Eight Cape Town traffic officials face criminal charges over what the city said on Tuesday are 229 ”potentially fraudulent” learner’s licences and roadworthy certificates. The irregularities, all committed during the last three months of 2006, were uncovered by the city’s internal investigators and the police.
Cape Town’s mayor says vigilance will be needed to sustain democracy in South Africa after bruising battles with the African National Congress in her first year leading the sole bastion of opposition to the ruling party. "So far, we have passed the test," Helen Zille said in an interview with the media ahead of the March 15 anniversary of her installation as mayor.
Fidentia’s interim curators failed to arrive at a meeting with about 50 former Fidentia employees at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA) on Monday. In a statement on behalf of the employees, Fidentia’s former spokesperson, Ross Edwards, said the curators — Dines Gihwala and George Papadakis — were informed of the meeting, but failed to appear.
A Cape High Court judge on Monday criticised the police for their lack of professionalism at the scene of the murder of Stellenbosch student Inge Lotz. ”In my 22 years on the Bench, I have never seen anything so bad,” Judge Deon van Zyl remarked as it emerged that a key piece of evidence had been moved.
Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon on Monday called on President Thabo Mbeki to urgently review the government’s approach to Zimbabwe after Sunday’s arrest of opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The South Africa government should condemn this latest crackdown on a legitimate democratic protest, he said.
South Africa’s Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has scored a major breakthrough with the taxi business fraternity in what could culminate in the registration of more than 40Â 000 taxi operators in Gauteng alone, according to a release from the Labour Department on Monday.
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress and the official opposition Democratic Alliance have been urged by Independent Democrats member of Parliament Lance Greyling to ”give back the money” they received from slain businessman Brett Kebble ”without a fight”.
President Thabo Mbeki on Friday mooted the possibility of amending the South African and African National Congress constitutions to provide for better gender equality. He said the party’s decision after the 2006 local government elections that its elected municipal council representatives will be constituted on the basis of gender equality had been eminently correct.
The seemingly all-embracing power of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) needs to be tempered by a strong alternative to ensure that South Africa’s democracy ”is strengthened and protected”, says official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon.
Opposition parties have vented their anger at the Correctional Services department’s scathing attack on the National Assembly’s correctional services committee. The committee this week rejected the department’s report on Annanias Mathe’s escape from Pretoria’s C-Max prison.
The Cape Town city council on Thursday afternoon approved a R2,9-billion budget for its 2010 Soccer World Cup stadium at Green Point. The approval brings to an end most of the uncertainty that has surrounded the funding of the 68Â 000-seater structure, destined to host a semifinal.
President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday officially welcomed five diplomats appointed to represent their respective countries in South Africa. The diplomats are from the republics of India, Seychelles and Suriname, the Kingdom of Denmark and the Sultanate of Oman.
Western Cape provincial minister of education Cameron Dugmore was discussing projects when he visited the school where former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni is doing his community service, his office said on Thursday. Yengeni is working at the Siyazama school for mentally challenged children in Guguletu.
An elderly man who shot dead his teenage lover after receiving a suspended sentence for assaulting her was on Thursday jailed for an effective 15 years. Moegamat Saiat Patrick (66) was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment on charges of murder, statutory rape and the illegal possession of a gun and ammunition.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Thursday accused the government of stubbornly refusing to admit that the affirmative action policy is at the core of South Africa’s skills crisis, and proposed ways to address the crisis. DA spokesperson Mark Lowe emphasised, however, that the DA is not opposed to affirmative action to redress the imbalances of the past.
Accountants and IT experts will assist the Department of Home Affairs to address problems threatening to bring the department to its knees, Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said on Thursday. Briefing the media in Cape Town, she said a support-intervention team found that the department had serious management problems.
South Africa is to pay a portion of Liberia’s debt to the African Development Bank (ADB), an amount exceeding R26-million, government communications head Themba Maseko said on Thursday. Briefing the media after the Cabinet’s fortnightly meeting on Wednesday, he said the meeting had approved a request from the ADB”.
