MONDAY, 11.30AM: More than a third of the 850 municipalities in South Africa are not financially sustainable, Constitutional Development deputy director general Chippie Olver told the Presidential Review Commission at the weekend. And a lack of co-ordination and co-operation between government departments is hampering delivery. The commission, reviewing transformation and delivery in the public service, […]

MONDAY, 6.00PM: The gardener who implicated a Truth Commission investigator in the bombing of a pub, has privately admitted to TRC chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu that he had made false statements after having been tortured in 1994. Tutu told a press conference on Monday that gardener Bennet Sibiya had been tortured by unnamed persons and […]

KAUNDA AND CHONWE STAY OUT FORMER Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda, expected home on Monday, has instead flown off to London, following pressure from party associates who believe he will be arrested under the new state of emergency. His son, major Wezi Kaunda, claims to have been told that the government has already issued warrants of […]

MONDAY, 8.55AM: CAPE Town Spurs walloped Jomo Cosmos 4-0 in a Castle Premier Soccer League match at Greenpoint Stadium on Sunday. In the 40th minute Ian Gorowa scored Spur’s first goal after receiving a pass from Mumba Ngandu. Spurs went to the interval 2-0 up after Theo Hempe scored the second goal from a Mathew […]

If you have started reading this column with any hope of being reduced to helpless laughter by yet more of the trenchant and witty invective by means of which I have for many years patiently scoured my puny name on to the lists of South African also-rans, then you’re going to be mildly disappointed. Before […]

Gustav Thiel : Rugby Louis Luyt will win the battle for the presidency of the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) because he ‘bought the loyalty of the smaller unions’. But there is hope for rugby fans in the country who feel that Morne du Plessis is the sport’s messiah: he will oppose Luyt in […]

THURSDAY, 4.30PM JAPAN’S new ‘envoy for Africa’, Morihisa Aoki, made his first trip to the Great Lakes region this week, where he said that Japan would like to play a bigger role in Africa — but has less money to spend here. He said aid to Africa was likely to be cut by 25% in […]

FRIDAY, 9.05AM: Premier Soccer League pace-setters Buch Bucks coach Trott Moloto has warned his charges not to relax because they are on top of the Premiership log. Moloto, one of the underrated coaches in the country, was speaking ahead of their PSL encounter with Bloemfontein Celtic at Seisa Ramabodu Stadium on Sunday. “We are aware […]

THURSDAY, 5.30PM: A DRAFT bill which creates a national attorney-general’s office, protected by legislation from political interference, was presented to Parliament on Friday. The bill, an important move in the establishment of an independent justice system, replaces the current system of local attorney generals with a single national prosecuting authority, which uses the same criteria […]