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/ 23 February 2005
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/197779/special_rep_icon_template.gif" align=left>The maximum old age, disability and care dependency grants will rise by R40 to R780 a month from April 2005, Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel announced on Wednesday. In his national Budget speech he said that foster-care grants will be increased by R30 to R560 and the child-support grant goes up by R10 to R180 a month.
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/ 20 February 2005
So you missed the Prickly Pear Festival in the Western Cape last month but worry not, there’s a whole 10 months of local festivals and events to choose from. From the Philippolis Witblits Festival to the Calvinia Vleisfees, we’ve lined up some of your more interesting options.
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/ 17 February 2005
After a string of explosions at Sasol plants, the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers’ Union (Ceppwawu) said on Thursday it will propose a safety plan to the petrochemical company by April. This will be apart from the report of Sasol-appointed international safety consultants Du Pont, said Ceppwawu.
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/ 11 February 2005
A South African National Defence Force Lance-Corporal has been arrested for being absent without leave after he had started working for the Correctional Services department as an assistant director. He was nabbed where he worked in the office of the correctional services’ regional commissioner for the North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces in Pretoria.
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/ 2 February 2005
Mpumalanga Economic Empowerment Corporation chief executive Ernest Khosa has resigned again, the province’s finance department confirmed on Wednesday. Spokesperson Thomas Nkosi said Khosa resigned on Tuesday. He resigned last week, but withdrew his resignation over the weekend.
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/ 2 February 2005
It is a common refrain: South Africa is a unitary state and it is reactionary and small-minded to engage in parochial battles about which town should fall under which provincial government. So why would councillors resign, tyres be burnt and stayaways be held because some residents of the far East Rand and far West Rand do not want to be moved away from Gauteng?
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/ 27 January 2005
Trade union Solidarity said on Thursday afternoon, after an emergency meeting with oil and chemicals group Sasol, that it has agreed to be part of the internal investigation following the explosion at Sasol’s Natref plant in Sasolburg on Wednesday. Seventeen people were injured in the explosion, Solidarity said.
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/ 21 January 2005
Forty MPs are to be prosecuted for their role in Parliament’s travel scam, the Scorpions announced on Friday. "After considering the evidence and consulting with the affected parties, we have decided to prosecute certain members of Parliament in this matter," spokesperson Sipho Ngwema said.
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/ 20 January 2005
A team comprising independent experts will be set up to investigate claims of cheating in last year’s Mpumalanga matric exams, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said on Thursday. The team’s probe will complement a separate ongoing police investigation into the allegations.
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/ 18 January 2005
Examination quality-assurance body Umalusi denied on Tuesday that it has cleared education department officials of involvement in alleged irregularities in last year’s Mpumalanga matric exams. The council rejected a finding, attributed to it by the Mpumalanga education department, that no officials had been involved.
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/ 15 January 2005
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Friday came out in support for prison warders in their dispute with the Department of Correctional Services. Cosatu said a meeting of its public-sector affiliates on Thursday agreed on a programme of action to rally support for the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union.
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/ 14 January 2005
Any staff found to have been involved in cheating in last year’s Mpumalanga matric examinations will be punished appropriately, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said on Friday. ”Minister Pandor is committed to ensuring that where criminal conduct and fraud is committed, the full might of the law is applied,” her ministry said.
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/ 14 January 2005
The Democratic Alliance on Thursday called for an independent forensic audit into the Mpumalanga matric examinations. The party’s education spokesperson Helen Zille said it was clear that the existing statutory oversight mechanisms were not able to satisfy the public that the examinations were not conducted with integrity.
The provincial department of education in Mpumalanga will not take any disciplinary action against the whistleblower who reported irregularities in the province’s matric exams to the police. The Sunday Times reported this week that the department planned to take actions against the whistleblower.
DA slams action against whistleblower
The announcement by the Mpumalanga education MEC of planned disciplinary action against the whistleblower who revealed cheating in the province’s matric exams was outrageous, the Democratic Alliance said on Sunday.
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/ 30 December 2004
Government claims of an improvement in 2004’s matric mathematics and science performance came under scrutiny on Thursday, with calls for transparent statistics to be released.
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/ 30 December 2004
Examination controlling body Umalusi has agreed to speed up its probe into claims of widespread fraud committed by Mpumalanga matriculants in a bid to hasten the release of pupils’ results, the provincial education department said on Wednesday.
