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/ 3 September 2004
Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri on Thursday announced a number of policy interventions to speed up growth in the information communications technology (ICT) sector, remove constraints, and reduce costs. Briefing the media at Parliament, she said from February 1 next year cellphone operators would be able to use any fixed lines they might need to provide services.
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/ 2 September 2004
The publication by ThisDay newspaper of a list of 136 MPs ”fingered” in the travel voucher investigation adds nothing of value to the public’s understanding of the issues involved, said South Africa’s ruling African National Congress on Thursday. ”The report borders on being malicious and slanderous,” said an ANC spokesperson.
Travelgate: R17m now owed
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/ 2 September 2004
The strike by some South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) members is ill-timed and has the potential of disrupting learning and teaching in schools, Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said on Thursday. Sadtu planned protest marches on Thursday in all nine provinces.
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/ 2 September 2004
A special initiative to rid Africa of vast stockpiles of poisonous, obsolete chemical pesticides posing serious health risks has been launched by the African Stockpiles Programme (ASP). ASP plans to get rid of an estimated 50 000 tons of toxic pesticides and waste, as well as tens of thousands of tons of contaminated soil.
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/ 2 September 2004
Twenty dams will be built over the next 20 years at the cost of R21-billion, Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said in Cape Town on Wednesday. Addressing the media at a post-Cabinet briefing, Sonjica said the Cabinet had approved South Africa’s first national water resource strategy, which would ensure that ”we use our nation’s limited water resources to achieve a better life for all South Africans”.
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/ 1 September 2004
The Democratic Alliance has welcomed the appointment of Silas Ramaite as the new acting National Director of Public Prosecutions, saying he has a tough crime-busting profile. Ramaite was formerly deputy to Bulelani Ngcuka, who vacated the national director post on Tuesday.
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/ 1 September 2004
Unjustified complaints about delays in the approval process of the controversial Roodefontein golf estate development made former Western Cape environmental director Ingrid Coetzee feel like she was being blackmailed, she told the Bellville Regional Court on Wednesday where she was under cross-examination for a second day.
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/ 1 September 2004
National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete, speaking to the Cape Town Press Club on Wednesday, said the amount owed to Parliament through the irregular use of parliamentary travel vouchers has risen to R17-million. Previous figures provided by Parliament amounted to between R13-million and R14-million.
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/ 1 September 2004
The Independent Democrats welcomed 18 municipal councillors — mainly from the New National Party — to its ranks on Wednesday, the first day of the two-week period for councillors to change parties without losing their seats. Former NNP Cape Town councillor David Sassman said the NNP ”sold out to the highest bidder”.
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/ 1 September 2004
Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille has sent out 6Â 500 SMSes to councillors across the country urging them to defect to her party, according to one of her MPs, Avril Harding. The defection window starts for municipal councillors runs until September 15.
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/ 1 September 2004
The African National Congress has snatched an overall majority in the 200-member Cape Town Unicity Council following the defections of 23 of the 32 New National Party councillors. Among the councillors to cross was Cape Town deputy mayor Gawa Samuels.
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Local councillors in the Western Cape claim they are victims of ”widescale intimidation” as the opportunity for them to cross the floor without losing their seats approaches. A Democratic Alliance councillor ”has 24-hour protection following [unspecified] threats. He is not sleeping at his own place.”
No words can fully describe the contribution women have made to ensure freedom in South Africa, Deputy President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday. In a speech to commemorate the 1956 women’s march, he paid special tribute to those women involved in one way or another in the struggle against apartheid.
South Africa is considering a request by Equatorial Guinea to question Mark Thatcher about his alleged involvement in a foiled coup plot in the oil-rich west African nation, a spokesperson for the Justice Department said on Monday. South Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs received Equatorial Guinea’s request to question Thatcher on Friday and conveyed it to the Justice Department on Monday.
Shocking new research exposes some of the South Africa’s drug rehabilitation centres as poorly run institutions where physical and psychological ill treatment of patients is rife. ”The government needs to take responsibility. They need to pay attention to the programmes that are offered at the centres and not just concentrate on clean kitchens and toilets as some of the main criteria,” says a researcher.
