A total of 131 prisoners released on a special remission of sentence 10 weeks ago have been rearrested, Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour said on Thursday. ”We are going to interview them to see where it went wrong. We need to give them that second chance,” the minister said.
The Johannesburg High Court on Thursday ordered the Johannesburg City Council to pay at least R130-million in arrears to two pension funds, a legal firm said. ”This must be one of the biggest pension fund cases this country has ever seen,” said a spokesperson for Routledge Modise Moss Morris attorneys.
The Cabinet’s unconditional endorsement of Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana’s report into the so-called Oilgate scandal comes as no surprise, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday. Mushwana said in his report that he found no evidence of wrongdoing in the Oilgate scandal.
Western Cape police are investigating necrophilia and the illegal amputation of body parts at the Salt River mortuary. Superintendent Rian Pool said a pathologist took fluid and tissue samples from a body as a ”precautionary measure” to determine whether the corpse had been sexually violated after death.
A Pretoria cosmetic surgeon has been found guilty of unprofessional conduct for performing unnecessary surgery on a patient and leaving her scarred, the Health Professions Council of South Africa said on Thursday. The complaint related to two cosmetic eye operation Jacobus Francois Scholtz performed.
The Communication Workers’ Union on Thursday welcomed the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa’s (Icasa) public hearings aimed at regulating the subsidisation of cellphone handsets. Addressing the Icasa panel, Cell C and MTN representatives said they support the removal of subsidies.
Financial-services groups Old Mutual and Nedbank on Thursday announced one of South Africa’s biggest information and communications technology (ICT) deals to date, which will enable both companies to achieve collectively cost savings of more than R1-billion over the next five years.
Nedbank, one South Africa’s top four commercial banks, has reported a 44,5% rise in its headline earnings per share for the six months to the end of June to 354 cents, from 245 cents a year earlier. The group declared an interim dividend of 105 cents per share, representing a 139% increase on the 44 cents declared at the halfway stage last year.
World number four gold-miner Gold Fields on Thursday reported net earnings per share of 47 cents for the June quarter, up from 26 cents in the March quarter. For the year ended June, net earnings per share amounted to 92 cents from 121 cents for the year to the end of June 2004.
Heterosexual men who are circumcised are less likely to contract HIV/Aids from their female partners, according to ground-breaking South African research. In 2002, the scientists recruited more than 3Â 000 uncircumcised heterosexual men aged 18 to 24 from Orange Farm, a Johannesburg slum where about 32% of women have HIV.