Amateur radio operators offered on Thursday to step in if monitoring of shipping emergency calls is affected by a Telkom strike. The strike, by staff at Telkom’s maritime radio facility in Milnerton, Cape Town, is set to start at midnight. Hans van de Groenendaal, spokesperson for the South African Radio League, said the league had contacted rescue authorities to offer its services.
The City of Cape Town has approved a change to its fire hazard by-laws that will make it easier to prosecute people who toss cigarette butts out of their car windows. The amendment, passed at this week’s council meeting, means the prosecution no longer has the burden of proving who chucked the butt.
Telkom has put contingency plans in place ahead of a planned strike in its maritime radio division, the parastatal said on Wednesday. It was reacting to a claim by trade union Solidarity that the strike, due to start at midnight on Wednesday, could cripple the monitoring of shipping emergency messages.
Elements in the African National Congress (ANC) are planning another bid to make Cape Town ungovernable, city mayor Helen Zille said on Wednesday. Tabling the city’s R20-billion budget, Zille said Cape Town might declare an intergovernmental dispute over the R500-million it spends every year on unfunded mandates — functions the province should be performing.
Lawyers acting for Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown say they are going to keep a close eye on curators as they unravel the affairs of the troubled asset-management firm. ”We intend to watch the curators closely because our client’s sole focus is to ensure that investors are paid in full,” Brown’s Johannesburg-based attorney, John Hunter, said on Wednesday.
Cape Town’s rates and service charges are to increase by an average of 15%, mayor Helen Zille said on Wednesday. She said electricity charges would increase by an average of 5,6%, solid waste removal charges by 11%, and water and sanitation by 19%.
The terms of a probe into whether Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool misled the provincial legislature were amended on Tuesday afternoon, in a motion supported by all parties in the house. An ad-hoc committee, to be named by speaker Shaun Byneveldt on Wednesday, will now inquire only into whether the legislature ”has been misled”.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad on Tuesday again rejected suggestions that economic sanctions should be imposed as a means to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe. Briefing the media at Parliament, he said: ”It should now be clear that those who imposed so-called smart sanctions have themselves questioned the effectiveness of such actions.”
Fidentia’s curators say they have uncovered evidence of a ”multiplicity of wrongdoings” in the troubled asset-management group. They also say investors will face an estimated shortfall of about R1-billion once Fidentia’s affairs have been sorted out. The revelations are contained in a report filed in the Cape High Court as part of an application for a final curatorship order.
The South African Airways (SAA) Bill, which converts the national airline into a public company, got the nod of the second chamber of Parliament, the National Council of Provinces, on Tuesday. The SAA Bill has already received the nod of the National Assembly.
Uthingo’s contract as the national lottery operator expires within five days, but South African Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa "still seems to have no idea" how to lead his department out of the quagmire following the Pretoria High Court’s reversal of his decision to award the licence to the Gidani consortium, the official opposition said on Tuesday.
A multi-faceted public transport system action plan, involving integrated metered taxis and long-distance public transport, has been announced by Transport Minister Jeff Radebe. Noting that about R9-billion has been allocated of the medium-term budget to public transport, Radebe told journalists that the aim is to create "integrated rapid public transport networks".
A curatorship order against troubled asset-management firm Fidentia was made final by a Cape High Court judge on Tuesday. The company was placed under provisional curatorship at the beginning of last month after a Financial Services Board probe reported alleged misappropriation of hundreds of millions of rands.
Zimbabwe’s economic problems "are not technical", South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni told South African MPs on Tuesday. He said: "In other words, it is not possible for the central bank in Zimbabwe to resolve the inflation problems unless, for example, the fiscal policy position changes."
Some exceptional items gave rise to the growth in the deficit on the current account of the balance of payments towards the end of last year, but this has been "easily financed by capital inflows", South African Reserve Bank (SARB) Governor Tito Mboweni told MPs on Tuesday.
An ad-hoc committee to inquire whether Premier Ebrahim Rasool misled the provincial legislature will be named by Wednesday, Western Cape speaker Shaun Byneveldt said. A March 13 call by the Democratic Alliance for an investigation into the matter was unexpectedly supported by Rasool’s African National Congress, and by other parties in the legislature.
