Striking public-sector workers in South Africa warned on Monday that government threats to sack health workers would derail efforts to resolve an increasingly bitter pay dispute. Fikile Majola, secretary general of the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union said negotiations would resume on Monday.
Debate on how to strengthen the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), occasioned by its 10th anniversary, will not achieve the desired outcome if led by critics who are distanced from the institution. This includes the press. Earlier this year, NCOP chairperson Mninwa Mahlangu remarked that in general, the media had scant knowledge of the council.
The government warned striking health workers to return to work on Monday or face being fired while soldiers staffed hospitals and private ambulance services moved seriously-ill babies to private facilities. ”If they are not at their workplace [by Monday], then we will be instituting a process of terminating their services,” said national director general of health Thamsanqa Dennis Mseleku.
Soldiers, volunteers and private hospitals have stepped in to help public-health facilities crippled by the public-service pay strike which started on Friday. Army medics were on duty from 8am on Sunday in wards of the hard-hit King Edward VIII hospital, in Durban.
A woman was critically injured when she plunged more that 15m down a mountain at a resort in Potchefstroom on Saturday. ER24 spokesperson Werner Vermaak said the woman was climbing up the Vredefort Chimney at the Thabelo Thabong Mountain Resort with other climbers at 9.30am when she fell.
Union leaders sought to draw other sectors into their wage dispute with the government on Friday as thousands of public servants countrywide downed tools. The first day of what the unions said would be an indefinite strike passed without major incident and had a patchy effect on service delivery.
The controversial monorail from Soweto to Johannesburg is on hold while the provincial government consults more widely on the proposal, said Gauteng’s provincial ministers of transport and finance on Friday. The project was announced on May 16 but Transport Minister Jeff Radebe subsequently ordered it to be put on hold.
The national public-service strike was largely peaceful on Friday, but got off to a violent start in Cape Town, police said. Police used stun grenades to disperse protesters outside Tygerberg Hospital after about 500 people had blocked both the entrance and the road outside the facility, said Inspector Bernadine Steyn.
The retail price of all grades of petrol will rise by 23 cents per litre from Wednesday June 6, the Department of Minerals and Energy announced on Friday. The latest changes bring the retail price for a litre of 95 octane unleaded petrol in Gauteng to R7,24 a litre and to R7 a litre at the coast — the highest to date.
Motorists were asked to avoid the Johannesburg inner city on Friday, as a protest march by striking public servants was expected to block the streets. The march was expected to start at about 11am from the Educon building in De Korte Street, and proceed to the premier’s office at the corner of Simmonds and Fox Streets.
Fifty-four percent of South African drivers claim to have been on the receiving end of aggressive or threatening driving behaviour in the past 12 months, a recent study has found. A total number 1 986 respondents from Gauteng, Durban and Cape Town were asked about various acts of road rage experienced, ranging from persistent honking of horns to actual physical violence.
A fashion designer was shot dead by hijackers while visiting the Gauteng provincial legislature, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Thursday. ”This is truly shocking and sad. It shows that we have a far way to go in ensuring safety in the inner city despite the CCTV cameras and the extra policing,” said the DA’s Jack Bloom.
A 38-year-old businessman was arrested in Durban on Thursday for allegedly failing to pay R43-million in value-added tax (VAT) to the South African Revenue Service (Sars). Properties, cash in bank accounts and vehicles in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng — valued at R90 million — were seized in dawn raids.
A public-service strike will go ahead this week despite government claims of progress in last-ditch efforts to resolve a wage impasse, union leaders said on Wednesday. ”The general strike is going ahead,” said Congress of South African Trade Unions president Willie Madisha.
The Democratic Alliance wants a judicial investigation into Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride’s motor accident after claims that officers had covered up for him and were now being intimidated. It is alleged that McBride was drunk at the time of the accident in December near Centurion.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) may decide to withdraw from the coalition that has ruled since the end of apartheid, threatening to shatter cooperation between leftists and moderate black nationalists. The SACP’s provincial council in Gauteng voted in favour of a go-it-alone approach last week.
