysists.
Some analysists seem to be pointing to a half a percent interest cut in April on the back of concerns regarding the effect of the stronger rand on exports and the economic growth in general.

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right. ”
- Henry Ford

The Constitutional Court case of Jaftha and others v Van Rooyen and others (CCT 74/03)
created a lot of media publicity late last year. The matter was in fact the consolidation of two similar cases where the houses (immovable property) of two impoverished debtors were sold in a sale in execution arising out of judgment debts for very small debts.
The effect of the Constitutional Court decision is not to prohibit the sale in execution of immovable property of a judgment debtor by a judgment creditor but rather to put in a …

The monetary policy committee kept the repo rate, the rate at which the central bank lends money to commercial banks, unchanged at 7.5 percent. This means commercial banks will keep their prime lending rate at 11 percent.
With most analysts predicting a half percent drop in the interest rate, the immediate effect will be a damping on credit demand but with interests rates still at historically low levels in South Africa I anticipate the demand for credit to be uneffected and to continue to grow in the year.
In addition with the …