The Department of Correctional Services has deployed a team of investigators to probe the possibility of a syndicate assisting prisoners to escape from the Middledrift and St Albans prisons in the Eastern Cape. Spokesperson Zukisa Nduneni on Friday said a team from the department’s investigation unit has been deployed.
President Thabo Mbeki has reached new heights of public popularity, with current job-approval ratings matching the best ratings given to Nelson Mandela, the Afrobarometer survey said on Wednesday. According to the survey, conducted in January and February, nearly eight in 10 South Africans approved of the job Mbeki was doing as president. When asked about the way Mbeki had performed his job over the past year, 77% said they approved, with 28% strongly approving.
Two more people have been taken in for questioning after two prisoners escaped from the Middledrift maximum security prison on Tuesday morning, the Eastern Cape correctional services department said. Authorities have also reviewed the closed circuit television footage which implicated four officers at the prison.
An East London man who caused the death of six children when he lost control of a bakkie has been sent to prison for seven years, the Dispatch Online reported on Thursday. It said East London Regional Court magistrate Fungile Dotwana handed down the sentence on Wednesday.
Thousands of Eastern Cape children are going hungry after the province’s new school feeding scheme collapsed before it got off the ground, Dispatch Online reported on Thursday. Problems apparently arose after the previous suppliers for the feeding scheme, including two major bakery groups, were dumped.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on Wednesday called for regular inspections to be conducted at construction sites to ensure compliance with safety standards. The call followed the death of three construction workers on Tuesday afternoon while working on a construction site at Volkswagen in Port Elizabeth.
I may as well state the facts up front. This article is not about the Jacob Zuma rape trial. It is best to be clear about this to avoid the passionate disquisitions and name-calling of ”bjective”intellectuals and ”biased” partisans alike. I find it strange that in all the buzz about South Africa’s transformation — particularly the transformation of the judiciary — one subject has not been broached.
South African retailer Mr Price on Thursday reported a 48% rise in diluted headline earnings per share to 154,7 cents for the year ended March from 104,7 cents a year ago. A total distribution of 81 cents per share — based on a cover of two times — was declared, up from 60 cents last year.
The government has done what it can for a group of protesting former miners from the Eastern Cape, and urged them to go back home. ”We are not resisting to pay the claims; we are willing to, especially when it comes to the elderly,” Boas Seruwe, acting Unemployment Insurance Fund commissioner, said on Tuesday.
A group of about 800 protesting former miners from the Eastern Cape who were evicted from the Tshwane city hall on Monday were being cared for by residents on Tuesday. ”The group has been separated into two smaller groups of about 300 and 500 each and they are staying in open halls in blocks of flats in the Pretoria CBD,” said Willie Fuledi, spokesperson for the Ex-Mineworkers’ Union of SA.
Winter will not be exceptionally cold, it will just be normal, Weather South Africa said on Monday. ”According to our models the temperatures will be normal for this time of year,” meteorologist Selebaleng Gaebee said. Last winter was exceptionally warm, which may explain why people feel the current cold weather more intensely.
The icy weather experienced over the country was set to continue until about Thursday when the days will become slightly warmer, the South African Weather Service said on Sunday. Forecaster Ezekiel Sebego said another cold front would move in over the Western Cape on Monday night, bringing with it rain for that area, the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Bitterly cold weather around the country is likely to result in snow on higher ground, hail and sleet in the interior and rough seas in the Cape, meteorologists said on Friday. The National Forecasting Centre said the central and eastern parts of the country are being invaded by very cold weather.
Thousands joined marches throughout the country on Thursday to protest against job losses, but the impact of the one-day strike varied across the sectors of the economy. The strike, called by the Congress of South African Trade Unions, was felt hardest in the mining industry, followed by car manufacturers, retailers and the textile industry.
Thousands of workers heeded a call by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) to down tools on Thursday in protest against South Africa’s high levels of unemployment and poverty. The mining and car-manufacturing industries appeared to be hardest hit.
Hundreds of people have gathered to pay their respects to the former public works minister Stella Sigcau at the Qawukeni Great Place in the Transkei on Tuesday morning. South African President Thabo Mbeki is to deliver the eulogy. Sigcau’s body has been lying in state at her home ahead of the official funeral.
