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/ 27 October 2003
National Development Agency (NDA) CEO Delani Mthembu has been suspended from his position pending an investigation into allegations of mismanagement and corruption, Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya announced on Monday. The suspension followed a preliminary forensic audit of the NDA.
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/ 27 October 2003
Former Mpumalanga premier-turned-businessman Mathews Phosa has been elected to the provincial African National Congress’s list of provincial and national candidates for next year’s elections, SABC Radio News reported on Monday. The ANC also announced on Monday that President Thabo Mbeki heads the North West’s national candidates nominations list.
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/ 27 October 2003
The leaders of the Inkatha Freedom Party youth brigade have had themselves tested for HIV/Aids at the party’s headquarters in Durban. The group said it had taken "the bold step of having ourselves tested" in line with a resolution taken by the IFP youth brigade conference held in Ulundi at the end of August.
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/ 27 October 2003
The South African government’s silence on the persecution of the owners and staff of the Zimbabwean newspaper The Daily News by the authorities in that country, is scandalous, Democratic Alliance spokesperson Graham McIntosh said on Monday.
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/ 26 October 2003
It is almost 10 years since apartheid ended and the government has published its draft review of its first decade in power to hold up a mirror to its own performance. It is good in parts, patchy in others: for example, there are more poor households than in 1994 when the African National Congress was voted in.
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/ 25 October 2003
Deputy President Jacob Zuma has taken a swipe at the National Prosecuting Authority, saying three years was a long time for it to fail to find any evidence of wrongdoing or corruption against him, referring to the probe into allegations he was involved in corruption related to South Africa’s multibillion-rand arms deal.
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/ 23 October 2003
National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka’s main accusers, Mac Maharaj and Mo Shaik, were again absent from the Hefer commission’s public hearings on Thursday. Their absence on Thursday again robbed them of the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses who made allegations against them.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=22481">Mac Maharaj’s ‘fishing trip'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=22488">ANC: Zuma need not testify</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=22455">Former activists testify before Hefer</a>
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/ 23 October 2003
Thabang Paul Khumalo, who has escaped four times from custody, was arrested in Sebokeng south of Johannesburg on Thursday. Police spotted and followed his vehicle to a garage near Orange Farm, where their attempts to shot him resulted in shots being fired.
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/ 23 October 2003
The strike at Shoprite Checkers was well under way on Thursday morning with many of its 30 000 union members heeding a call to industrial action. However, it would seem despite the industrial action that it was business as usual for the retail group and its subsidiaries.
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/ 23 October 2003
Democratic Alliance MP Vincent Gore confirmed on Thursday that he had sent a letter to President Thabo Mbeki requesting him not to sign the Postal Services Amendment Bill into law. The party — mirroring courier industry complaints — says that the Bill could affect the business of couriers in the under-1kg parcel and letter market.
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/ 22 October 2003
There is no government policy to exclude individuals from the employ of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) because they are HIV positive, government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe said on Wednesday. Earlier this month, Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota said the SANDF did not recruit people with what he termed ”the condition”.
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/ 22 October 2003
The Cabinet might consider a plan within the next few days for anti-retroviral treatment at state hospitals, government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe said on Wednesday. The Cabinet instructed the minister of health in August to formulate an HIV/Aids treatment plan that includes the provision of anti-retrovirals.
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/ 22 October 2003
President Thabo Mbeki was trying to ”recapture lost ground” before next year’s election by telling religious leaders that there was no government corruption in the arms deal, the United Democratic Movement said on Wednesday. UDM president Bantu Holomisa said in a statement that Mbeki was in a state of denial.
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/ 22 October 2003
Spy allegations against National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka may be motivated by his Scorpions unit’s corruption investigation against Mac Maharaj, the Hefer commission heard on Wednesday when Ngcuka’s former comrade-in-arms, Patrick Ntobeko ”Ntobs” Maqubela, testified.
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/ 22 October 2003
The South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union, representing many employees at Shoprite Checkers and its subsidiaries, has announced that nationwide industrial action would go ahead as planned on Thursday. Outlets that will be affected include Shoprite Checkers, Hyperamas and OK Furniture stores.
