You would expect the driver of a cash-transporting truck to be a big, robust guy, but Elijah Gumbi is thin and old for his 42 years. He limps, dragging his heavy security guard’s boots across the tiles at Coin Security’s offices in Centurion. Softly spoken and everybody’s pal, Gumbi looks as if he wouldn’t hurt a fly. At Coin Security’s Pretoria branch, however, he is the longest-serving and most trusted driver.

The Matatiele/Maluti Mass Action Organising Committee met the Public Protector recently to discuss investigations into alleged voting irregularities in Parliament’s passing of the 12th Amendment Act on cross-border municipalities.
Discussions also focused on issues such as the transfer of government assets and duties from KwaZulu-Natal to the Eastern Cape.

The Directorate of Special Operations — the ”Scorpions” — will remain within the National Prosecuting Authority, which will continue to report to the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development. But political oversight of what the Scorpions’ ”law enforcement responsibilities” will include, moves to the Minister of Safety and Security.

Despite public contempt for counterfeit goods, Chinese wholesalers at Dragon City on the western outskirts of Johannesburg advertise an ”Oriental Price Extravaganza” that is nothing like the real thing. Dragon City is the springboard from which huge shipments of cheap Chinese-imported goods make their way to the pavements and fleamarkets of South African cities.

The government has provided a glimmer of hope to disgruntled former cross-boundary municipality communities by suggesting that Parliament could repeal the law that has moved them to new provinces. The residents of Moutse, Matatiele and Khutsong have been up in arms since the controversial Constitution Twelfth Amendment Act was passed in December.

Jacob Zuma’s political future rests with the way about 3 000 delegates at next year’s ANC conference will vote for the party’s leadership. The Mail & Guardian‘s Monako Dibetle, Percy Zvomuya and Niren Tolsi spoke to members of the party and its affiliates.

What do South Africa’s ”born frees” — who came into the world after the death of apartheid, or were too young to remember it — know about their country’s traumatic past? Do African high school pupils know or care about the suffering and sacrifices of their parents and grandparents?

The government has once again dashed Khutsong residents’ hopes that the controversial legislation on cross-border municipalities will be reversed, leading them to vent their frustrations on newly elected councillors. Violence resurfaced in Khutsong recently after the inauguration of the mayor and the new council.