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.
A team from the national Department of Social Development is visiting the Western Cape to outline the processes of the establishment of the South African Social Security Agency, the government news agency said on Monday. The agency will ultimately take over from provinces the payment of social welfare grants.
Birthday tributes have started pouring in for former president Nelson Mandela who turns 86 on Sunday.
Revenge has been declared against a writer who dares to express an opinion on the overwhelming ”snow-whiteness” of a festival. Quite bizarre, reckons Mike van Graan. Hopefully, this issue will not dwarf others of concern.
Minister of Education Naledi Pandor on Tuesday urged the Education Labour Relations Council to get more of South Africa’s best school children to train as teachers. ”Around 17 000 teachers leave teaching each year, and only 3 000 new ones graduate from the 25 universities,” she said.
The Eastern Cape department of health on Monday vowed to continue its crackdown on illegal circumcision schools after three officials were stoned and their vehicle damaged. Monday’s attack took place during a raid on illegal initiation schools in Luthuthu village, near Cradock, said a departmental spokesperson.
A Chinese man has handed himself over to Port Elizabeth police following one of the biggest illegal perlemoen busts in the Eastern Cape. Police on Friday raided a smallholding and recovered more than a ton of perlemoen as well as equipment used to process the shellfish for illegal export. Three people were arrested.
There is enormous potential for shark eco-tourism in the Eastern Cape, according to British shark researcher Matt Dicken. A marine biologist based at Bayworld at present, Dicken was speaking at an international marine seminar and expo at the University of Port Elizabeth last week.
In November 2003 the Cabinet approved a national plan for HIV/ Aids prevention, care and treatment. The plan estimated that 53 000 people would be placed on anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment by the end of March this year. Eight months on, fewer than 10 000 people with HIV/Aids are receiving anti-retrovirals through the public health system.
Second-hand book dealers, old-age homes and a whole assortment of so-called ”secondary merchants” are all eagerly awaiting the forthcoming Government Publications Warehouse Sales. As each fulfilling decade of the South African rainbow democracy comes to an end, government storage houses will be kicking off the next 10 years with a major clean-out. I managed to get a look at some.
Leading media and entertainment group Johnnic Communications will contribute R4,6-million towards a new teaching facility for the Rhodes University school of journalism in Grahamstown, group CEO Connie Molusi has announced. The grant comes as part of a long-standing partnership between the company and Rhodes University.
The way the Eastern Cape provincial government spent its health budget has significantly contributed to the health-care crisis in the province, a new book demonstrates. Key findings include that more than 81% of the provincial health department’s budget from 1996 to 2003 was not properly accounted for.
Warders at the medium-security prison and the C-Max prison in Kokstad, KwaZulu-Natal, as well as warders at St Alban’s prison outside Port Elizabeth, have embarked on a strike, SABC Radio News reported on Saturday. The warders were reportedly demonstrating outside the prisons.
Oom Krisjan was a little confused (or a little more confused than usual, anyway), after a cyber visit at the South African embassy to the United States. Lemmer was surprised to see that the prez had written a letter especially for the website. Intrigued by what Oom Thabo might want to share with disciples of the Great Satan, Lemmer clicked on the link …
The South African Police Service will launch a crime prevention programme in the 63 areas of South Africa identified as experiencing the most contact crimes, Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula said on Tuesday. Nqakula also touched on the Firearms Control Act that comes into effect on Thursday.
Fifteen people were killed in a head-on collision between a taxi and a bakkie on the R61 near Aberdeen in the Eastern Cape on Monday morning, police said. Inspector Stephanie Smith said the drivers of both vehicles were among the dead. Twelve people were injured and were being treated in the Aberdeen hospital and the Midland hospital in Graaff-Reinet.
Police arrested two directors of the Bush Bucks soccer club in East London on Thursday night in connection with alleged match fixing. The men, aged 45 and 40, were arrested at the club’s offices on Thursday afternoon by a team of about 10 policemen from Johannesburg.
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.
President Thabo Mbeki will spend his 62nd birthday on ”work, work, work”, his spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said on Friday. ”The president doesn’t believe in festivities and big bashes. It embarrasses him,” said Khumalo. However, his colleagues in the National Assembly decided that his big day could not go unmarked and in a motion the political parties wished him a happy birthday.
In an effort to develop a classification of marine habitats for South Africa, the marine science community is working virtually round the clock to meet a July deadline for identifying marine priority areas for the country’s first National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan.
The Department of Public Works did not get enough money in this year’s Budget to carry out all its appointed tasks, including tackling a maintenance backlog at government buildings, says Minister of Public Works Stella Sigcau. In February this year, her department was allocated more than R4,8-billion.
The first snow of the season has fallen on the peaks surrounding Barkly East in the Eastern Cape, almost three months later than last year, the South African Weather Service said on Tuesday. As a result, very cold conditions were expected over the western, southern and south-eastern interior as well as the eastern high ground and Highveld.
Major General Derrick Mgwebi last week became the first South African to head a United Nations peacekeeping mission when he assumed the command of the UN Operation in Burundi. Mgwebi last Tuesday donned a UN blue beret at a ceremony in Bujumbura to mark the end of the African Union mission in Burundi.
The South African Chamber of Business has won a $20 000 award for its simple toolkit to assist small and medium enterprises address HIV/Aids in their workplaces. The chamber also won accolades for its strategy to monitor the implementation of this product through its chamber movement.
Almost a fifth of frog species in South Africa are under threat of extinction, a nine-year research project has found. The Atlas and Red Data Book of the Frogs of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland was officially launched on Thursday at the University of Cape Town’s avian demography unit.
A two-hour boat ride across windswept Algoa Bay from Port Elizabeth lies Bird Island, the site of the largest breeding colony of gannets in the world. Bird Island is managed by SA National Parks, which also looks after three smaller adjacent islands — Stag, Seal and Black Rocks. They estimate there are 169 000 gannets on the island.
At least 42 traditional surgeons have been arrested in the Eastern Cape since the provincial government introduced legislation on circumcision in 2001, Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi said on Monday. He said of the 42, 18 have been convicted of crimes linked to initiation circumcisions gone wrong.
Dale McKinley (”New power to the people …”) reports the number of spoilt ballots as if these votes might indicate a preference for socialist revolution. He confuses the voting age population with the number of eligible voters, and arrives at grossly exaggerated claims of low voter turnout. From this he imputes that the election was ”rejected” by the majority of people. The majority of social movements do not oppose representative democracy, writes Michael Sachs.
South Africa has to overcome the colonial and apartheid legacy of unskilled and jobless workers to create a workforce for the reconstruction and development of the country, President Thabo Mbeki said on Tuesday at the launch of the Expanded Public Works Programme in Limpopo.
Newly appointed Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk is to visit the Eastern Cape’s Pondoland coast to assess the impact a plan to mine titanium from sand dunes will have on the area, known for its biodiversity and scenic beauty.
Internationally renowned ichthyologist Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer died on Monday, aged 97. Courtenay-Latimer achieved international recognition as the discoverer of the coelacanth in 1938 when it was thought to have been extinct for 70-million years. The fish genus was named Latimeria chulumnae in her honour.
As the government’s national roll-out of anti-retrovirals (ARVs) intensifies, there is growing concern that the available sources of supply — including the only South African company manufacturing generic ARVs, Aspen Pharmacare — could be pressurised by the demand.