Nelson Mandela, the country’s first democratically elected president, voted in Houghton, Johannesburg, on Wednesday.
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Khutsong community stalwart Jomo Mogale on Wednesday called for a by-election in the troubled township where residents are boycotting the local government poll. He said the few voters who had trickled in to cast their ballots were mainly candidate councillors themselves.
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Voters were streaming to polling stations in Johannesburg on Wednesday morning. In Hyde Park, parking was a battle with cars stretching up and down the streets around voting stations. A woman who refused to be named had only one request: ”Politicians should just learn to apologise and admit when they are wrong or else they will discourage people from voting for them”.
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/ 28 February 2006
The Pretoria High Court on Tuesday dismissed urgent applications by four municipalities to stop the transfer of their assets and services to other provinces. The Merafong Demarcation Forum applied to restrain government from handing over at midnight on Tuesday their assets and service duties from Gauteng to the North West province.
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/ 28 February 2006
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The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) in the Western Cape is planning to conduct Wednesday’s municipal election as if there will be no power available in the province. ”We are planning for no electricity. That is the safest,” provincial electoral officer Courtney Sampson told a media briefing in Bellville on Tuesday afternoon.
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/ 28 February 2006
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The Merafong municipality, which includes Khutsong, says it is pleased that elections will take place there and hopes law enforcers will protect voters during and after elections. Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi has urged voters in the Merafong municipality to vote for the party of their choice on Wednesday.
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/ 27 February 2006
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The Pretoria High Court on Monday gave the go-ahead for the election to take place in Khutsong. The court turned down an application by a group calling itself the Merafong community to have the election postponed pending an application to contest the constitutionality of the municipality’s redemarcation.
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/ 24 February 2006
Would the masterful and mellifluous, near-genius skills of world number one Roger Federer have surfaced in all their glory had his parents decided to remain in South Africa instead of returning to Switzerland soon after their marriage in the late 1970s?
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/ 23 February 2006
When a primary-school teacher in the troubled Khutsong township asked her grade-one students what the word ”demarcation” means, one pupil answered: ”They want to move us somewhere poor.” The children think it’s ”just a game” to provoke the police by throwing stones and burning tyres in the streets, says the teacher.
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/ 23 February 2006
The historic town of Tulbagh is anxiously waiting to see if Eskom goes ahead with a proposed power line to supplement the electricity needs of the Western Cape. ”We are watching developments [in Cape Town] with concern,” said John Veschini, property developer and secretary to the Tulbagh Action Committee, on Thursday.
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/ 23 February 2006
The resistance Khutsong residents were showing towards incorporation into North West was often the result of genuine misunderstanding, African National Congress president Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday. He told Metro FM listeners that party chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota had briefed him on his visit there at the weekend.
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/ 22 February 2006
The current Transnet workers’ strike will accomplish nothing that the company has not already committed to, management said on Wednesday. ”The strike merely affects the economy which, as the past few days illustrate, hurts the most vulnerable members of our society,” Transnet spokesperson John Dludlu said.
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/ 22 February 2006
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The violent protests in Khutsong prior to the municipal elections on March 1 are an exception and not the rule, Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) chairperson Brigalia Bam said on Wednesday at the opening of the IEC’s 12Â 000-square-metre national operations centre in Pretoria.
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/ 22 February 2006
The current Transnet workers’ strike will continue if management refuse to engage unions constructively, the United Association of South Africa (Uasa) said on Wednesday. ”We are receiving conflicting messages from the trade and industry minister [Alec Erwin],” said Uasa official Leon Grobler.
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/ 22 February 2006
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They resemble scenes from another era: angry crowds, clashes with police, shots, teargas and petrol bombs. Twelve years after apartheid ended, some townships are again burning. This time the target is not a racist white regime but the African National Congress, the liberation movement which swept to power in 1994 on a wave of euphoria and the promise of a better life for all.
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/ 21 February 2006
The current strike by Transnet workers was misguided and had no clear objectives, Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin said on Tuesday. He said there had been ”more than enough opportunity” for consultation on the structure of Transnet.