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/ 21 October 2003
Former president Nelson Mandela has joined forces with famous musicians and called on the globe’s citizens to join a global campaign.
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/ 21 October 2003
The name Unisa is to remain, a university is to be named after former president Nelson Mandela, and the term technikon is to disappear, Minister of Education Kader Asmal said on Tuesday. He was announcing the new names of higher education institutions that are to merge in terms of a plan approved by the Cabinet last year.
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/ 21 October 2003
A former comrade-in-arms of National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka became the Hefer commission’s first witness to testify publicly. Ngcuka reportedly spent many years in prison for refusing to testify against fellow African National Congress member Patrick Ntobeko ("Ntobs") Maqubela, nowadays a lawyer.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=22307">’Enough lies and deceit, I’m the spy'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=22267">Sources won’t be compromised</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=29920">Arms deal focus</a>
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/ 21 October 2003
The controversial Postal Services Amendment Bill has got the nod from the African National Congress-dominated public enterprises and labour select committee of South Africa’s National Council of Provinces — despite an eleventh-hour attempt to halt the legislation in its present form.
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/ 20 October 2003
Retrenching workers is not the only means Iscor intends to use to deal with the combined impact of the collapse in the demand for steel and the continuing strengthening of the rand, the company said on Monday. It has already merged its flat and long steel businesses and thus eliminated duplication.
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/ 20 October 2003
The African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal on Monday expressed shock following a road accident that left 15 pensioners dead and 13 seriously injured. The pensioners were queuing to collect their grants when a horse and trailer ploughed into the pensioners on the side of the road.
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/ 20 October 2003
It should be possible to prevent the intelligence community’s sources and methods from being revealed before the Hefer commission, commission secretary John Bacon said on Monday. ”We are not interested in their sources or methods,” Bacon said.
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/ 17 October 2003
Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana has cleared Deputy President Jacob Zuma of allegations he breached the executive ethics code by not properly declaring his interests and liabilities in the register of financial interests. However, Mushwana did not investigate Zuma’s relationship with his financial adviser, Durban businessman Schabir Shaik.
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/ 17 October 2003
The New Labour Party has expressed its satisfaction that its leader, Peter Marais, has not been implicated in any wrongdoing over the controversial Roodefontein golf estate development. On Thursday Italian multimillionaire Count Riccardo Agusta pleaded guilty to corruption charges involving politicians in the Western Cape government.
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/ 17 October 2003
Eighty percent of the poorest people in South Africa should have effective access to financial services by 2008, according to the Financial Sector Charter, which was released on Friday. These include savings and transaction services, says the charter, which was handed to Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel.
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/ 17 October 2003
Both the Guinness Book of Records and Interpol say South Africa is the country with the highest rate of rapes, many of them against children, a conference in Cape Town heard on Friday, the final day of the 25th anniversary conference of the Child Accident Prevention Foundation of Southern Africa.
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/ 17 October 2003
Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals has denied it has abused a dominant position in the market to the detriment of consumers, and charged excessive prices for its products. On Thursday, the Competition Commission found that Ingelheim and GlaxoSmithKline abused their dominant positions in their respective anti-retroviral drugs markets.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=22131">SA generic Aids drugs breakthrough</a>
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/ 16 October 2003
The Treatment Action Campaign is celebrating what it calls a ”ground-breaking” decision on Thursday by the Competitions Commission that found two giant pharmaceutical firms culpable of charging excessive prices for anti-retroviral drugs and abusing their dominant positions in the market.
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/ 16 October 2003
Western Cape premier Marthinus van Schalkwyk must go, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday after hearing that developer Count Riccardo Agusta pleaded guilty to donating R400 000 to the New National Party to pave the way for planning approval of the Roodefontein golf estate development near Plettenberg Bay.
Marais maintains innocence
Case against Marais strengthened
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/ 16 October 2003
The Department of Health has released details of a Bill that seeks to increase dramatically fines under the anti-smoking legislation. The fine for any person who fails to control smoking on his or her premises is to go up from R200 to R20 000 for a first offence and R100 000 for a second.