The medical industry is losing billions of rand a year due to fraudulent claims by doctors, dentists, pharmacists and optometrists, the Cape Times reported on Thursday. Its website quoted health-care funders as saying fraud is costing the industry up to R12-billion a year.
President Thabo Mbeki has urged the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to deal firmly with anyone seeking to destabilise that country, media reports said on Thursday. He said if South Africans are involved in attempts to overthrow the DRC government, strong action should be taken against them.
South African retailer Mr Price on Thursday reported a 48% rise in diluted headline earnings per share to 154,7 cents for the year ended March from 104,7 cents a year ago. A total distribution of 81 cents per share — based on a cover of two times — was declared, up from 60 cents last year.
South African Airways (SAA) has agreed to pay a R55-million administrative penalty for contravening the Competition Act, the Competition Commission said on Wednesday. The airline will have to pay the whole amount before the end of May next year, said spokesperson Liziwe Konyana.
A senior United Nations official said on Wednesday that it is far too premature to talk about a UN plan that would involve the departure of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Meanwhile, South African President Thabo Mbeki has expressed backing for a planned visit to Zimbabwe by UN chief Kofi Annan.
Africans see one-man rule as the greatest threat to democracy on the continent, an Afrobarometer survey released on Wednesday has shown. In the past eight years, there have been four controversial attempts to amend Constitutions in favour of incumbent elected presidents, in Namibia, Zambia, Malawi and Nigeria.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the West’s growing confrontation with Iran, and efforts to divest North Korea of its nuclear weapons are all approaching crucial turning points that could combine to create a perfect storm of simultaneous international crises, independent defence experts said on Wednesday.
The South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) has condemned as ”heavy-handed” the arrest of a South African photographer for the second time by Namibian police on Wednesday. John Liebenberg was arrested on Wednesday while he and other photographers were trying to take pictures of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
The South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) on Wednesday expressed concern at plans by the union representing security guards to spread their strike to other sectors of the economy. Sacob is particularly concerned about the ability of the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) leadership to control its members.
The revelation that National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi appears to have been drawn into the orbit of the late Brett Kebble is deeply disturbing. Selebi’s relationship with Kebble’s security lieutenants — direct in the one case, indirect in the other — throws up critical questions.