The government’s taxi-recapitalisation programme is a solution to destructive competition over profitable taxi routes, Transport Minister Jeff Radebe said on Tuesday. He condemned recent taxi violence around Johannesburg as ”barbarism”. Radius permits will be converted to operating licences.
The ailing electronic national traffic information system had a negative effect on car sales and the Gauteng economy, a business breakfast heard on Tuesday. Discussing the Gauteng Business Barometer for April, T-Sec economist Mike Schussler said April had been a particularly weak barometer.
The National Treasury has gazetted the details of municipalities whose 2006/07 municipal infrastructure grant allocations have been stopped — because of non-compliance with the 2006 Division of Revenue Act. It amounts to R503-million. The main reason for the funds being stopped is "significant under-expenditure".
The ”Green Scorpions” begin an inspection of Mittal Steel’s Vereeniging plant on Tuesday, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism said. The inspection, to last several days, marks the launch of a national environmental compliance campaign in the iron, steel and ferro-alloy industry.
Angry protesters from various informal settlements in Ekurhuleni urgently demanded provincial government attention on Monday afternoon, saying they had been subject to illegal evictions. Riot police used shields and batons to push the crowd that packed Simmonds Street in the Johannesburg city centre, where they handed over a memorandum.
Gauteng’s provincial ministers for transport and finance should be fired for bungling the proposed monorail between Soweto and central Johannesburg, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday. The R12-billion monorail project was put on hold after Transport Minister Jeff Radebe said he had not been informed about the project and only heard about it through the media.
Two pastors were among the five people killed when their vehicles collided head-on on the Mafikeng-Lichtenburg road on Sunday, the North West transport department said. Also, seven people were killed when three vehicles burst into flames after colliding on the R34 route between Vryheid and Melmoth on Monday.
Schoolgirls who fall pregnant could face having to spend two years out of the classroom before being allowed back if a proposal in circulation within the Department of Education is approved, the <i>Sunday Times</i> reported.
The building of a 44,7km monorail between Johannesburg and Soweto has been ”put on hold”, the Transport Ministry said on Friday. It said while the monorail proposal cannot be supported in its present form, the government is in principle not opposed to the concept of a monorail.
The planned R12-billion monorail between Johannesburg and Soweto was a first step in addressing the daily traffic chaos on South African roads, the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) said on Friday. It was surprised that Transport Minister Jeff Radebe opposed the move, said FF+ transport spokesperson Corne Mulder.
A deophobic sermon Shaun de Waal has written a deophobic sermon (“Fighting fire with fire”, May 25), but needs to deal with the evidence evenhandedly. If the wrong religion has done is evidence that belief in God is false, is the right religion has done evidence that belief in God is true? Likewise, does the […]
A number of power failures across Johannesburg on Friday morning could be linked to overloading and cable theft or damage to cables by third parties, City Power said. Spokesperson Louis Pieterse said power failures in parts of Parkmore, Houghton, Kensington, Wisonia, Glenvista and Boksburg affected individual households, not every resident in those areas.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has pledged support for a separate bargaining chamber for health workers proposed by the African National Congress (ANC) health committee. ”There is no doubt that nurses and doctors should get a pay boost above the inflation rate,” DA Gauteng health spokesperson Jack Bloom said in a statement.
The Gauteng provincial government on Thursday said it was waiting for an urgent meeting with the national government on the province’s planned R12-billion monorail linking Johannesburg and Soweto ”The [provincial minister] is awaiting a response from the minister,” said spokesperson Alfred Nhlapo.
The feasibility study for a proposed R12-billion monorail between Soweto and central Johannesburg was ”Mickey Mouse,” the chairperson of Parliament’s standing committee on transport, Jeremy Cronin, said on Thursday. ”On the face of what we got it’s not only the process that is poor …,” Cronin said.
The increase in electricity demand must be reduced, Eskom said on Thursday. "We have only so much generating capacity; therefore the only solution is to reduce the demand," it said in a statement. Rolling power failures affected parts of Gauteng and Mpumalanga on Wednesday evening.