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/ 29 December 2004
The 2004 matric class has achieved a pass rate of more than 70% for the third year in a row, says Education Minister Naledi Pandor. The official results in eight provinces were released during a media briefing at Parliament, but the results in Mpumalanga have been withheld because some are under investigation.
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/ 28 December 2004
Allegations of fraud involving at least 2 000 papers written in this year’s matric year-end examinations were under investigation, Mpumalanga police said on Tuesday. ”Information is streaming in, and the figure could rise,” said Superintendent Izak van Zyl.
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/ 25 December 2004
Amid allegations of examination fraud, Mpumalanga’s matric results are to be withheld when those of the rest of the country are announced next Wednesday, examination controlling body Umalusi said on Friday. Mpumalanga matric candidates may only know their results by the second week of next year.
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/ 23 December 2004
Police on Thursday morning seized every last examination script written by this year’s Mpumalanga matrics as part of an investigation into suspected exam fraud in the province. ”We seized the scripts of all pupils, in all subjects in all schools in the province,” said police spokesperson Superintendent Izak van Zyl.
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/ 19 December 2004
Deputy President Jacob Zuma handed over a traditional court, king’s chamber, community hall and other facilities to the people of Klipfontein, Mpumalanga, on Saturday. The project is part of the government’s commitment to ”improve the status and position of traditional leaders in our country”, he said.
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/ 18 December 2004
Mpumalanga police will thoroughly investigate a possible cover-up over a traffic official’s driving accident. The conduct of police who allegedly refused to provide a blood-testing kit to the Nelspruit Medi-Clinic will be investigated, said Captain Benjamin Bhembe, Lowveld police spokesperson.
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/ 9 December 2004
If the power station at Koeberg in the Western Cape were coal-fired and not nuclear, it would have needed to burn more than 105-million tonnes of the black stuff over the past two decades to equal the power it has produced from just 621 tonnes of uranium, says Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
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/ 3 December 2004
Short-term outlooks are relatively favourable with the best chance for good rainfalls over the period December 6 to December 8, 2004 in South Africa’s maize belt, consultant Enviro Vision said in a statement said on Thursday. Regarding the size of the coming 2004/05 commercial maize crop, Enviro Vision put the crop at about 10 million tonnes, from the previous season’s 9,5 million tonnes.
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/ 30 November 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/142915/aids_icon.gif" align=left>A year ago the government approved a national plan for the management, care and treatment of HIV/Aids. Its aim was to provide free anti-retroviral drugs in the public health sector. The HIV prevalence rates range from an estimated 13,1% in the Western Cape to a very high 37,5% of adults in KwaZulu-Natal. A <i>M&G</i> assessment as World Aids Day approaches reveals the leaders and laggards.
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/ 25 November 2004
Fraud and corruption accused Schabir Shaik used his influence with Deputy President Jacob Zuma to squash attempts by a United Kingdom professor to start an eco-tourism school in KwaZulu-Natal, the Durban High Court heard on Thursday.
Shaik’s ‘error of principle’
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/ 16 November 2004
The Congress of Traditional Leaders of SA (Contralesa) has bought a 25,1% stake in UWP Consulting, a Johannesburg-based engineering consulting firm. Prince Mpumalanga Gwadiso said the acquisition was in line with its intention to achieve good returns for Contralesa members and the largely rural constituencies it represents.
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/ 11 November 2004
The Klipdrift consumption in the Dorsbult has reached crisis proportions since Tuesday last week. But a message from Michael Moore — yes, he of <i>Fahrenheit 9/11</i> fame/notoriety (and, in the Dorsbult, hero worship; well, ok, among some of us) — has done his bit to cheer us up. He offers "17 reasons not to slit your wrists", a few of which follow …
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/ 5 November 2004
The three levels of government should work together to ensure better coordination in the formulation and implementation of policies, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. The president was speaking in Empangeni in KwaZulu-Natal at a sitting of the National Council of Provinces .
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/ 5 November 2004
There is no need to panic about drought — unless the rain stays away for another two months, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry said in Pretoria on Friday. The department is reviewing the state of the Vaal River system to see if water restrictions in Gauteng — now South Africa’s driest province — will be necessary.