The African National Congress (ANC) said on Wednesday it knew about Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s dismissal on theft charges from a Botswana hospital in 1976, South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) radio news reported. The Sunday Times reported two weeks ago that Tshabalala-Msimang had been convicted of theft.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela on Wednesday announced a giant benefit concert in London next June to promote his 46664 campaign against HIV/Aids. The gig will take place in Hyde Park on June 27 to mark his 90th birthday the following month, Mandela said at the unveiling of a statue of him in London’s Parliament Square.
A draft post-forensic review has cleared the current acting chief executive of the South African Post Office and its financial director of any wrongdoing, the board of the parastatal said on Wednesday. Acting chief executive officer Motshoanetsi Lefoka and chief financial director Nick Buick were implicated in an initial investigation.
The Freedom Front Plus (FF+) on Wednesday submitted a formal complaint about alleged fraud, theft and corruption at Parliament to the Public Protector and the National Prosecuting Authority. The complaint deals with contracts awarded to African Strategic Asset Protection for revamping and maintaining Parliament’s access and security system.
Opposition political parties on Wednesday expressed shocked at the reaction of local African National Congress (ANC) leaders on the ruling of the Pretoria High Court preventing the name Pretoria being replaced with Tshwane on road signs. On Tuesday the court granted an urgent interim interdict to the Freedom Front Plus and AfriForum.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Transport Ministry has grounded two private airlines after a weekend plane crash killed 13 people in the second disaster since June, officials said on Wednesday. The licence of the Great Lakes Business Company, owner of the cargo plane that crashed on Sunday at Kongolo in Katanga Province, was suspended.
Verification of the large ”diamond” claimed to have been found in the North West this week could take few weeks, a shareholder of the company laying claim to it was reported as saying on Wednesday. Brett Jolly told the Associated Press: ”It’s totally unbelievable. You just don’t expect this kind of thing to happen.”
Want to know when you can play the Lotto again? Don’t ask Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa — apparently you are not allowed to. A senior government communications official on Wednesday told reporters they could not ask any questions about the suspended National Lottery when Mpahlwa appeared at a briefing.
Piracy and lack of airtime for his records on radio and television are some of the reasons the ‘people’s poet’, Mzwakhe Mbuli, has decided to stop recording in South Africa. On Wednesday he announced his ”retirement” from the local industry, saying he was forced to look for other avenues for his talent.
Mankind is to blame for climate change but governments still have time to slow accelerating damage at moderate cost if they act quickly, a draft United Nations report shows. Underlining the need for speed, it says a European Union goal of holding temperature rises to a maximum two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times is almost out of reach.