{"id":90540,"date":"2025-06-09T08:44:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T08:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/?p=90540"},"modified":"2025-11-17T17:37:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:37:41","slug":"this-week-in-charts-6-june-2025-comrades-pay-grades-rail-transport-rich-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/2025\/06\/09\/this-week-in-charts-6-june-2025-comrades-pay-grades-rail-transport-rich-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"This week in charts: 6 June 2025 (Comrades, pay grades, rail transport, rich Americans)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A weekly wrap of the top stories of the week, using data. Subscribe to receive this via email every Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bigwigs and bucks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s been a lot of attention given to the salaries of state employees lately thanks to the drama around this year\u2019s budget and the amount of debt the government has racked up. And, quite frankly, what some of the chief executives of state-owned enterprises get paid is gobsmackingly high. One of them gets an average of nearly R1.3-million a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve collected the total remuneration packages of the CEOs of 122 state-owned enterprises so far from a series of questions posed to government ministers in parliament asking what the CEOs of the enterprises that report to each of them earn. The responses of 18 ministers are publicly available (although the electricity & energy minister\u2019s one is incomplete because of a missing link, so we had to look at Eskom\u2019s financial statements to get an estimate of what its CEO earns).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chart below shows the highest-paid 15, who all get packages of R6-million a year or more \u2013 not including performance bonuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not one of the 122 CEOs got less than R1-million a year. And, for people living in Joburg who have had to visit relatives to shower over the past few weeks, you may be interested to know that Rand Water\u2019s group CEO\u2019s package for the 2024\/25 financial year was R5.4-million \u2013 enough to make one splutter weakly like the water coming out of the city\u2019s taps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

African Highway<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Historically, South Africa has been the continental leader in motor vehicle production, but that African dominance is under threat from Morocco. And fellow North African, Algeria, while still a small player, is starting to increase production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morocco produces more passenger vehicles than South Africa and is increasingly focusing on the electric vehicle (EV) sector. Earlier this week officials in Morocco<\/a> said they plan to increase EV production by more than 50% this year, with a target of 107,000 EV vehicles produced by the end of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morocco\u2019s proximity to the EU market is a clear advantage, while South Africa faces a number of challenges including stricter EU emissions targets on traditional combustion vehicles, transport costs and often unstable infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back on track?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The number of people using South Africa’s trains is slowly recovering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 2024, Statistics South Africa reported 4.7-million passenger journeys. A year later, that increased to 7.4-million. But this is nowhere near the highs of 2009, when there was an average of 52-million passenger journeys a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) said in March that 34 of its 40 commuter service lines<\/a> are now running \u2013 up from just four in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revival of the rail network is a critical step in restoring affordable public transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Money \u2026 must be funny<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Who are the world\u2019s richest people and what are they worth? Well, it\u2019ll probably come as a surprise to no-one that the five richest people are tech bros who live in the United States, according to Bloomberg\u2019s Billionaires Index.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Number 1, as of close of business yesterday (5 June 2025), is Elon Musk (yes, he was born in South Africa, but he\u2019s American now). His net worth was $368-billion. There are only two countries in Africa with economies bigger than that, South Africa (GDP $400-billion) and Egypt (GDP $383-billion).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The graphic below shows the net worth of the top-5 richest men compared with the five African countries with the biggest economies, according to the IMF\u2019s World Economic Outlook for April 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are only three African countries \u2018richer\u2019 than Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison. And four are richer than Bill Gates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The net worth of the top 10 on yesterday\u2019s billionaires index was $1.97-trillion, that\u2019s more than the GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa region which was $1.88-trillion in 2024, according to IMF estimates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comrades 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For most of my childhood the Comrades marathon was a highlight of the year. My father and I used to get up early and spend the entire day glued to the TV watching thousands of people run the 90-odd kilometres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was still far too young to run the race myself when Piet Vorster won the 1979 \u2018up\u2019 run in a new record but I made my father take me to a local running shop to get Piet\u2019s autograph when he appeared there shortly after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1979 race Vorster was followed by Johnny Halberstadt in second place and Bruce Fordyce in third.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruce Fordyce was a legend but it was Johnny Halberstadt who was my real hero. I would beg my parents drive me across town to his athletics shop on Louis Botha Avenue just in the hope that I could meet him. I did and he was all I\u2019d hoped. The fact that he also famously turned down Springbok colours in 1979 to protest against the poor treatment of black runners like Matthews \u2018Loop en Val\u2019 Motshwarateu just reinforced my suspicion that Johnny was a good guy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite my fascination with the race, I\u2019ve never run it. Life got in the way. But based on the entry list I collected for this year\u2019s Comrades Marathon, I still have a few years left to do this before I hit that rare but impressive 70+ age cohort of runners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chart above is based on the runners listed on the Comrades 2025 entry list<\/a>. The final starting list may be slightly different from this but I present the data partly to encourage myself that being very much mid-life doesn\u2019t mean the dream of running a Comrades Marathon has to be over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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