Eight soccer referees and linesmen arrested in Operation Dribble appeared briefly before a Randburg magistrate in three separate hearings on Monday, following the police swoop against alleged match fixing. In the dock were Patrick Banda (31) Ishmael Fatyela (33) Justice Dywili (30) all from Kimberley, Reuben Kgatla (38) of Alexandra, Johannesburg, Jonas Mokonyane (37) of Mokopane and Kganagwe Michael Sikwe (36) of Soweto.
The surprise cloudburst that marked the winter solstice saw motorists around Gauteng skidding into each other with at least 10 accidents reported around Johannesburg on Monday. ”Motorists should increase their following distance and reduce speed,” said Johannesburg Metro police spokesperson Inspector Wayne Minnaar.
Have South Africa’s learners of today heard of Steve Biko or the Soweto uprising? Thanks to the Apartheid Museum, their legacies are living on through an exciting new comic book, Timeliners. Drawn by disadvantaged artists from Cape Town, the comic book will now be handed to each learner entering the Apartheid museum.
More than 300 people gathered at the Hector Peterson memorial on Wednesday for a wreath laying ceremony as part of Youth Day commemorations. Peterson, then aged 13, was shot dead by police in the June 16, 1976, schoolchildren’s uprising. He was the first victim of that event.
Allegations of soccer match-fixing involving referees will only be investigated by the South African Police Service and not by the Scorpions, the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions said on Tuesday. An undisclosed number of referees were expected to be arrested as police concluded their initial investigation.
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.
About 9 000 houses will be transferred to registered beneficiaries in Gauteng by June next year, provincial housing minister Nomvula Mokonyane said on Tuesday. ”The rate at which these transfers are going to take place is a show of commitment by the government to eradicating homelessness,” Mokonyane said.
A new strategy to link transport with social, economic growth and development in Gauteng is being prepared, provincial transport minister Ignatius Jacobs said on Tuesday. Part of the Transport Investment Framework will be to address traffic congestion and pressure on transport infrastructure resulting from urbanisation.
The Gautrain Rapid Rail Link project will provide more than 100 000 jobs, Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa said on Monday. ”By 2009 the train will be carrying passengers,” Shilowa said in a speech prepared for delivery at the opening of the provincial legislature in Johannesburg.
Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa bound his government on Monday to fulfilling all pre-election promises of democracy and prosperity. ”The Gauteng provincial government is ready to put shoulder to the wheel to realise our objective of a better life for all,” he said at the opening of the provincial legislature in Johannesburg.
New National Party Gauteng leader Johan Kilian has resigned from the party but says it has nothing to do with weekend talks the party held with the African National Congress. Kilian, who has been with the party for 24 years, said he is leaving politics to return to the business world.
In every worthy cause, in every struggle for emancipation, there is, perhaps, risk of fatigue. Feminism fatigue is widely felt, echoing other unannounceable fatigues. A new book that accompanies the art exhibition, Through the Looking Glass, provides a potent commentary on female identity, writes Carolyn Hamilton.
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.
The Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, said on Friday that the Air Quality Bill will be resubmitted to Parliament this year and air quality officers will be appointed to crack down on offenders in pollution hot spots. Adressing the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s Greening the Future awards breakfast in Johannesburg on Friday, Van Schalkwyk also paid tribute to the South African public, "the foot soldiers in our greening revolution".
On the eve of a federal council meeting to discuss the future of the New National Party following its poor performance in April’s national and provincial elections, the party’s Gauteng administrative office has closed. The move is in no way a sign of the party’s imminent dissolution in Gauteng, provincial leader Johan Kilian said.
Ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide is not a refugee in South Africa, but a free person and a guest of the government, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Wednesday. She told reporters in Pretoria that Aristide will be allowed to make political speeches while in the country.
South African food and industrial group AVI has reached an agreement to acquire Denny Mushrooms for R197,5-million rand, less all interest-bearing debt as at the effective date. Denny is a producer of fresh, canned and value-added mushroom products in South Africa, with a market share exceeding 50%.
The United States and Britain were on Tuesday night putting pressure on the oil cartel Opec to lift production quotas at its meeting in Beirut on Thursday as the West’s leading countries took fright at an economic and political backlash from record oil prices.
Opec to ‘calm the market’
If you judged the world by newspaper headlines, black economic empowerment (BEE) is all about gargantuan deals with complex financing and titanic battles between white and black groups in charter negotiations over equity targets. Unfortunately, this fixation on the ”Art of the Deal” neglects the many small shifts at every level that are gradually changing the colour of South African business.
The Health Department would not be suspending anti-retroviral programmes for children as had been reported in the media, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. However, it had warned participating hospitals to make sure they had enough supplies of the medication before enrolling new patients, spokesperson Sibani Mngadi said.
Cape Town has switched on to MyWireless technology — or broadband wireless high-speed, no-limit internet access via regulated high-powered radio frequency — Sentech said in a statement on Thursday. Sentech, a state-owned but commercially run TV and radio signal distributor, launched MyWireless in Gauteng in January.
Gauteng’s drinking water is under threat as a result of a decision by the East Rand Proprietary Mines to stop pumping water from its Boksburg workings, the United Association of South Africa said on Thursday. The trade union on Thursday called on the government to intervene urgently in the matter.
In an ordinary society, Phillip Jabulani ("Be Happy") Moleketi would have become a medical doctor, but South Africa in the mid-1970s was not an ordinary society and did not cater for the aspirations of its young black elite. Now Moleketi has been appointed South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Finance.
More than 80 cases of child abuse are reported in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, each month, said a member of the family violence, child protection and sexual offences unit, Captain Shiluvane Malunyane, on Tuesday. He also said there were more cases being reported every month.
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.
One of Africa’s largest transportation projects, Gautrain, is making good progress and will be completed by 2010 when the Soccer World Cup is hosted by South Africa, Gautrain spokesperson Dr Barbara Jensen said on Tuesday. Gautrain will link Pretoria and Johannesburg with the Johannesburg International airport through Sandton.
The South African government is still waiting to hear when ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his entourage are to arrive in the country, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. Spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said the government was waiting for an official communiqué from the Caribbean Economic Community as to the exact date.
Institutionalised, representative democracy in our country is in trouble. This is not because the African National Congress’s sizeable electoral victory supposedly heralds the imminent arrival of a one-party state. It is simply because, only a decade after the introduction of a universal electoral franchise in South Africa, just more than 50% of all eligible voters participated in the formal process of representative democracy.
South African media group Kagiso has been given the go-ahead to increase its stake in Gauteng radio station Jacaranda FM. The Competition Commission has unconditionally approved a merger in which Kagiso Media sought to increase its stake from 42,5% to 65% in Jacaranda FM.
Aggrieved banking clients received R11,1-million back from banks in 2003, the ombudsman for banking services said on Tuesday. This was an increase of R2,3-million over 2002, banking ombudsman Neville Melville said at the release in Johannesburg of his office’s fourth annual report.
The losers in last month’s election (Oom Krisjan isn’t PC enough to buy that ”we are all winners” gumph) seem to be at a loss to understand why the African National Congress peformed so well at the polls. Despite concerns about lack of delivery (Lemmer sympathises, Mr Delivery is boycotting the Dorsbult, too), the ANC increased its majority to almost 70% of voters?