The state should be asked to pay Jacob Zuma’s legal fees, the tripartite alliance said on Thursday after discussing the controversy over the axed former deputy president the day before. South African Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande said the recent raids by the Scorpions on Zuma’s residences were also condemned.
About R1,2-billion of public hospital fees are still outstanding from the 2004/05 financial year, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday. ”An astonishing 68% of fees billed for the 2004/05 financial year were not paid,” said DA health spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard. The DA found that only R560-million (32%) was paid.
Former Springbok rugby player Howard Watt, who died earlier this week at the Amberfield frail-care home in Howick, KwaZulu-Natal, was the last surviving member of the 1937 tour to Australia and New Zealand, and the last surviving pre-World War II Springbok.
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The Congress of South African Trade Union’s (Cosatu) central committee says, after discussing the situation around African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma, it is convinced that it is dealing with ”a concerted politically inspired campaign” aimed at destroying Zuma’s political career.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in KwaZulu-Natal on Tuesday joined the South African Communist Party’s call for a one-off credit-bureau amnesty for all. ”Many people who committed serious crimes were granted amnesty in this country. Why can’t poor people enjoy the same privileges?” asked Cosatu’s provincial secretary.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) says it remains committed to pursue its rolling mass action in support of the jobs and poverty campaign, which runs until February next year and includes periodic national stayaways as well as sectoral action.
South Africa’s Department of Minerals and Energy on Tuesday announced that it has short-listed five parties — out of 11 applicants — for new peaking-power generation. The five applicants short-listed are the AES Consortium, the Inkanyezi Consortium, the International Power Consortium, Tata-J&J Consortium and the YTL Consortium.
South Africa’s rigid black economic empowerment (BEE) targets for equity, employment and management mean that United States firms will have to rearrange their entire business structure "simply to invest" in South Africa, says official opposition leader Tony Leon.
McCarthy Motor Holdings, part of listed diversified industrial group Bidvest, has introduced a new concept in car sales targeting the low end of the car market — McCarthy Student Wheels, selling used automobiles at prices of R55 000 or less. It provides reliable cars to students or first-time car buyers with limited budgets.
Jacques Kallis will replace Nicky Boje as vice-captain to Graeme Smith in the Proteas national cricket team and will serve in this capacity for a year, after which he will decide if he wishes to continue in the role. This was announced at a media briefing by Cricket South Africa and the United Cricket Board in Durban on Monday.
The owner of the Durban house into which a light aircraft nose-dived on Sunday escaped injury because he was at a bowling club at the time of the incident, KwaZulu-Natal police said. The aircraft, carrying six occupants, mainly Austrian tourists, crashed into his lounge and dining room.
Condemning the Scorpions’ raid on the office of the attorney of former deputy president Jacob Zuma, the General Council of the Bar of South Africa on Friday called on them to return everything they had seized as soon as possible. The raid appeared to violate the principle of attorney-client privilege, the GCB charged.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation apologised on Thursday for not showing Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka being booed at a rally in Utrecht in KwaZulu-Natal on Women’s Day. ”The SABC apologises unreservedly to the public for not airing the footage,” the public broadcaster said.
A 48-year-old schoolteacher was shot dead in Ekhombe, in the Nkandla area, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Thursday. ”Teressa Mbanjwa was found dead in her cottage around 8am on Wednesday with her head smashed beyond recognition. It is suspected that she was shot at close range the previous night,” Captain Vusi Mbatha said.
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>There were no sinister motives behind the Scorpions’ swoop on the Johannesburg home of former deputy president Jacob Zuma, that of his financial adviser Schabir Shaik and other residences and offices on Thursday, said the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), also denying the raids were conducted in response to Congress of South African Trade Unions statements on Zuma.
Leading KwaZulu-Natal businessman Don Mkhwanazi emerged on Wednesday as a key mover behind a campaign to raise funds for embattled former deputy president Jacob Zuma, The Mercury website reported on Thursday. Zuma is expected to face several charges in a costly and lengthy corruption trial starting in October.
