The price of petrol could rise by up to 30c a litre next week due to the weaker rand and the high oil price, economists said on Wednesday. ”The unfortunate thing is that the oil price remained around [a barrel] for the whole of May and the rand has fallen,” Absa economist Ridle Markus said.
Nine people have been taken in for questioning after a shooting that claimed a man’s life at Port Elizabeth’s New Brighton railway station on Wednesday, police said. Spokesperson Captain Verna Brink said police are seeking to establish whether the shooting is related to the ongoing strike by security guards.
The removal of people from the Thamboville informal settlement near Benoni on Johannesburg’s East Rand turned violent when residents clashed with police on Tuesday. Ekurhuleni metro police spokesperson Superintendent Vusi Mabanga said the relocation of residents to Albert Luthuli Park informal settlement, also in Benoni, was supposed to start at 6am.
More than 2 100 officials of Gauteng’s housing and local government department might be investigated after fraud of more than R133-million in the allocation of housing subsidies was revealed, Beeld reported on Monday. These officials have received R32,8-million in subsidies, despite earning more than the minimum a family has to earn to qualify.
Police on Friday confirmed a probe into a theft from a police safe in Benoni but would not say whether this involved the theft of heist money from the Johannesburg International airport robbery in March. Superintendent Eugene Opperman said a burglary took place on Wednesday at the serious and violent-crimes unit.
In a rare and frank public attack on the game’s administrators, businessman Tokyo Sexwale has warned that ”football leadership has to go back to the drawing board. The battle is hard for Bafana Bafana; we are battling out there. It is a hard thing that we are going to the World Cup without Bafana Bafana,” the former premier of Gauteng said.
Eight people have been arrested in connection with the death of several people on trains in Gauteng recently, the police and Metrorail said on Thursday. The group was arrested on the West Rand and in Pretoria and would face charges of attempted murder, Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said in a statement.
A high court order interdicting striking security guards from any involvement in violence was granted to Metrorail and security employers on Wednesday. According to the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union, it was interdicted from committing, orchestrating, promoting, encouraging, participating in or condoning acts of violence.
The Gauteng provincial minister for Education, Angie Motshekga, on Wednesday condemned attempts by the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) to disrupt schooling in the Gauteng province. ”Since the beginning of this week, members of Cosas have been disrupting schools,” the Gauteng Department of Education said in a statement.
The new R55-million Baramall shopping centre was officially launched in Soweto on Wednesday. The centre is fully let and anchor tenants include Shoprite, OK Furnishers, Jet Stores, PEP Stores, Diskom and Dunns, while financial institutions include Absa, African Bank, First National Bank and Standard Bank.
Another man thrown out of a moving train in Johannesburg has died, bringing the number of deaths within the past 24 hours to two, police said on Tuesday. About 20 people have been thrown from moving trains in Gauteng in the past few months — many of them working security guards believed to be targeted by their striking colleagues.
One of the four men who were thrown out of moving trains in Johannesburg on Monday has died, police said. Superintendent Andy Pieke on Tuesday said the man, who was seriously injured after being thrown out of the train, was declared dead at Natalspruit hospital on Monday night. Meanwhile, the three others are in a serious condition at the same hospital.
A former boss of one of the travel agencies implicated in the parliamentary travel voucher scam spent an hour-and-a-half behind bars on Monday for his lack of co-operation in a liquidation inquiry. David Phokeng, an ex-director of the now-liquidated Bathong Travel, was detained in the holding cells of the Bellville Magistrate’s Court at the request of the attorney acting for the liquidators, Bernhard Kurz.
Four people were seriously injured after being thrown off moving trains on Monday morning, Metrorail said. A number of people have been thrown from moving trains in Gauteng in recent weeks — many of them working security guards believed to be targeted by their striking colleagues.
Two foreigners appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Friday in connection with drug offences, fraud and money laundering, police said. Thomas Scheffer and Shmuel Propheta, both 48, were arrested in March after a joint investigation by the Gauteng crime intelligence unit, the health department and Interpol.
Three policemen, a reservist and another man were arrested this week for dealing in ammunition without a licence, police said on Friday. A police reservist, Inspector Craig Brendon Sacke (31) and 33-year-old Stephen Grippa were arrested on Monday, said Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht.
