Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa will announce the successful bidder for the R8-billion Gautrain rapid rail link in Pretoria on Saturday. Shilowa failed to meet three announcement deadlines; the first in April, the second in May and a third at the end of June, to announce which of the two consortia — Bombela and Gauliwe — had won the bid.
Members of Parliament found guilty in Parliament’s so-called Travelgate scandal will be fired, the African National Congress said on Monday. In a meeting over the weekend, the party’s national executive committee said the ANC had a central role to play in fighting corruption and the abuse of power.
The impact of climate change on Africa in 30 to 40 years will be as significant as that of malaria and Aids, the chief scientific adviser to the British government said in Johannesburg on Monday. Sir David King is in the country to promote Zero Carbon City, the British Council’s awareness campaign on global warming.
Pretoria police found the body of a man missing since Wednesday in Brooklyn, police said on Monday. ”Mohammed Asif Ayob (20) went missing on Wednesday evening. A post-mortem will be held to determine the cause of death,” Inspector Anton Breedt said.
Gautrain CEO Jack van der Merwe is optimistic that the R8-billion Gautrain project will be completed in time for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. ”How do you eat an elephant? Bite by bite,” Van der Merwe said at a meeting of the SA Association of Consulting Engineers.
Over 4 900 Free State miners should be reinstated because the National Union of Mineworkers’ consultation process with Harmony Gold was not exhausted, the Labour Court heard on Tuesday. ”The dismissals were effected prematurely, the consultation was not properly exhausted and fair procedure was not followed,” said Hans van der Riet, lawyer for the NUM.
Commuters left stranded by a bus drivers’ strike torched a bus and two cars at the Belle Ombre train station, Pretoria, on Wednesday evening. About 1Â 500 people were at the station when the bus was set alight, Pretoria emergency services spokesperson Johan Pieterse said.
South Africa’s foreign exchange and gold reserves should be enough to cover at least six months’ imports if higher growth is to be sustained, organised business said on Wednesday. Nedlac’s business convener, Raymond Parsons, was speaking at the launch of the World Bank’s 2005 Global Development Report in Midrand.
Although mining-related earthquakes are an ”industry exclusion”, one insurer has said it will pay claims from Wednesday’s Klerksdorp earthquake because of the ”emotional content” of the event. The ombudsman for short-term insurance, Helem van Zyjl, advised people to lodge their claims as soon as possible to see whether they are covered.
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/ 24 February 2005
Workers in Zimbabwe are beaten, maimed and in some cases even castrated, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Willie Madisha said at this year’s Solidarity trade union congress on Thursday. He said there is a ”very serious problem” with the Zanu-PF ruling party calling itself a ”party of liberation” when workers are killed and beaten.