Government’s regulations concerning black economic empowerment (BEE) policies have made investment in South Africa unattractive for both foreign and local investors, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Friday. Leon said he had recently returned from a visit to the United States, where he was surprised by the frequency and urgency with which American business leaders and politicians raised concerns about BEE in South Africa.
A senior health official welcomed the Cape High Court’s decision on Friday to dismiss an application aimed at overturning the medicine-pricing regulations, saying it will benefit the South African consumer. He said the judgement means that savings realised from the manufacturing side will now be passed on to the consumer.
The United Kingdom would continue to encourage investors to take advantage of the opportunities offered by black economic empowerment, a ministerial delegation led by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Thursday. In a joint communiqué at end of the sixth meeting of the South Africa United Kingdom Bilateral Forum, the two countries welcomed the continuing increase in trade.
The minister of communications has announced that the licence to provide public switched telecommunications services — the second national operator (SNO) — will be granted on September 17. WIP Investments Nine and Two Telecom Consortium will each hold 24,5% of a new company, SepCo, which will hold 51% of the equity share capital of the SNO.
South African Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has been urged not to wait until the medium-term budget policy statement in October to announce a relaxation of exchange controls. Democratic Alliance finance spokesperson Raenette Taljaard said important initiatives "should be announced when the market is ready for them".
The official opposition Democratic Alliance has been defeated in Vanderbiljpark — until now regarded as a safe seat — where it put up a ”test case” black candidate in a overwhelmingly white municipal ward. The seat — fought in a by-election on Wednesday — was won by Cobus Cato of the conservative Freedom Front Plus.
Plans to establish a Great Limpopo Transfrontier Area — almost trebling the area of land currently protected by the transfrontier park of the same name — are moving ahead, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Thursday. He was speaking at the launch of this year’s National Tourism Month.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has dismissed claims that his government supported the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the main opposition party in Zimbabwe. Straw said a total of 45-million pounds (about R539-million) was available to fund land reform in Zimbabwe should a solution be found to the political and economic crisis in that country.
The minister of health has played down the target of rolling out anti-retroviral treatment for HIV victims by the end of the year — saying most South Africans prefer to consult traditional healers first before going to a Western health facility. The government had set itself a target of treating 53 000 Aids patients this year.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), which has been meeting with African National Congress representatives in Cape Town, says it virulently opposes relaxation of exchange controls — and "speed bumps" should be put in place to protect the economy.
Mark Thatcher, son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was released on R2-million bail in the Wynberg Regional Court on Wednesday. Thatcher was arrested earlier on Wednesday by the Scorpions in connection with his alleged role in an alleged aborted coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea.
After successfully campaigning to have an ”immoral” Axe deodorant advert banned from television because it was too risqué, a Christian lobby group has now set its sights on an Elastoplast advertisement. According to ChristianView Network, a new Elastoplast advert promotes adultery and/or infidelity.
South African Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma says the burden of the funding for the African Union — including the Pan African Parliament — will fall on the biggest economy in Africa, South Africa. Asked about funding problems for the Pan African Parliament, she said there is "always a shortage of funds".
The fire that claimed the lives of three Pollsmoor inmates is only part of a cycle of violence that prison staff fear has yet to reach its bloody climax. That climax, they say, may be the stabbing of one of their own colleagues. There have been three fires in the prison’s cavernous admissions centre over the past three days, the first on Sunday and the others — including the fatal one — on Monday afternoon.
Parliament started to suspect that something was wrong with the travel-voucher system at the end of 2002 when its finance staff realised that one MP, whose home was in Vrede, was "supposedly" repeatedly travelling to Umtata, said Speaker Baleka Mbete on Tuesday during the debate on the so-called Travelgate scam.
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Noisy, low-flying helicopters, the bane of weekend walkers seeking a little peace and tranquillity within the borders of the Table Mountain National Park, may soon be a thing of the past. Draft legislation currently before Parliament aims to limit the height at which an aircraft can fly over the park, or any other protected area in South Africa, ”to a level of 2 500 feet above the highest point”.