The third annual Mutual & Federal South African Cricket Awards, held on Thursday night at a glittering function in Johannesburg, saw Makhaya Ntini walk away with the prestigious South African Cricketer of the Year Award, as well as the Castle Test Cricketer of the Year Award, both for the second consecutive year.
Metrorail has called on the South African Police Service to intensify police security on its trains, in response to continuing security strike-linked violence.
As many as 18 people have been killed on Metrorail trains since the strike began, said Metrorail spokesperson Thandi Mlangeni.
Thousands joined marches throughout the country on Thursday to protest against job losses, but the impact of the one-day strike varied across the sectors of the economy. The strike, called by the Congress of South African Trade Unions, was felt hardest in the mining industry, followed by car manufacturers, retailers and the textile industry.
Thousands of workers heeded a call by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) to down tools on Thursday in protest against South Africa’s high levels of unemployment and poverty. The mining and car-manufacturing industries appeared to be hardest hit.
A public-private partnership to build 702 houses for low-income earners in the Cosmo City development in north-western Johannesburg was launched on Thursday. Cosmo City is a mixed-use, integrated housing development near Kya Sands.
The Democratic Alliance wants the army to be called in to ensure that a protest march by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in Johannesburg is peaceful. ”The DA in Gauteng would like to call on the provincial government to deploy resting army units to the Jo’burg CBD to ensure that the Cosatu strike does not get out of hand,” the DA’s Brian Goodall said.
Two buses were set on fire by a mob and about eight others damaged by stone throwing in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha before dawn on Thursday as the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ national strike got under way. Golden Arrow Bus Services spokesperson Vuyisile Mdoda said the incidents were reported to the company at 6am.
Two Johannesburg Metro police officers were released on R2 000 bail on Tuesday after they were arrested for taking explicit photographs of a 16-year-old girl from Eldorado Park, Soweto, police said. The policemen were arrested for contravening the Films and Publications Act at the beginning of May after the girl’s mother discovered the explicit photographs on her daughter’s cellphone.
Surveillance cameras have led to an 80% drop in fraud at First National Bank’s (FNB) ATMs, the bank said on Monday. FNB ATM chief executive officer Mike Arnold said cameras had been installed at 75 FNB ATMs countrywide. ”FNB’s investment in this system has saved customers and the bank large sums of money,” said Arnold.
The Gauteng Rapid Rail team on Thursday unveiled a complex plan of street closures, demolitions and expropriations — set to begin mid-May — for the construction of the new Gautrain link between Johannesburg and Pretoria. Digging will start "within weeks" for the first preparations, said project leader Jack van der Merwe.
Gases and welding products group African Oxygen (Afrox) is to invest approximately R350-millionin several major new gas production facilities around South Africa during the year. Craig Falconer, Afrox’s general manager process gas solutions, says this expenditure results from increased demand from the company’s existing customer base as well as by new business wins.
The cause of former Kaizer Chiefs midfielder Pule Patrick ”Ace” Ntsoelengoe’s death is still unknown, Gauteng police said on Wednesday. Ntsoelengoe (54) was found dead by a Chiefs fan in his car at a hotel in Lenasia, southern Johannesburg, on Monday.
The public is worried about how the judiciary operates and the impartiality of judges, a survey released on Wednesday has found. Seventy-three percent of those polled felt it was easy to bribe justice officials and 85% thought that the crime-to-punishment process took too long, said Research Surveys, which released the poll.
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Former deputy president Jacob Zuma was found not guilty in the Johannesburg High Court on Monday of raping a 31-year-old HIV-positive woman at his Johannesburg home in November last year. Judge Willem van der Merwe found that Zuma and his accuser had consensual sex in Zuma’s main bedroom.
The proclamation and expropriation of land for the Gautrain Project has begun, the Gauteng Provincial Government said in a statement late on Thursday. The proclamation of properties needed for the first phases of construction will be published in the <i>Provincial Gazette</i> on Friday.
The definition of the word ”shebeen” will be discussed in the Constitutional Court on Wednesday, court registrar Martie Stander said. ”The court will hear an application for the confirmation of an order of constitutional invalidity made by the Pretoria High Court in respect of the definition of shebeen contained in section 1 of the Gauteng Liquor Act, 2003,” Stander said.