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.
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/ 9 September 2005
If anyone in South Africa deserved the sobriquet ”Mr Softball”, it was Phillipus ”Phillip” Petrus Kahts, who died recently in Cape Town at the age of 62. The past 46 years of Kahts’s life were devoted to the game. Among other achievements, he successfully bid for the men’s fast-pitch Softball World Cup to be held in South Africa in 2000.
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/ 9 September 2005
Six police officers implicated in taking bribes from illegal immigrants at Booysens police station, in Johannesburg, in a recent television documentary have finally been suspended — five days after Gauteng police management were alerted to the alleged corruption.
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/ 7 September 2005
Political parties were on Wednesday challenged to field more female candidates as councillors for the upcoming municipal elections by chief electoral officer Pansy Tlakula. ”We had about 60% of all voter registrations this weekend being women,” Tlakula said at a briefing on the outcome of the registration drive.
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/ 7 September 2005
White farmers on Wednesday threatened an armed struggle similar to that waged by the African National Congress unless their property and cultural concerns are addressed. A handful of farmers presented a memorandum to TAU South Africa president Paul van der Walt on the fringes of an agricultural union conference.
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/ 5 September 2005
The Department of Correctional Services has dismissed claims that Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour interfered in the recruitment of prison warders in the Eastern Cape to secure a place for his nephew. Balfour’s spokesperson said the minister had no reason to intervene in staff recruitment.
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/ 5 September 2005
Namibia’s latest financial investment scandal has claimed a Cabinet scalp. Paulus Kapia, the Deputy Minister of Works, Transport and Communication, who only a few months ago was the most favoured foot soldier of former state President Sam Nujoma, has resigned over his role in an asset management company linked to the embezzlement of a R30-million investment of the Social Security Commission.
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/ 3 September 2005
There was smooth voter registration countrywide except for isolated technical problems and two service-delivery protest marches, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said. The IEC hoped to register 800 000 eligible voters at about 19 000 points countrywide on Saturday.
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/ 1 September 2005
More than 1 000 compulsive gamblers have been officially banned from casinos in the Eastern Cape, media reports said on Thursday. Among those banned, is a businessman who claims to have blown more than R30-million at gambling tables in the province.