The number of jobs created by South African business has increased by 7% this year, a survey released on Monday has shown. According to the latest Grant Thornton employment-growth survey, the percentage represents a significant improvement from last year’s employment figures.
The last two of the politicians allegedly involved in the ”Travelgate” travel-voucher scam made their first appearance in the Cape Town Regional Court on Monday. This follows a Cape High Court order last week that they go on trial in the regional court, rather than the high court.
South Africa is headed for a national bus strike on Wednesday following a breakdown in wage talks, according to the South African Bus Employers’ Association (SABEA). ”Such strike action has the potential of seriously disrupting bus services and leaving many thousands of commuters without public transport,” SABEA president Barry Gie said in a statement on Monday.
South Africa’s no-fees schools have been allocated R2,95-billion for the 2007 school year, according to Education Minister Naledi Pandor. Replying to a parliamentary question from the Democratic Alliance’s George Boinamo, Pandor reported that this involved 13Â 901 schools and just over five million pupils.
New approaches and tools in dealing with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) must be sought, the South African branch of international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) said on Friday. ”MDR and now [extensively-drug resistant] TB are the tip of an iceberg of failing strategies to control TB,” the organisation said.
President Thabo Mbeki has ”race myopia” and his short-sightedness is costing South Africa and the subcontinent dearly, says Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon. ”On the three overriding crises that have occurred on his presidential watch — HIV/Aids, crime and Zimbabwe — the president’s steadfast refusal to take necessary action is traceable to a blinkered attitude towards race.”
How South Africa’s vast army of unemployed, untrained youth can be fitted quickly into the country’s economy is of great concern, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Thursday while briefing the media in Cape Town on progress made in implementing the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa.
Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown was released from custody on Thursday after his R1-million bail was unexpectedly paid on his behalf. His advocate Klaus von Lieres handed the cheque to Scorpions prosecutors moments after a Cape Town magistrate ruled that property belonging to a third party was acceptable as surety for bail.
Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown was back in court on Thursday morning as his battle to be released on bail continued. A Cape Town magistrate granted him R1-million bail on Monday, but ordered that any surety he offered had to be approved by the Scorpions.
The South African Cabinet on Tuesday said it was extremely concerned over the unfolding violence in Zimbabwe, but repeated that helping solve that country’s problems had to be through dialogue. Government communications head Themba Maseko said government’s primary worry at this stage was the reported abuse of human rights in Zimbabwe.
Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown will be spending Human Rights Day behind bars after the Scorpions and his lawyers failed to agree on Tuesday on how his R1-million bail was to be paid. He will be back in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Thursday morning for what is expected to be an application for a change in bail conditions.
The South African Cabinet agreed on Tuesday to extend the deployment of South African National Defence Force (SANDF) soldiers in various peacekeeping missions on the African continent. The deployments include 750 SANDF personnel in Sudan under the banner of the African Union Mission in Sudan.
Construction of Cape Town’s Green Point Stadium got off to a symbolic start on Tuesday when city mayor Helen Zille and Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool turned the first sods. The ceremony took place on the Metropolitan golf course where the 68 000-seat stadium is to be built.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the global nuclear watchdog, is cooperating with South Africa to develop a security plan ahead of the 2010 Soccer World Cup to avert any ”dirty bomb” attack, a government official said on Tuesday. Tselio Maqubela, South Africa’s chief nuclear director, said security at existing nuclear facilities met international standards.
The articulation of the affirmative-action programme in South Africa as a ”jobs-for-pals” scheme by the ruling African National Congress is doing ”immeasurable damage” to the South African economy, Independent Democrats (ID) leader Patricia de Lille has argued.
Two former MPs will be tried separately from four travel agents in the Travelgate parliamentary travel-voucher case, the Cape High Court ruled on Monday. Mnyanmezeli Booi and Antoinette Versfeld will be tried in the Cape Town Regional Court. The four travel agents will be tried in the high court.