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/ 26 November 2007
The possible breach of the parole conditions of former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni was under investigation after he was arrested for drunken driving, the Correctional Services Ministry said on Monday. Yengeni was arrested in Cape Town on Sunday evening on a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol, police said.
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/ 26 November 2007
Phone lines have been cut at East Rand offices of the Department of Home Affairs — allegedly due to unpaid phone bills, a home affairs official said on Monday. Regional home affairs manager for Springs Themba Ndebele said the lines had been out of order since last week. ”This is crisis point,” said Ndebele. ”We can’t function.”
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/ 26 November 2007
The Gauteng health department should sell off its 66 houses and plough the proceeds into providing better healthcare, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday. This comes after Gauteng health minister Brian Hlongwa revealed that his department was conducting an audit of its houses.
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/ 26 November 2007
Manenberg police station in Cape Town is one of the best-run in the country, while those at Verena in Mpumalanga, KwaMashu in KwaZulu-Natal, and Inyibiba and Mdantsane in the Eastern Cape are among the worst. These are the findings of a Democratic Alliance study highlighting South Africa’s police stations and the service they offer.
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/ 24 November 2007
Journalist Charlene Smith on Friday demanded a public apology from Mark Gevisser, author of the book Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred, saying he had published ”serious inaccuracies”. She was referring to an article by her, published in the Washington Post, that Gevisser quoted in his biography of Mbeki.
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/ 23 November 2007
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African National Congress president Thabo Mbeki and his deputy, Jacob Zuma, are both unimpressive candidates for the ANC leadership, with a tendency to flout democratic principles, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said in her weekly online letter on Friday
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/ 21 November 2007
President Thabo Mbeki’s announcement on Wednesday of a ”window of opportunity” for people convicted of alleged political offences before June 16 1999 has been warmly welcomed by most political parties. Pan Africanist Congress leader Motsoko Pheko hailed Mbeki’s announcement as an act of courage against odds.
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/ 20 November 2007
The City of Cape Town’s spy saga took another turn on Tuesday with Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille deciding on legal action against controversial expelled councillor Badih Chaaban. De Lille met police on Tuesday afternoon in connection with the alleged illegal surveillance of politicians in the city.
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/ 19 November 2007
European Union agriculture experts have recommended a ban on South African ostrich meat, but the Department of Agriculture says it has no official knowledge of this threat to the R1,2-billion export industry. ”As I speak now, I don’t have any official correspondence [from the EU],” the department’s chief communications director said on Monday.
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/ 19 November 2007
Councillors other than Badih Chaaban may also have been under illegal surveillance in Cape Town’s spy scandal and police have ”a lot of information and detail” to back this up, Independent Democrats deputy leader Simon Grindrod was quoted as saying on Monday.
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/ 16 November 2007
A Pretoria High Court judge has reserved judgement in the Mail & Guardian‘s legal challenge of a controversial 2005 report by Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana about his investigation into the Oilgate scandal. The M&G wants to have the report overturned and rewritten.
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/ 16 November 2007
The increase in the number of cases where the Eastern Cape provincial government is contesting the right of poor citizens to access social grants suggests that the majority party is at war with the poor, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Friday, writing in her weekly newsletter.
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/ 15 November 2007
An official inquiry has concluded that Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool misled his legislature, a source in the legislature said on Thursday. The multiparty inquiry was set up to investigate contradictory statements last year on spending on security upgrades to the home of community safety minister Leonard Ramatlakane.
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/ 15 November 2007
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has urged the public to hold government to account by participating in the party’s process of evaluating Cabinet ministers. Briefing the media during the launch of the party’s Cabinet report card website, DA parliamentary leader Sandra Botha said the process accorded the public a rare opportunity to rate government ministers.
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/ 15 November 2007
Matatiele residents were set to march through Pietermaritzburg on Thursday to the KwaZulu-Natal legislature in protest over their incorporation into the Eastern Cape. Matatiele-Maluti Mass Action Organising Committee chairperson Mandla Galo said that at least 45 minibus taxis had transported residents to Pietermaritzburg.
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/ 15 November 2007
Piet Koornhof, who died in a Stellenbosch frail care centre on Monday at the age of 82, following a stroke, was a man of contradictions. Seen as a ”verligte” in successive apartheid-era Cabinets, the posts he accepted carried responsibility for some of apartheid’s most bizarre and inhumane policies.
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/ 13 November 2007
An apartheid-era Cabinet minister and a former ambassador to the United States, Piet Koornhof, died in his home town of Stellenbosch on Monday afternoon. He was 82. Koornhof’s son Johan said on Tuesday afternoon that his father had been a ”passionate” man who had a ”great gusto for life”.
