/ 27 May 2018

Unembargoed: May 25 to 31

The M&G is now free to read online.
The M&G is now free to read online.

Crackdown on obdurate local councils

Officials will have to follow up on the auditor general’s reports or pay back the money

Mabe-linked firm’s tuk-tuk payday

The ANC spokesperson’s cousin scored R25m from Gauteng for three-wheelers that are awol

Gauteng audit follow-up heightens ANC split

More than 300 forensic audits have been handed over to the SIU with a view to recover hundreds of millions of rands lost to the government

Slice of life: My sister, my strength

‘Balungile was always protective of me and I got comfortable in the knowledge that she’d always be there for me’

Pandor: How to fix former black universities

The minister won’t babysit her sector but she intends to clamp down on council members who are there to enrich themselves

‘Teacher called my daughter a witch’

The family of an Eastern Cape primary school pupil has obtained a court order against a teacher they allege has been tormenting their child

Scandal-hit NGO opens three probes

Equal Education has started inquiries into sexual harassment claims as donors suspend grants

KwaZulu-Natal mayor arrested for alleged assassination plot

Richard Mbatha and two others appeared on charges of conspiracy to commit murder in the Estcourt magistrate’s court on Thursday

DA’s De Lille ousting not unanimous

De Lille and the DA are currently waging an ugly feud against one another in both the public domain and in court papers

Ramaphosa yields to wage concerns

Disagreements over the proposed amendments threaten to push back the implementation date of the minimum wage until after Parliament’s recess in July

Axe hangs over North West PEC

The committee’s defiance about the premier has put it on the chopping block at the NEC meeting

ANC fields a young face for land

Ronald Lamola has long been associated with land redistribution, which the party is now seizing on

Faction-riven and bleeding, NUM turns on itself

Rival groups in the union will go head to head at its elective conference

Mashinini steers away from Zuma

His key priority is to unite the deeply divided party structures in the province

Land hunger spreads across Cape

Fed up with living in squalor, people in backyard shacks pegged out plots of land illegally

How human brains became so big

Though most organisms thrive with small brains, or none at all, the human species opted for a different route.

HEALTH

It’s politics versus the people — ‘Mahumapelo killed my sister’

A month after she was wheeled out of a North West hospital on a barrow, Ntombizodwa Matthews met her end. Her family blames politics for her death.

AFRICA

Dodgy mine mogul’s new Zim play

Andrew Groves, with his history of suspect African mining deals, is back on the block, boasting of his links with the new president

Ebola vaccine put to the test in DRC

The latest outbreak is in a city and next to the Congo River, factors that increase the risk of it spreading rapidly

Arsenal scores own goal over Rwanda link

The club’s new sleeve sponsor has an abysmal human rights record

Parliamentary hearing ‘too early’ for Mugabe

Lawmakers want to question Mugabe over his 2016 claim that Zimbabwe lost $15-billion in revenue because of corruption in the diamond sector

BUSINESS

Bizarre battles in Gupta rescue

The companies and the IDC are strange partners in court cases against the business rescue team

Muscular dollar awes the rest

South Africa is less likely to suffer but investors will look for the elusive factor — growth

Payment delays anger students

Nearly half of those who qualify for funding are affected but the financial aid scheme blames institutions for being tardy

Funding focus should be lower-cost urban housing

Increasing housing delivery to address the demand is unlikely to be achieved any time soon given low economic growth and fiscal consolidation

Smart thinking for fiscal balance

A mix of tax increases and expenditure cuts are essential for long-term growth

COMMENT & ANALYSIS

There’s more to racism than meets the eye

Thousands of black South Africans haven’t led the lives they wanted because of apartheid policies

Editorial: At every level the state fails citizens

‘We’re good at the annual hand-wringing about government’s wasteful ways. But what is not quantified is the number of people who are being failed’

Editorial: Cele, prioritise cash heists

‘Cash-in-transit heists seem to be a South African speciality. They are now happening at an average of one a day, according to some accounts’

Letters to the editor: May 25-31

Our readers write in about Doron Isaacs and Paul Kagame

Wake-up call for social justice sector

It’s time to look inward and admit that not all of us who fight the good fight are squeaky clean

We are looking inward: Equal Education

The social justice organisation says the sexual harassment allegations have been a wake-up call

Creators want immediate copyright reform

There is a current process to reform our country’s copyright law that could address some of our grievances and better enable local creative production.

The 1 000th cut was the deepest

The reaction to Ashwin Willemse’s walk-out on TV exposes the racial fault lines of outrage

Complaining is a kind of connectivity

‘One reader described this as the most boring column I had ever written. I hope to out-bore it soon, perhaps even with this account of its sequelae’

Identity by race does matter

Celebrating the first ‘black’ or ‘African’ woman to get a doctorate in philosophy raises critical issues

Burning varsities: Responding to fire

As by Fire’s hard look at the recent violence on campuses presents dire warnings and hope

FRIDAY

‘It was delightful as it was disconcerting’

‘There’s a part of my brain that finds emotional comfort in the lies and promises of the monarchy, religion and even bloody patriarchy,’ writes Milisuthando Bongela

Sound shifting ‘janet.’ is still hot

Janet Jackson has deservedly been honoured for an album that changed the course of music for the past 25 years

Dr Malombo fought to keep his music in a genre of its own

There have been few innovative contributions that have sparked such polemical responses as the tussle over the categorisation of malombo as jazz, or just malombo.

The master of simplicity takes his final bow

Philip Tabane, aka Dr Malombo, was as important a philosopher as he was a musician

Song cycle unlocks cultural ties

Composer and free-form cultural thinker Thokozani Ndumiso Mhlambi plucks some chords with Alexandra Dodd in advance of his performance in Cape Town

Why is male rage sacrosanct?

Hurt people hurt people, but one trauma should never justify another. Men are supposed to be understood; the rest of us must simply understand

M.I.A.’s collage clarifies the cause

Stephen Loveridge and M.I.A. piece together old and new visuals to piece together a collage of the experiences that developed the artist.

Alade sets bush festival on fire

Bushfire is just one of the festivals burning up Africa this month

Breakfast to end the blushing uneasy

The Lonely Hearts Club,located where the cherished La Luna once was, serves Zaza Hlalethwa a needed hearty breakfast

SPORT

Reds vs Real: The key battles

Where this weekend’s Liverpool-Madrid Champions League final in Ukraine will be won and lost

Senegal set to roar again?

The Lions of Teranga are readying themselves to bring more World Cup joy to the country

Rugby ruckus: ‘People are scared’

Worried about losing their jobs, many in the sport are reluctant to comment on its toxic culture. 

 

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