The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) admitted on Thursday that there were rifts in its leadership. "On the matter of leadership, there are cracks and there are cracks in every union," Cosatu president Willie Madisha told reporters at a briefing on the resolutions adopted by Cosatu’s ninth national congress. Madisha said that these problems were all being confronted this week.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has proposed far-reaching measures to improve the management of public finances, including an emergency task team and legislative amendments. ”The management of public money by government in our country is unacceptably poor, and in some cases abysmal,” DA CEO Ryan Coetzee told a media briefing at Parliament on Thursday.
Corruption will remain a problem in South Africa, Special Investigation Unit (SIU) head Willie Hofmeyr said on Thursday. Giving an overview of the growth of the SIU over the past few years, Hofmeyr said it was difficult to determine just how much corruption there was in government. ”There are some areas which are just naturally vulnerable to corruption,” he said.
Something is rotten in the Gauteng department of housing, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Thursday following the revelation of R100-million in tender irregularities in the department. The Star revealed on Thursday the contents of a report by the forensic unit of the Gauteng Shared Services Centre detailing allegations of tender irregularities.
The Young Communist League has urged South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) chief executive Dali Mpofu to make public a report on the SABC’s ”censorship of political journalist[s]”. The public had a right to know the findings of the report so they could make up their own minds on its merits and demerits, a statement said on Thursday.
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Jacob Zuma was mum on Thursday on whether he would attend the weekend meeting of the national executive committee of the African National Congress (ANC). Speaking from his home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, a jovial Zuma said: ”I am not answering that question.” The ANC deputy president said he did not want the media to ”be speculating”.
A nurse from Bushbuckridge in Mpumalanga has been found guilty of infecting her stepson with HIV after giving him an injection with contaminated blood, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Thursday. Pinky Mabuza (33) stood trial in the magistrate’s court at Mkuhlu near Hazyview.
Militants in Nigeria’s oil heartland said on Thursday they had called off attacks on troops after two bloody gun battles and would fight only in response to actions by the military. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said it had killed 17 soldiers in separate fire fights in the Niger Delta on Wednesday but would now hold back.
Somalia’s powerful Islamist movement claimed on Thursday that Ethiopian troops are shelling a Muslim-held town near the two countries’ border and said it had put its forces on alert for an invasion. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, chairperson of the executive board of the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia, said the shelling had begun on Wednesday on the town of Beledweyne.
Senior African National Congress (ANC) official Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele has rejected assertions that President Thabo has become like an ”absent father”. Speaking on SAfm’s After Eight Debate on Thursday, she also defended his silence on an apparent rift between him and ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma. Some callers to the show complained of Mbeki’s absence.