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/ 13 November 2007
There is a personnel shortage of more than 50% at the intensive care unit (ICU) at the Helen Joseph Hospital, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. ”The Gauteng Health Department claims that the ICU ‘works optimally’, but I don’t see how this can be the case with a 54% vacancy rate,” said Bloom.
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/ 13 November 2007
Gauteng faces huge classroom shortages and the government does not have the resources to cope, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. DA spokesperson David Quail said that in the next four to six years, the Gauteng department of education will require 9 566 additional classrooms.
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/ 12 November 2007
The government has failed to take necessary steps to ensure learners are protected against the escalating violence in schools, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday. DA spokesperson on safety and security Dianne Kohler-Barnard said violence in South African schools has reached unacceptable levels that require immediate intervention.
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/ 12 November 2007
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Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille should focus on her own party rather than concern herself with the African National Congress’s (ANC) business, Deputy Defence Minister Mluleki George said on Monday. He called Zille’s proposal to postpone the ANC conference in December ”ridiculous”.
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/ 12 November 2007
President Thabo Mbeki has denied that the government is behind the Koni Media Holdings’ bid to buy media giant Johncom. He described as ”irrational” the media storm around the bid by Koni — which is partly owned by Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa, presidential political adviser Titus Mafolo and former chief of protocol Billy Modise.
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/ 11 November 2007
Top Land Bank officials have siphoned off more than R2-billion — meant for farmers — to fund their close friends’ and associates’ ventures, the <i>Sunday Times</i> reported. The money was reportedly used for luxury golf estates, a sugar mill, equestrian estates and residential developments. The fraud was revealed in a forensic audit by Deloitte, which was handed to the Cabinet this week.
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/ 9 November 2007
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille has named a replacement advocate to conduct an official probe into the city’s spy affair. The first person she chose for the job, advocate Geoff Budlender, withdrew over a possible conflict of interest. Zille has now asked advocate Josie Jordaan of the Cape Bar to lead the inquiry.
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/ 8 November 2007
With just more than a month to the African National Congress presidential election, Jacob Zuma will be waiting to see whether the National Prosecuting Authority will recharge him for corruption. Court rulings on Thursday clarified the status of searches and documents related to the investigation against him concerning alleged corruption in the arms deal.
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/ 7 November 2007
A forensic audit report into the financial management of the Land Bank is to be referred to the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions for ”further investigation”, the Land Affairs Ministry said on Wednesday. This was among recommendations made by the Cabinet after consideration of the report, it said in a statement.
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/ 6 November 2007
The issue of floor-crossing should be resolved within months, says MP Vytjie Mentor, who chairs a parliamentary committee dealing with the matter. ”We don’t think that floor-crossing strengthens democracy. We have not seen empirical proof that it strengthens democracy,” she told a joint meeting with the home affairs committee on Tuesday.
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/ 6 November 2007
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The African National Congress (ANC) will not financially benefit from a business lounge set up on the sidelines of its national conference in Polokwane in December. ”We, as a private company will decide what we want to do with the money,” said Nic Wolpe, the project organiser for Network Lounge.
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/ 5 November 2007
Advocate Geoff Budlender will not be conducting the investigation into the City of Cape Town’s ”spy” affair, mayor Helen Zille announced on Monday. ”It has come to my attention that advocate Geoffrey Budlender previously provided advice to the legal adviser of the speaker regarding a potential interdict of councillor [Badih] Chaaban,” she said.
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/ 5 November 2007
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=ancconference_home"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/321750/Icon_ANCconference.gif" align=left border=0></a>A reported networking lounge at this year’s African National Congress (ANC) national conference could set taxpayers back by up to R40-million, the Democratic Alliance warned on Monday. Media reports said that big business is to fork out R5-million for a seat on the sidelines of the ANC’s national conference in Polokwane next month.
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/ 5 November 2007
Koni Media Holdings on Sunday denied government involvement in its bid to take over media and entertainment company Johncom. ”Koni Media strongly denies any involvement of the Presidency or any other government structures in its bid for a 100% stake in Johncom,” said group CEO Groovin Nchabeleng.
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/ 2 November 2007
There will be no cover-up in the alleged spy scandal involving the surveillance of Cape Town councillors, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille vowed on Friday. ”Let me be clear. There will be no cover-up in this matter. If anyone in the city or the DA has broken any law, the police must lay a charge and we will deal with it head-on,” she said.