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/ 21 February 2006
As gays and lesbians become more visible in South African townships, they are increasingly becoming targets of homophobia, according to rights activists. The organisations were reacting to reports at the weekend of the murder of a young lesbian in a township in Cape Town.
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/ 21 February 2006
Metrorail on Tuesday again appealed to train commuters in Gauteng to use alternative transport as the strike by Transnet employees entered its second day. Spokesperson Brenda Motau said a partial service would again be offered during the morning peak, supplemented by buses where possible.
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/ 20 February 2006
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The Freedom Front Plus has lodged criminal charges in Pretoria/Tshwane against the official opposition Democratic Alliance over what it regards as the spreading of ”false information” through the broadcasting of a DA advertisement for the local government election.
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/ 20 February 2006
Transnet’s strike badly affected Metrorail in Gauteng but left the company’s other operations in the country unaffected, the firm said on Monday. Metrorail, one of Transnet’s divisions, was, ”as expected”, affected by the first of day of strike, which left only a handful of trains operating in central Gauteng during peak hour on Monday.
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/ 20 February 2006
The blame for power cuts that hit large parts of the country over the weekend and continue in the Western Cape lies squarely with Minister of Minerals and Energy Lindiwe Hendricks and the African National Congress, the Democratic Alliance said on Monday. The Western Cape, including Cape Town, was without power for most of Sunday.
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/ 20 February 2006
The Transnet strike has severely affected Metrorail in the West Rand — most seriously in Soweto — an official said on Monday. ”We are not able to run a service, even with our contingency plan on the Soweto line,” said Thandi Mlangeni, Metrorail’s spokesperson.
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/ 20 February 2006
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Protests against the incorporation of Khutsong into the North West province will end in time for the March 1 elections to take place there, African National Congress (ANC) chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota told the South African Broadcating Corporation on Sunday.
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/ 19 February 2006
Murdered mining magnate Brett Kebble had an intimate relationship with a young man, the Afrikaans-language <i>Rapport</i> newspaper reported on Sunday. The newspaper said the relationship came to light during the investigation into the wealthy businessman’s shooting death in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs in 2005.
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/ 19 February 2006
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African National Congress chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota warned Khutsong residents on Saturday afternoon that those who participate in ”destruction” in the area will be dealt with by police. Some community members threatened earlier this week to boycott the upcoming local government elections.
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/ 19 February 2006
The entire Western Cape was without power early on Sunday and no trains were running following faults on transmission lines that were the result of misty conditions and residual pollution from recent fires, according to Eskom. Meanwhile, power failures also affected northern Johannesburg and most parts of Ekurhuleni.
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/ 18 February 2006
Gauteng’s Tebogo Mashela (Absa/University of Johannesburg) blitzed her way on Friday to a new South African record in the 3 000m women’s steeple chase. After two events in Secunda and Tswane in January, and one in Stellenbosch earlier this month, this was the fourth Athletics South Africa Champions Challenge event.
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/ 17 February 2006
Transnet will consider a proposal for mediation in the ongoing dispute with labour over the restructuring of the parastatal, a spokesperson said on Friday. John Dludlu said the company has informed the four labour unions involved in the dispute that it will consider their proposal for mediation as early as this weekend.
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/ 16 February 2006
A ”vile cocktail” of cancer-causing pollutants has been measured in and around some of South Africa’s industrial centres, Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Thursday. He said the country spent more than R4-billion a year on respiratory health problems linked to foul air.
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/ 16 February 2006
The Gautrain route has been finalised and can now be cleared for construction to begin, Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa said on Thursday. He said preferred bidder Bombela and the provincial government signed an agreement on Wednesday on issues that could affect the cost of the project.
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/ 16 February 2006
A group of Khutsong residents declared the township a no-go area for the African National Congress during a protest march on Wednesday. ”We are tired of the ANC. Other political parties are welcome to campaign, but not the ANC,” said Elisa Bogatsa as residents protested the transfer of the Merafong municipality from Gauteng to the North West.
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/ 16 February 2006
Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has added R6,6-billion to planned spending on the administrative capacity of the government over the next three years, as the state tries to get better at converting the current economic momentum into sustained development.