If you live in the North West and are not a healthy person, the Bophelong Hospital in Mafikeng is the last place you should go. The provincial department of health paid R1,7-million in the past financial year to eight patients who suffered from injuries caused by the negligence of doctors and hospital staff.
Cape Judge President John Hlophe may have violated South Africa’s anti-corruption laws by taking payments from financial services firm Oasis. Two senior advocates and four other legal professionals told the Mail & Guardian that Hlophe may be vulnerable to prosecution under the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act.
The Special Browse “Mole” Report, dismissed by the presidency as the product of a campaign by discredited “information peddlers”, in fact draws on sources who have given state agencies crucial intelligence in the recent past. The report outlines evidence that the Angolan intelligence establishment planned covertly to support former deputy president Jacob Zuma in his presidency bid.
Provincial legislatures are the most likely casualty of a review of provincial and local government systems, which analysts have described as the most candid admission of failure by the government. Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi has announced that the government is inviting public submissions on how to reconfigure the powers and functions of provincial and local government.
”He looked at the picture on the wall and asked if I knew the artist, Joe Maseko. I said I didn’t. He then said he had broken Joe’s legs once and he was here to do the same to me.” SABC company secretary Ramani Naidoo levels this accusation against the corporation’s legal head, Mafika Sihlali, in a letter annexed to the SABC’s internal audit report.
Clive Derby-Lewis has denied having any information pointing to a “wider conspiracy” to assassinate South African Communist Party former general secretary Chris Hani in 1993. Instead, he says, it is the ANC, the SACP and George Bizos who have suppressed information about Hani’s safety on the day of his murder.
More public servants are blowing the whistle on corruption and unethical behaviour, but government departments are sluggish in joining the fight. This is the thrust of a trend analysis report compiled by the Public Service Commission (PSC) that compares the responses by public servants between 2004/05 and 2005/06.
The implementation of the ceasefire agreement between the Burundian government and the rebel Palipehutu-FNL (FNL) reached an impasse last week after the FNL went underground, complaining of biased mediation and failed promises. The FNL said that a lack of progress with the Joint Verification Monitoring Mechanism (JVMM), set up under the ceasefire agreement signed last year, led it to abandon the process.
The highly regarded head of the government’s Aids unit, Nomonde Xundu, resigned but withdrew her notice pending negotiations with the health department’s director-general Thami Mseleku. Four sources within government and civil society confirmed independently that Xundu was on her way out.
There is standing room only in Room 3 of the urology clinic at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital. About 30 young men and a handful of mothers with male children listen attentively as Sitali Mulope, clinical officer, briefs them on the benefits of surgically removing the foreskin of the penis.