The Scorpions’ raids on the homes of former deputy president Jacob Zuma and his financial adviser Schabir Shaik were still under way by noon on Thursday. The front door of Zuma’s Johannesburg home in Epping Road, Forest Town, was open and the Scorpions could be seen walking inside the house.
Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille says the Democratic Alliance is a small white boys’ club.
The Johannesburg residence of former deputy president Jacob Zuma and the offices of his attorney in Durban were searched by the Scorpions on Thursday morning, his attorney said. This comes after a similar raid at the home of Zuma’s financial adviser Schabir Shaik who is currently appealing a fraud and corruption conviction relating to his relationship with Zuma.
KwaZulu-Natal’s public prosecutions director Shamila Batohi is working closely with police investigating the recent klebsiella outbreak that killed 22 babies at Mahatma Gandhi hospital in Phoenix. Batohi said: ”Once investigations are complete, I will take a decision on whether to prosecute or not.”
Twenty-one Department of Social Development officials faced fraud charges in the Nelspruit Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday as part of a nationwide campaign against benefit cheats. The officials are accused of receiving grants to which they are not entitled. More than 160 people had been identified for arrest in the fraud swoop.
Former deputy president Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday he is humbled by the support South Africa has given him since allegations of corruption were first levelled against him. Meanwhile, the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal will hold meetings across the province to explain the party’s stance on Zuma.
Two KwaZulu-Natal transport department clerks were arrested on charges of issuing fraudulent driving and learner’s licences at Empangeni on the north coast on Friday. On Saturday, provincial transport minister Bheki Cele said his department will arrest everyone linked to the scam.
Union leaders will meet over the weekend to discuss the way forward in a strike that has left municipal workers without pay for a week. Both the South African Municipal Workers’ Union and the Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union said they are still considering a mediator’s proposal that both sides shift their demands.
The countrywide strike by members of the South African Municipal Workers’ Union is likely to end on Saturday, a KwaZulu-Natal union representative said. Meanwhile, the City of Cape Town has been granted a court order against Samwu strikers, and protests seem to have died down in the Free State and Gauteng.
When Glenn McGrath retires and Shane Warne follows him, Australia’s decline will be in full shrivel. The golden age of the Waughs, of massive first innings and nagging length and ripping leg-breaks, will be over. And if the Ashes so far are any indication, a new golden age for spectators will just be beginning.
The body that was exhumed earlier this week in Umlazi, south of Durban, is not that of missing police Constable Frances Rasuge, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Thursday. ”Our pathologist says it is the body of a 60-year-old woman,” police spokesperson Director Bala Naidoo said.
Inkatha Freedom Party senior MP Gavin Woods has accused the media of selectively reporting only ”dramatic” sections of a leaked document penned by himself. The Mail & Guardian reported that the discussion document pulls no punches and calls for the ”infusion of new thinking and new minds”.
The African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal said it will investigate who incited crowd members to shout pro-Jacob Zuma slogans while Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka tried to address them on Women’s Day. Mlambo-Ngcuka was booed as she tried to deliver her speech at Utrecht.
The godfather of canned hunting in South Africa was a Portuguese man who owned a game farm in northern KwaZulu-Natal in the 1970s. He had a nice little scam going with Gauteng zoos, which sold him "surplus" wild animals. He took them in the back of his car to a piece of open veld in the Magaliesberg for "hunters" to shoot.
A meeting between striking municipal workers’ unions and the South African Local Government Association continued on Monday afternoon with no new developments, a union spokesperson said. In KwaZulu-Natal, police arrested 43 striking municipal employees on Monday, as striking Samwu members took to the streets.
Intensive security measures were in place in KwaDukuza on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast on Monday after taxis were forced to stop all operations at midnight on Sunday. This comes after a tribunal was set up to look into the violence between rival taxi associations in which 14 people have died in the past two months.