A key provision in the current Immigration Act, which has led to much confusion over the recording of travel by South African citizens abroad, is to be dumped. Prior to the coming into force of the Act, the movement control system recorded the entry and exit of everyone who left or entered the country.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=119707">Minister calls for immigration review</a>
The African National Congress won a by-election in Umtata on Wednesday — the fifth upset victory by the party in the past few weeks — over General Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement. In other by-elections on Wednesday, the Democratic Alliance snatched a municipal ward in Somerset East from the ANC.
The carpet that for many years carried visible stains of the blood from the stabbing of South Africa’s apartheid Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd has been removed from the Old House of Assembly at Parliament in Cape Town. Veteran politician Helen Suzman on Wednesday said she wondered what "had been swept under it over the years".
South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance says the resignation announced at the weekend of National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka proves the point that it is unwise to put high profile African National Congress politicians into jobs which require impartiality.
Experience the world over has demonstrated that economic growth and development requires strong guidance from the state "and a certain level of intervention in certain sectors", South Africa’s ruling African National Congress says on its website.
A Dedicated Banks Bill will be submitted to the South African Parliament in October this year and details of its contents will be released then, says South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. In June, Manuel said new laws would be on the table to create the second tier of commercial banks better equipped to serve millions of South Africans who were largely overlooked by large commercial banks.
The proposed system of electronic prisoner tagging has been put in abeyance by South Africa’s Department of Correctional Services "as one of its long-term projects", says Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour. But the Democratic Alliance says this is code for the end of the programme.
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.
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.
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.
South Africa’s new Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk on Monday stood by his department’s anti-mining stance towards proposed dune mining in the Pondoland region of the Eastern Cape — but he is set to see the king of the Pondos to discuss the matter.
South Africa will announce its decision on the second national operator (SNO) of fixed line telephone services "before the end of August this year", said Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe- Casaburri on Monday, speaking at her Budget vote in Parliament.
Quite a number of medical doctors had failed a course in dispensing required in terms of new legislation, says South Africa’s Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. Tshabalala-Msimang said that some doctors who had been dispensing for years had failed the course by a wide-margin.
Both the ruling African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance have named their members who will serve on an ad hoc committee to consider the public protector’s probe into a complaint against the national director of public prosecutions.
The South African government’s view on the resolution of the problems of Iraq were similar to those when it came to Zimbabwe, South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma explained on Friday. Dlamini-Zuma indicated that South Africa had its own views on the situation in Zimbabwe, but she was not certain whether these were shared by others in the sub-region.
The South African Revenue Service (Sars) customs division has raked in R200-million in extra revenue from the oil industry in the past financial year, MPs were told on Wednesday. There has been limited auditing of the oil industry’s accounts but this has now changed considerably.
One of the major issues holding up the announcement of South Africa’s much-delayed taxi recapitalisation programme is an assessment of the costs of the subsidy scheme, which applies to the purchase of the envisaged new 18- and 35-seater taxis. The government has for five years been struggling to implement the programme.
Strategic plans quantifying the size of the South African labour force in the next decade are expected to be in place by 2005, says the deputy director general for public finance in the national treasury, Andrew Donaldson. Donaldson said the modeling work on how to reduce unemployment over the next decade "has not been worked out in detail yet".
New Minister of Education Naledi Pandor has acknowledged that it going to take a little longer than the end of the financial year to ensure that there is no longer a school pupil learning under a tree. She was referring to President Thabo Mbeki’s promise that the problem will be eradicated by the end of the financial year.
South African Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang took aim on Thursday at doctors for holding protests against legislation regulating their dispensing of medicines. Doctors marched on Parliament earlier this year in protest. About 500 doctors — of about 8Â 500 involved — have completed dispensing courses and obtained licences.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=66984">’Hey Manto, get off drugs'</a>
South Africa’s most trouble-prone area is the sprawling township of Khayelitsha, situated not far from Cape Town International airport, says South Africa’s Minister of Safety and Security, Charles Nqakula. Speaking at a media briefing, Nqakula said the township is the number-one spot in the entire country for murder, rape and serious and violent assault.
South Africa’s Minister of Provincial and Local Government, Sydney Mufamadi, says R5,9-billion has been spent on rural upliftment nodes and R4,2-billion on their urban counterparts in the past financial year. The upliftment involves the provision of housing, free basic service delivery as well as food security and land restitution.
Departmental budget votes are scheduled to dominate the next few weeks of parliamentary activity following the official opening of Parliament by President Thabo Mbeki — and the delivery of the State of the Nation address — on Friday. The State of the Nation address will be debated next week.
Key opposition parties in the South African Parliament are expecting President Thabo Mbeki not to divert too much from his State of the Nation address delivered in February when he reopens the newly elected Parliament on Friday. A Democratic Alliance spokesperson said "he probably won’t mention HIV/Aids or escalating crime levels".
South African Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin has been urged by the official opposition to break his silence on the government’s privatisation plans. A Democratic Alliance spokesperson said: "Too many contradictory messages have been sent into the market place and investors are rightly feeling confused and uncertain."
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress has appointed a member from its own ranks to fill the post of chairperson of the key parliamentary watchdog committee, the standing committee on public accounts. Traditionally the public accounts committee has been chaired by a member of an opposition party.
An urgent meeting of the Inkatha Freedom Party’s (IFP) national council was being held in Durban late on Wednesday evening to discuss the party’s future in national government — after Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi was left out of the new cabinet line-up.
A tough municipal by-election in a Chatsworth, Durban, ward will see the African National Congress-aligned Minority Front — led by new KwaZulu-Natal sports MEC Amichand Rajbansi — fight it out to retain a marginal seat from a determined challenge from the official opposition Democratic Alliance.
The official opposition Democratic Alliance has selected its team representing the nine provinces in the National Council of Provinces but former Western Cape premier and former Cape Town mayor Gerald Morkel failed to be selected for one of two Western Cape seats available.
African National Congress leader Thabo Mbeki has been re-elected as President of the Republic of South Africa for his second term by the National Assembly. He was elected unopposed on Friday after nominations were called for by Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=58684">Where will Ginwala go?</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=58668">Mbete, Mahlangu elected to top posts</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=58678">New Speaker wants more natural debate</a>
Former speaker of the National Assembly Frene Ginwala looks set to be deployed by the organisation but her decision not to take the oath of office as a newly re-elected MP on Friday appears not to have been the decision of the ruling African National Congress.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=58668">Mbete, Mahlangu elected to top posts</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=58678">New Speaker wants more natural debate</a>
Frene Ginwala, who has been Speaker of the National Assembly for the past 10 years since democracy, got the axe on Thursday from ruling African National Congress MPs. The speaker will be replaced by the Deputy Speaker, Baleka Mbete, who has served in that position since the first Parliament.