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/ 14 October 2005
South Africa’s National Industrial Participation (NIP) programme has generated investment and sales credits valued at $3,5-billion during the past eight years, says the Department of Trade and Industry. This translates into about R23-billion at the current exchange rate.
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/ 14 October 2005
Mike van Graan asks if we can move on to real transformation, now that we have generally replaced white people with black people at the trough of public funds.
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/ 14 October 2005
The most pointlessly complex Currie Cup system of all time has finally produced exactly the same semifinal match-ups as last year. The main difference is that a year ago, when eight teams contested the Currie Cup, it was a reversion to strength against strength and, what with the Springboks winning the Tri-Nations and all, it was considered something of a vintage season.
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/ 10 October 2005
Workers marching for an end to unemployment and job losses warned the ruling African National Congress on Monday to ignore them at its peril. ”We cannot simply be election fodder,” Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Willie Madisha told protesters who converged at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
Minister of Education Naledi Pandor expressed horror on Thursday at the disruption of the matric-exam process in the Eastern Cape by teachers involved in a labour dispute. ”We must not allow the Eastern Cape to get the lowest pass rates again,” she reacted to reports that teachers have been prevented from submitting pupils’ year marks.
Ntsundukazi Mvandaba and her family were the envy of the neighbours they left behind when they moved from the Mandela informal settlement to proper houses in Delpark, both in Delmas. They moved five years ago into an Reconstruction and Development Programme house: unplastered and small, but the first real home for this family from the Eastern Cape.
Recently the Pension Funds Adjudicator (PFA), Vuyani Ngalwana issued rulings on a further 22 retirement annuities (RAs). Life companies have chosen to settle 15 of these rather than face the negative publicity. This brings to 54 the total number of RA rulings since March. The life companies are appealing seven of these in the High Court.
There is a steady increase in HIV prevalence in South Africa, a professor from the University of KwaZulu-Natal said at the opening of the Gauteng Aids Council conference in Johannesburg on Thursday. The life expectancy in the country would soon plummet from 63 years to 46, Professor Alan Whiteside said.
Cool and conditions moving over the northern parts of the country brought some relief on Wednesday for firefighters still battling veld fires in Mpumalanga. Earlier in the day, a fire that raged through the North West veld overnight was brought under control near the Vredefort Dome. However, the fire risk remains high in the northern parts of the country.
It is ”patently obvious” that the rights of patients in state hospitals are not being respected and that urgent action is needed, the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. DA MP and health spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard released a damning report on the country’s ”five worst hospitals” during a press conference at Parliament.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) claimed to have shut down the clothing industry in the Western Cape on Monday during a one-day strike in the province and in the Eastern Cape. But a Western Cape clothing-industry spokesperson described the shutdown claim as ”a joke”.
Only a few thousand people turned up to march through central Cape Town on Monday as the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) called a one-day strike in protest against job losses. About 27 000 turned up for a similar march in June this year, but police said Monday’s total was only about 5 000.
About 50 Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) members on Sunday shackled themselves to railings at Parliament in Cape Town to highlight their jobs and poverty campaign. Cosatu’s Eastern Cape provincial secretary said marches would start at 10am on Monday in East London, Port Elizabeth, Mthatha and Queenstown.
President Thabo Mbeki paid tribute on Friday to Transkei-born activist Wycliffe Mlungisi ”Wyckie” Tsotsi, who had died earlier this week. ”His death has robbed South Africa and the African continent of a hero of the struggle for liberation, non-racism, non-sexism and justice,” Mbeki said.
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/ 29 September 2005
Work to uncover and eradicate corruption in the 2004/05 financial year has saved the government projected future losses of nearly R3,5-billion, the Special Investigating Unit said on Thursday. This was calculated on the premise that malpractices exposed during the year were likely to have continued on average for ten more years.
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/ 28 September 2005
Schoolchildren in the Eastern Cape should not have to bear the brunt of the province’s poor budget planning, the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. The DA’s Helen Zille appealed to the minister of education to intervene to stop the province from implementing proposed severe budget cuts to the school feeding scheme.
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/ 27 September 2005
Fires that have killed two people and ravaged large areas of land have largely been contained, but now the provinces are starting to count the costs. Crews from the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Free State, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo have been fighting fires since September 23.
