Crucial security functions at Parliament, the South African Revenue Service, the KwaZulu-Natal legislature and two parastatals are in the hands of a firm with a history of corrupt practices, the Mail & Guardian can reveal. Africa Strategic Asset Protection won multimillion-rand contracts for Parliament in what appear to be clear cases of tender-rigging.
Beleaguered former deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge has not been paid her salary for August and has been asked to pay the department R312 000 for an ”unauthorised” trip to Spain. Madlala-Routledge was fired for her inability to work as part of the ”collective” and for undertaking the trip against President Thabo Mbeki’s orders.
Two major investigations by French and British police concluded that Princess Diana’s death in a Paris car crash was a tragic accident, but 10 years on many remain convinced she was murdered in a sinister plot. The usual suspects cited by conspiracy theorists include Britain’s royal family — because they were unhappy Diana was to marry her lover, Muslim Dodi al-Fayed.
Khalid Rashid — the Pakistani whose 2005 deportation from South Africa sparked a media furore and a court challenge to the government — has broken his silence. And his account, in a telephone interview from Pakistan, flatly contradicts the Home Affairs Department’s repeated claims that he was deported as an illegal immigrant in terms of standard procedure.
The decision about whether to re-charge Jacob Zuma may be taken only after the African National Congress’s watershed leadership conference in December, sources close to the National Prosecuting Authority have told the Mail & Guardian. Legal and political considerations mean that National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli may postpone his decision until after the first round of the succession battle is settled.
Suspended South African Communist Party member and former treasurer Phillip Dexter confirmed this week that he could find no bank statements reflecting at least R1,1-million cash, allegedly given to the general secretary of the party, Blade Nzimande. Dexter said that ”on the face of it there appears to be a connection” between his suspension and the missing funds.
A notorious security policeman, retired Lieutenant General Sebastiaan ”Basie” Smit, might soon rue the day that he turned down an offer from the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to join former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok in the dock recently. Speculation about whether Smit will be prosecuted has been rife.
Lolling on a ragged carpet in his cupboard-sized shop in the heart of old Peshawar, Wahhab the money-changer beckoned customers with a sly smile. ”Best rate,” he said, fingering a fat wad of banknotes over a low glass counter. The portly man also offered another, more discreet, service: black market money transfers, any amount, to anywhere, in almost no time.
Strict conditions placed on the merger of two giant publishers of school textbooks have not eliminated concerns that the market still fails to provide schoolchildren with reasonably priced, high-quality books. The Shuttleworth Foundation, which strongly opposes the merger, has recommended that the government investigates the whole school textbook
The Sunday Times legal team plans to counter legal action by the health minister on the grounds that her right to privacy is overridden by the public’s right to know whether she is competent to exercise her duties. At the core of the newspaper’s defence is debate over whether she is fit to hold office in the Cabinet.