South African Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin has promised that he will intervene in the matter of the relocation of a tank farm operated by petroleum companies at the Port Elizabeth harbour. Erwin has indicated that while the National Port Authority would not pay for relocation, it would provide land at the new Coega port.
A team from the national Department of Social Development is visiting the Western Cape to outline the processes of the establishment of the South African Social Security Agency, the government news agency said on Monday. The agency will ultimately take over from provinces the payment of social welfare grants.
The African National Congress is trying to achieve a messy compromise between state intervention in the economy and underpinning an open market, says Democratic Alliance leader. Leon also took issue with the South African Communist Party’s Blade Nzimande, who has disagreed with those saying the ruling party’s economic policies have shifted.
Two fires broke out at exactly the same time in two buildings at the New Somerset hospital in Cape Town on Friday morning, emergency officials said. Officials suspect they were started on purpose. The fires were put out within 20 minutes of firefighters arriving on the scene.
The president of the transitional government in Burundi, Domitien Ndayizeye, and representatives of three of the country’s main political parties will be in South Africa this weekend to discuss power-sharing arrangements. In a parallel event, women of South Africa will be holding talks with Burundi women.
Levi Strauss & Co is planning to continue its expansion in South Africa, the group revealed on Friday, despite already being able to claim a 27% share of the local denim market. Levi’s South Africa manufactures its clothing locally and also exports garments to the United States.
A Companies Amendment Bill, which will be piloted through Parliament by Minister of Trade and Industry Mandisi Mpahlwa, has been tabled in Parliament. The Bill deals with such matters as the circumstances under which "persons" are disqualified from being directors of companies.
A devastating report on the state of South Africa’s Road Accident Fund (RAF), which shows that there is no indication that the deteriorating trend of the accumulated deficit will subside, has been tabled in Parliament. The RAF’s accumulated deficit on March 31 2003 was R23,026-billion, compared with R16,6-billion on March 31 2002.
The Freedom Front Plus has called for a national debate on the future of affirmative action in South Africa. The party says that studies carried out in other parts of the world show that quotas based along racial lines do not work, and that an alternative must be sought and implemented.
The residents of Cape Town claim to have found an effective new weapon in South Africa’s battle against crime. Crime levels have reportedly tumbled in two neighbourhoods where residents go on patrol armed with nothing more than filthy looks. The groups stop and stare in silence at suspected prostitutes and drug dealers.
Unusually dry weather in the Western Cape has prompted officials to consider imposing water restrictions in the region. Water levels are worryingly low and restrictions may be ”inevitable”, according to Rashid Khan, regional director of the Western Cape Department of Water Affairs and Forestry.
The Eastern Cape department of health on Monday vowed to continue its crackdown on illegal circumcision schools after three officials were stoned and their vehicle damaged. Monday’s attack took place during a raid on illegal initiation schools in Luthuthu village, near Cradock, said a departmental spokesperson.
The South African rand, along with the Turkish lira, is among the most vulnerable currencies to a possible reversal in risk appetite among investors, according to international investment bank Lehman Brothers. Investor sentiment could be tested after the upcoming release of United States inflation data, a recent research note said.
Democratic Alliance MP Roy Jankielsohn has vowed to challenge Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula to explain, in Parliament, the high number of suspects escaping from police custody. Jankielsohn says that Nqakula and his department are accountable for the high number of escapees.
The Democratic Alliance on Friday renewed its call for South African Airways (SAA) to be privatised. ”Transnet has provided the Public Investment Corporation with a very sweet deal by issuing a secret corporate bond this week,” DA public enterprises spokesperson Ian Davidson said in a statement.
The African National Congress is playing a ”cat and mouse” game with minority groups, and in the process making young people despondent, according to Freedom Front Plus labour spokesperson Willie Spies. The FF+ endeavours to free young people of the limitations of affirmative action.
The South African Parliament has welcomed the decision by the African Union to make South Africa the permanent seat of the Pan-African Parliament. ”We shall work hard to make the institution serve its purposes as a true African Parliament,” Speaker Baleka Mbete said in a statement on Thursday.
In what will be the first major inner-city development in South Africa for a black economic empowerment group, South Africa’s Coessa Holdings — acting in partnership with a Johannesburg businessman — plans to develop a new, R390-million residential, commercial and retail lifestyle centre in Cape Town, to be known as Icon.
The Catholic Church is planning a further roll-out of its anti-retroviral (ARV) programme for HIV and Aids patients in South Africa, the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference said on Tuesday. In February this year the church started rolling out its programme to provide HIV and Aids ARV therapy at 22 of its facilities.
Leading alcoholic beverages groups Diageo, Heineken and Namibia Breweries have finally unveiled details surrounding their new South African joint venture company, which will trade under the name of brandhouse. The new company will be a formidable competitor in the local market, boasting sales of about R3-billion a year.
A member of listed financial services group Alexander Forbes, Lane Clark & Peacock LLP, has acquired Libera AG, Switzerland’s largest independent employee benefits consulting business, from Ernst & Young for a consideration of approximately 20-million Swiss francs (R98-million).
South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma has urged the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) to exercise strong oversight of local governments to improve service delivery as a matter of national importance. He was speaking at an NCOP workshop in Cape Town on Monday focusing on challenges facing the council.
The third assembly of African Union heads of state and government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, next week will have to pay serious attention to providing funds to enable the AU to function as it should, South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday in his weekly online newsletter, ANC Today.
A doctor shortage has led to the Red Cross Children’s hospital closing its doors to patients requiring medical emergency assistance on a number of evenings. To address the situation in the long term, the hospital called for the quicker processing of work permits for foreign doctors at the home affairs department and registration through the Health Professions Council.
The New National Party on Thursday warned ”certain individuals and institutions” that they are exposing themselves, through unfounded accusations, to possible civil and criminal defamation claims. This came after two Democratic Alliance Western Cape MPLs laid charges of bribery and/or corruption against senior NNP members.
Two Democratic Alliance Western Cape MPLs on Thursday laid charges of bribery and/or corruption against members of the New National Party, including party leader and Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk. The charges relate to planning permission in exchange for donations to the NNP.
NNP calls charges ‘sewer politics’
The Western Cape public works and education departments may sell off some state and school properties to raise money for a school-building initiative that could cost R500-million. The provincial government is looking at alternative means of generating funds to build new schools.
Political parties should be funded equitably by the state and private companies, Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille said on Wednesday. ”Fifty percent of the funds should be allocated on an equal basis to all political parties,” De Lille said in a speech prepared for delivery at a meeting on party funding in Cape Town.
Ministerial intervention has finally led to the release of documents by Armscor to researchers for the Swiss National Science Foundation project on Swiss-South African military relations under apartheid. ”The requesters had to threaten Armscor with legal action,” said the director of the South African History Archives.
The possible exit of Deputy South African Reserve Bank Governor Gill Marcus follows "close on the heels" of the departure of Barbara Hogan as chairperson of the National Assembly finance portfolio committee, Democratic Alliance shadow finance minister Raenette Taljaard said on Wednesday.
The conservative African Christian Democratic Party has come out firing in support of a Christian picket against the Firearms Control Act outside Parliament on Wednesday. The picket was aimed at expressing opposition to the Firearms Control Act, which comes into operation at midnight on Wednesday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=117976">Gun owners ‘hold court to ransom'</a>
After more than a decade on the beat in central Cape Town, the City Community Patrol Board must cease its activities by Friday, according to the South African Police Service. However, there was unhappiness with the closure of the rent-a-cops, as they were commonly known, with 70 employees not absorbed into the police.