General Motors plans to begin exporting South African-made Hummers to countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South America by the end of the year, a company official said on Monday. The Struandale plant in the Eastern Cape is slated to export 33 countries, a spokesperson said.
Fourteen tons of dagga were found in the mountains of the Eastern Cape and three people were arrested in an operation running from last Wednesday to Friday, police said. Two unlicensed firearms and 85 rounds of ammunition were also confiscated. Superintendent Mzukisi Fatyela said the dagga is harvested at this time of the year.
Cerebos, a local investor, has announced a R85-million expansion and relocation project in the Coega Industrial Development Zone in the Eastern Cape’s Nelson Mandela metro. Managing director Len Chandler said on Thursday the expansion meant the company would remain in the metro, retaining and even increasing jobs for the local communities.
A pay strike has brought teaching at Walter Sisulu University in East London to a standstill, media reports said on Thursday. The action by academic and administrative staff came just weeks before more than 21 000 students were due to sit for mid-year examinations.
Gases and welding products group African Oxygen (Afrox) is to invest approximately R350-millionin several major new gas production facilities around South Africa during the year. Craig Falconer, Afrox’s general manager process gas solutions, says this expenditure results from increased demand from the company’s existing customer base as well as by new business wins.
The public is worried about how the judiciary operates and the impartiality of judges, a survey released on Wednesday has found. Seventy-three percent of those polled felt it was easy to bribe justice officials and 85% thought that the crime-to-punishment process took too long, said Research Surveys, which released the poll.
Minister of Public Works Stella Sigcau has died at Durban’s St Augustine hospital, ministerial spokesperson Lucky Mochalibane said on Monday. He said Sigcau (69), who was appointed minister of public enterprises in the first post-apartheid government in 1994, died of a recurring heart problem on Sunday.
A fishing trawler that was sinking with 21 crew members on board was safely towed to Port Elizabeth, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) said on Sunday. NSRI Port Elizabeth deputy station commander Paul Killeen said the boat was successfully towed by rescue craft Spirit of Toft.
A former chairperson of South African Schools rugby and the founder of Craven Week, Jan Preuyt, died on Thursday evening at the age of 83 in the Eastern Cape town of Cathcart. Preuyt, a well-known school rugby administrator, was South African Schools chairperson for 19 years, and a friend of the late Danie Craven.
In response to at least a dozen e-mails and letters asking, sometimes desperately, for help, this week’s Loose Cannon takes the form of an Agony column, giving judicious advice to those in need.
A hiatus in South Africa’s biodiversity legislation, dealing with a proposed national electronic permit system, is inadvertently aiding a run by traffickers on the country’s endangered wildlife. According to Traffic, the world’s largest wildlife trade monitoring organisation, global wildlife trade was huge, with an annual turnover estimated at billions of dollars.
A total of 179 schools identified two years ago as having pupils who were taught under trees have been given proper classrooms, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said in Pretoria on Friday. Pandor was speaking after a joint ministerial meeting between the departments of public works and education.
Telkom cables in the Germiston area on the East Rand were cut early on Friday, leading to network congestion, the company said. Three cables were damaged between the Germiston and New Doornfontein. ADSL users were also encountering a slow network, said Telkom spokesperson Lulu Letlape.
The race card will be used in attempts to cling to the lucrative Eastern Cape franchise, argues Andy Capostagno. So the madness is over and the Southern Spears will not participate in next year’s Super 14. Instead, the South African Rugby Union (Saru) will spend time, money and resources on putting ”measures in place to help the franchise and the region reach acceptable levels of readiness”.
South Africa has seen a ”phenomenal increase” in the number of asylum seekers in the past few years, the Department of Home Affairs said on Thursday. Although there are only 29 000 people with refugee status living in the country, there are 103 410 outstanding asylum applications.
Most new taxis did not fully comply with safety requirements published last year, Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe said on Thursday. However, most ”can be said to substantially meet the basic requirements”, he told an Eastern Cape transport conference in East London.