Kader Asmal is leaving Parliament to take up an extraordinary professorship at the university where he lectured on his return from exile in 1994. ”It is extraordinary because they don’t pay me,” he says, laughing. At the age of 73, he is retiring from formal politics to put his experiences as a teacher, lawyer, politician and human rights activist to other uses.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has itself to blame for the attacks to which it is being subjected, say MPs on the justice portfolio committee. The NPA recently appeared before the committee to discuss its annual report and complained about the continued attacks fired at the unit.

President Thabo Mbeki has set himself 24 tasks, listed alongside, for completion before he leaves the political stage in 2009. This is typical of the managerial style that has characterised his presidency, but the 24 tasks also reveal the constraints he has faced for several years now

Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula shafted President Thabo Mbeki’s careful plans for the Scorpions when he announced this week in Parliament that the unit would be dissolved. Nqakula also pre-empted a parliamentary process and might have acted unconstitutionally.

The ANC in Parliament, backed by a civil society initiative that includes Cosatu, wants four of President Thabo Mbeki’s appointees to the SABC board to step down. They are lawyer Christine Qunta and businesspersons Peter Vundla (bottom), Gloria Serobe and Andile Mbeki.

Bucket toilets will remain part of the South African landscape, despite promises by President Thabo Mbeki, premiers and provincial ministers that this dehumanising system will be eradicated shortly. Last year in his State of the Nation address Mbeki promised that by the end of 2007 all South Africans would have access to sanitation.

With arguably the toughest year in his political career behind him, President Thabo Mbeki is facing the nation for the first time since he was ejected from the top job in the ANC. Mbeki will use this opportunity to look back on successes that the government managed to secure, despite the ruptures in the ruling party threatening to spill over into the government.

”I don’t think there is a conflict with regards to my position as the secretary general of the ANC and SACP chairperson. Moses Kotane served as treasurer general of the ANC while he was also secretary general for the SACP for many years”, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe tells the Mail & Guardian.

The dominant Jacob Zuma camp in the ANC on Thursday moved to consolidate its power in Parliament by appointing two members of the party’s powerful national working committee to lead the ANC MPs. Chief whip Isaac Mogase, who was only appointed a few months ago following the expulsion of Mbulelo Goniwe, has been replaced by minerals and energy portfolio committee chairperson Nathi Mthethwa.

Ministers, directors general and senior government officials are now at risk of getting the chop if they don’t improve in running their departments. This follows a decision by Cabinet not to accept the perennial excuses that departments give Parliament when called to explain their qualified audit reports, writes Mandy Rossouw.