Staff Reporter
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/ 12 May 2000

How health fraud costs us billions

Fraud and corruption are widespread in the local medical industry, involving doctors, medical administrators and pharmaceutical companies Belinda Beresford South Africans are paying an estimated extra R8-billion a year in medical costs because of fraud, corruption and perverse incentives spread throughout the country’s Alice in Wonderland health care system. The private sector spends approximately R30-billion […]

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/ 12 May 2000

Pope tells soccer that it’s time to get

spiritual Martin Thorpe Football may be a religion but it does not appeal to the pope in its present incarnation. God’s assistant manager has laid down the law to some of the European game’s movers and shakers about the dangers of Mammon. During a 45-minute audience with a high- powered Uefa delegation at the Vatican […]

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/ 12 May 2000

Coega: The next Saldanha

Peter Dickson Port Elizabeth, gateway to one of South Africa’s most impoverished regions, is gearing up for an economic miracle that could ironically put immense pressure on the city as the homeless and jobless compete for living space. A decade ago 30 000 people poured into Saldanha and set up informal settlements, built on the […]

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/ 12 May 2000

NO FREE TICKETS FROM ZIM

NEW Zealand’s High Commission in violence-torn Zimbabwe is fending off demands from some 400 people a day for free air tickets to New Zealand because of what Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel says is misinformation. “Some information being reported in Zimbabwe by media there is not correct…It has been reported that New Zealand is offering free […]

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/ 12 May 2000

Microsoft wants a mini-trial

Microsoft on Wednesday filed court papers offering to change its behaviour in a move that could delay the final ruling in the anti-monopoly case brought against it by the United States government. It will also argue that the break-up of the company, as proposed by the Department of Justice and 17 US states, goes far […]

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/ 12 May 2000

A vehicle for the rand-phobic investor

unveiled Sarah Bullen It was fortuitously good timing for Gensec to launch its new investment in a week when the markets watched, white-knuckled, as the currency dipped to stomach-lurching lows. Particularly as the unit trusts the company unveiled, ahead of a marketing blitz aimed at the rand-phobic South African investor, promise to take your money […]

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/ 12 May 2000

ANC SEEKS CONTROL OVER MEGACITIES

THE African National Congress is pushing ahead with plans for centralised control over the five proposed megacities in the country, namely Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, Pretoria and Port Elizabeth. Despite opposition to the executive mayoral system, which vests all authority in the mayor, the ANC said it is confident of adopting it even in provinces […]

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/ 12 May 2000

Time for the left to end its hibernation

Ebrahim Harvey MY REVOLUTION Something big, historic and numbing has happened to socialists and activists the world over. Since the dramatic collapse of the Soviet empire and other Eastern European Stalinist regimes in 1989, many have turned away from political and community involvement and toward themselves, friends and families. So pervasive is this inward trend […]

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/ 12 May 2000

High noon for 125 000 in public sector

Glenda Daniels The public service is in for a bruising battle with organised labour if it goes ahead with plans to shift at least 125E000 unskilled workers from the state payroll. According to the latest plans drafted by the Department of Public Service and Administration, up to 20% of the public service’s unskilled employees are […]

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/ 12 May 2000

Policing the Cape ganglands

With few resources to aid it, the Cape Peninsula’s visible gang unit battles to bring an end to gang activity Marianne Merten The dark alleys of gang-wracked Mannenberg on the Cape Flats resound with a rapid- fire volley of 20 gunshots shortly before 8pm on Saturday night. Gunsmoke is heavy in the air only metres […]