South Africa’s Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa consulted a legal team on Wednesday evening about the decision of the Pretoria High Court to set aside the awarding of the national lottery licence to Gidani, government spokesperson Themba Maseko said on Thursday.
A shortage of raw materials and procurement issues may delay the construction of stadiums for the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa, a government official said on Wednesday. Malcolm Simpson, deputy director general at the Treasury’s World Cup unit, said a shortage of skills, a lack of materials and rising costs could jeopardise the increasingly tight schedule.
A proposed fuel levy in the Western Cape of 10 cents a litre will not have the Inkatha Freedom Party’s (IFP) support, unless there is clarity on where the money will go, party spokesperson Eric Lucas said on Wednesday. ”For the IFP there are a lot of questions surrounding this proposed fuel increase,” he said.
The government’s proposed elephant-management regulations could hobble South Africa’s ”notorious” elephant-back tourism industry, the International Fund for Animal Welfare said on Wednesday. The draft rules propose stopping the capture from the wild of anything other than genuine orphan elephant calves.
Investment management firm Allan Gray has sold off just under 19% of its shareholding in a black economic empowerment (BEE) deal, the company announced on Wednesday. It also said the firm’s founder, Allan Gray, had donated R1,1-billion from the sale to support initiatives that include comprehensive funding for university students wanting to become entrepreneurs.
The building of Cape Town’s 2010 Soccer World Cup stadium is back on track with a R185-million funding guarantee from banking group Investec. The city put the R2,9-billion project on hold last week. Mayor Helen Zille said on Wednesday that Investec had guaranteed the outstanding R185-million as payment on a post-2010 operating lease on the stadium, to be built at Green Point.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has challenged the Department of Corrections to truly fulfil its mandate of openness and transparency by revealing former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni’s parole conditions. The DA has officially requested Yengeni’s parole conditions from the department, DA spokesperson James Selfe said on Wednesday.
African governments are beginning to acknowledge that Zimbabwe has slipped into chaos, Democratic Alliance (DA) chairperson Joe Seremane said on Wednesday. He said Zambian Foreign Affairs Minister Mundia Sikatana "should be … supported in his drive to get his country’s counterparts in the Southern African Development Community to stop pretending ‘all is well in Zimbabwe’".
A Cape Town man has invited the media to watch him try to cross a busy city street during afternoon rush hour on Wednesday. Inok Zwane says he wants to highlight the dangers pedestrians face when they cross Buitengracht Street at the spot where two British tourists were killed when they were hit by a car last month.
Some in the ruling African National Congress want to ensconce affirmative action as a permanent measure and thus enforce a new form of apartheid, the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) said on Tuesday. It wants the International Labour Organisation to pay urgent attention to its complaint, submitted last year, about affirmative action.
An Elsies River resident gave birth to a 7,3kg girl at Tygerberg Hospital on Friday, believed to be the largest in the hospital’s history. The Cape Argus reported on Tuesday that Cathleen Abels said her family members were ”generally big people” — but that even she had been amazed at baby Chesner’s size.
Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown, the man at the centre of what could be South Africa’s biggest-ever corporate-investment scandal, is behind bars. He and group accountant Graham Maddock were arrested by the Scorpions at their luxurious Cape Town homes shortly after 8am on Tuesday.
Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown and fellow director Graham Maddock appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday on charges of fraud and theft involving more than R200-million. The two men were denied bail and will appear in court again on March 15 for a bail application.
Funding for subsidised housing in the Western Cape increases dramatically in the coming financial year, according to the provincial budget tabled on Tuesday. The funds the province gives to municipalities to build subsidised housing will climb by 58,4%, from R599-million in the 2006/07 budget to R949-million in 2007/08.
A rapist who intimidated his 14-year-old victim into submission with a punch to the face and then raped her three times the same night was jailed for 17 years by the Cape High Court on Monday. Lungile Deya, now 23 but 19 at the time of the offence, was seemingly shocked at the sentence and covered his face with his hands.