Seeing buses full of tourists looking for a glimpse of South African poverty, squatter camp resident Lawrence Rolomana decided to try to earn a share of the cash they were spending. Bored and jobless, the 22-year-old approached the tour guides and asked: ”Can you please share your guests with us?”
The number of foreign tourists visiting South Africa has grown by 10% ahead of Tourism Month in September, Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Tuesday. ”South Africa is following the global trend with a rise in travel and tourism to our country. Overall foreign arrivals grew by 10% from January to May 2007,” he said.
Go by bike from Pietermaritzburg to the Cape and no end of people will express surprise at your undertaking. Some will offer an opinion on your sanity. On day 13, in the part of the Karoo known as the Camdeboo, this fellow stops his car and does just that. Now he gets out and introduces himself, writes the Mai & Guardian’s Kevin Davie.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Saturday she does not know who her new deputy will be. She was touring Durban’s Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital to see what improvements had taken place at the hospital’s maternity and neonatal wards where a klebsiella outbreak claimed the lives of 22 babies in 2005.
The Eastern Cape government has rejected a claim by a suspended hospital official that 200 babies have been dying every month at East London’s two largest hospitals. The former deputy manager of the East London Hospital Complex, Dr Nokuzola Ntshona, made the claim in an interview published in the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>.
Fervent efforts are being made by Nkosinathi Joyi’s camp to prevent the International Boxing Organisation (IBO) from stripping him of his mini-flyweight title — this after reports emerged that the IBO was on the verge of relieving the unbeaten East London fighter of the title for failing to defend it since winning it in November last year.
Outspoken workers in the public health sector are being gagged by the government, the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) said on Wednesday. A spokesperson said suspensions within the sector and the dismissal of the deputy health minister suggest that free speech needs ”intensive care”.
The suspension of hospital superintendent Nokuzola Ntshona has created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation among conscientious public officials, the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) said on Wednesday. ”The PSAM is gravely concerned by the precedent set by the suspension,” it said.
The Democratic Alliance has asked Eastern Cape Premier Nosimo Balindlela to place the health department under the administration of the provincial treasury. ”This will allow the province to take proper control of its finances and institute a complete review of all current appointments,” DA spokesperson Mike Waters said.
More than R45,6-million was lost by national and provincial government departments due to financial misconduct in the 2005/06 financial year, the Public Service Commission (PSC) said on Tuesday. Releasing the commission’s report on financial misconduct in government departments, PSC chairperson Stan Sangweni said there were 771 reported cases.
The 24-hour power failure at Johannesburg’s Coronation Hospital on the weekend should serve as a wake-up call on maintenance work, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday. Jack Bloom, Gauteng health spokesperson for the party, warned that hospitals in the province were at dire risk because maintenance contracts had been cancelled.
President Thabo Mbeki wrapped up his two-day imbizo in the Eastern Cape on a positive note after interacting with stakeholders, communities and different spheres of government. Spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga said Mbeki was particularly pleased with the support the Ukhahlamba district gave to a R1,5-billion PG Bison Project.
Former deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was fired for her inability to work as part of the ”collective” and for undertaking a trip to Madrid against President Thabo Mbeki’s orders. This is according to the letter Mbeki sent to Madlala-Routledge on Wednesday firing her. The Presidency released the letter on Saturday to ”prevent further speculation.”
President Thabo Mbeki made 80-year old Evelina Mokwena of Dukathole, Aliwal North, in the Eastern Cape, the proud owner of a house on Saturday. The president handed over the house to Mokwena who has lived in a shack for more than 10 years.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang never told her axed deputy Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge that she would "fix" her, her department said on Friday. "We have confirmed with the minister that no such statement was ever made," the department said in response to an earlier statement by Madlala-Routledge at a media briefing.
Sacked deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge has confirmed she was dismissed by President Thabo Mbeki for her unannounced visit to East London’s Frere Hospital and her unauthorised trip to Madrid. Addressing a press conference broadcast live on Cape Talk radio on Friday, she said she wanted the facts, ”as I see them”, to receive an airing.
South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry this week indicated that it was considering building a state-backed, but privately operated, steel mill to compete with ArcelorMittal South Africa and Highveld Steel and Vanadium. According to the National Industrial Policy Framework, the department aims to finalise the feasibility study by March 2008.
Investigators on Thursday found more human remains on an Eastern Cape farm where the Pebco Three were believed to have been buried, the National Prosecuting Authority said. ”We uncovered further human bones and other material that we are going to subject to analysis,” said a spokesperson.
A total of 28 people died and hundreds of homes were destroyed by a series of forest fires that have swept through parts of South Africa and Swaziland since the end of last month, officials said on Thursday. ”Twenty-six deaths have been reported thus far” in South Africa alone, said a statement issued after a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The average abused woman leaves her husband 37 times before she divorces him. After every lame excuse, every bunch of flowers and every empty promise, she takes him back again. And again. And again. Why? Women’s rights activists, social workers and clinical psychologists agree: abused women are kept in abusive relationships by a combination of fear, emotional or financial dependence, low self-esteem or a false sense of loyalty.
Winter had one last blast before making way for spring as snow fell in parts of South Africa on Tuesday. Snow had fallen near the Hex River in the Western Cape, in Sutherland in the Northern Cape, near Tiffendell in the Eastern Cape and in parts of Lesotho and the Drakensberg, according to South African Weather Service forecaster Elke Brouwers.
South Africa’s workers in the petroleum sector said they were hopeful that talks with their employers later on Monday could end their strike over pay, which has severely affected fuel delivery. "We have a meeting tonight [Monday] beginning at 8pm with the employers of the workers and we are hopeful," a union spokesperson said.
Representatives from the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood, and Allied Workers’ Union (Ceppwawu) and the National Petroleum Employers’ Association resumed talks on Saturday in a bid to resolve a pay strike which led to countrywide fuel shortages and panic buying. Ceppwawu spokesperson Keith Jacobs said the union had repeatedly informed employers and the public about the strike.
There have been ”significant breakthroughs” in several police investigations into organised crime, the Safety and Security Ministry said on Friday. The latest was the arrest of 13 members of a gang suspected of carrying out a spate of cash-in-transit heists in the Eastern Cape, it said in a statement following Thursday’s meeting of the Anti-Crime Leadership Forum.
As fuel shortages continued countrywide and panic buying set in, the Department of Minerals and Energy insisted on Friday it would not intervene in the strike by fuel workers. ”It is a huge problem and we are not happy with it, but our hands are tied. It is a very tough one … it is an in-house issue,” said spokesperson Sputnik Rantau.
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The Eastern Cape government would implement recommendations arising from a probe into the deaths of babies at Frere Hospital. Some of the suggestions were already being implemented, said provincial health minister Nomsa Jajula, adding that the hospital was to undergo a R150-million revamp.
Failure to ”saturate” a patient, causing another to suffer ”importance” by not referring him to a urologist, and a fractured ”fumer” are among the reasons given by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang for public hospitals being sued for more than R26-million last year.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Monday dismissed a special task team’s report on conditions at East London’s Frere Hospital as a ”whitewash”. ”There are several problems with the methodology of the task team that make the conclusions entirely superficial and very difficult to take seriously,” DA spokesperson Mike Waters said in a statement.