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/ 27 September 2005
More than one million children, mostly from poor homes, are to be affected by cuts in the Eastern Cape’s school-feeding scheme, the Herald Online reported on Tuesday. The programme will be scaled down from five to three days a week because the education department does not have money to run the scheme every day.
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/ 26 September 2005
Wildfires began claiming lives — both human and animal — on Monday as they ran unabated across the hot, dry countryside, fanned by heavy winds. A six-year-old girl, Bonakele Ngema, burnt to death in a house where she was trapped while seeking refuge from a roaring blaze that bore down on her in Mntanenkosi reserve, KwaZulu-Natal.
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/ 26 September 2005
Firefighters were put on standby in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape on Monday after fears that blazes in four other provinces could spread, a public-private firefighting organisation said. Working on Fire spokesperson Val Charlton said fires are raging in Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and Mpumalanga.
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/ 26 September 2005
The Government Printing Works (GPW) which prints identity documents and passports could collapse if state departments failed to pay about R150-million that it is owed, media reports said on Monday. GPW chief executive Tom Moyane warned of the possibility of closure, saying ageing printing machinery needed millions of rand to replace.
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/ 21 September 2005
A third of Nelson Mandela Bay’s population of about 1,3-million is HIV-positive, making the region’s prevalence the highest in the province, the Eastern Province Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday. The figure was revealed in the annual national ante-natal HIV prevalence study.
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/ 18 September 2005
The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) on Saturday suspended its deputy president, Reuben Mohlaloga, over remarks he made disowning the organisation’s decision over the ”two centres of power” debate. The ANCYL national executive committee referred the matter to the national disciplinary committee.
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/ 17 September 2005
The first Jacques Kallis benefit match ended in an exciting finish at Newlands on Friday night. Despite a century from Salman Butt and some big hitting from Lance Klusener, cool heads in the fielding team prevailed and Andrew Hall was particularly composed in a final spell of four overs.
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/ 16 September 2005
A third person has died of typhoid in Mpumalanga following an outbreak of the disease, the province’s department of health and social services said on Friday. The provincial health minister said the government is doing its utmost to stabilise the impact and prevent further outbreaks of typhoid and diarrhoea in Delmas.
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/ 16 September 2005
Jeffrey’s Bay, the well known Western Cape surfing destination, is to be the site of a new R1,2-billion commercial and residential development being planned by Buchner Propvest, the company said on Friday. The first phase of the development, targeting 150ha of the total 600ha site, is due to start later this year.
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/ 15 September 2005
The fraud trial of three former senior executives at the Eastern Cape Development Corporation has renewed widely held perceptions in the province that Premier Nosimo Balindlela’s government is attempting to purge individuals loyal to former premier Makhenkesi Stofile and provincial African National Congress deputy chairperson Enoch Godongwana.
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/ 14 September 2005
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Former deputy president Jacob Zuma has made no requests to the Presidency to fund his defence during his upcoming trial on corruption charges, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union called for mass pressure to support Zuma.
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/ 14 September 2005
Supersport United hammered the Eastern Cape outfit Bush Bucks 3-1 in a closely contested Castle Premier Soccer League match in East London on Tuesday. Bush Bucks opened the score in the 27th minute when former Kaizer Chiefs midfielder-cum-striker Simphiwe Mambo finished a loose ball in a scramble.
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/ 14 September 2005
The Cape High Court on Wednesday overturned a decision of the United Democratic Movement to expel seven of its members, including deputy leader Malizole Diko. The ruling means that two MPs and five MPLs can cross the floor before the floor-crossing period ends at midnight on Thursday evening.
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/ 14 September 2005
The finances of most Eastern Cape municipalities are in such a poor state that they cannot calculate how much they are owed in arrears, media reports said on Wednesday. Local government MEC Sam Kwelita said only two municipalities out of more than 40 had received unqualified audit reports from the auditor-general.
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/ 13 September 2005
South Africa has been declared free of notifiable avian influenza, says Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza. The disease was discovered in ostriches in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape in July last year. ””This extremely serious threat to the whole poultry industry has thus been curbed,” said Didiza.