Senior Scorpions prosecutor Portia Refiloe Kgantsi accepted R12 000 in cash and R6 000 in car hire from two awaiting-trial prisoners who relied on her help to beat their fraud charges, the prisoners told the Johannesburg High Court on Tuesday.
The idea of a single public service does not seek to undermine the distinctions between local, provincial and national government, Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said on Tuesday. She was speaking at the national conference of the South African Local Government Association in Midrand.
The government’s new electronic national traffic information system, eNaTIS, had processed more than two million transactions by Tuesday, but received heavy criticism from the motor industry for slow service and backlogs. ”Since April 12 to date we’ve done 2,3-million transactions in total,” said Department of Transport spokesperson Ntau Letebele.
About 30 fires were ignited in mountain ranges across the Western Cape by a lightning storm in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Spokesperson for Working on Fire, Val Charlton, said on Tuesday afternoon that the outbreak of these fires after lightning and thunder was ”a perfectly natural event”.
Opposition parties are set to march through Durban on Workers’ Day on May 1 in protest against the eThekwini municipality’s proposed name changes of streets and buildings. Announcing the march in Durban on Tuesday, the Inkatha Freedom Party’s eThekwini caucus leader, Themba Nzuza, said the party would be marching ”against the blatantly flawed” process.
The African rebirth will be moral and peaceful and lead to a better world, South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma assured delegates to the African Union-Caribbean Diaspora conference on Tuesday. ”The people of African descent have to show … a new world order where diversity is celebrated and harnessed,” Dlamini-Zuma said in her speech to the conference.
Two men accused of manufacturing the potentially lethal drug cat in a luxurious flat in Sea Point made a routine appearance in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday. Jacobus Johannes Venter (43) and Jacques van Rensburg (36) were arrested in June last year after police swooped on the flat.
A Sunday tabloid aimed at the ”new, modern Afrikaner” is to be launched in May, its editor said on Tuesday. Sondag’s Mike Vink said it would offer less sleaze than weekly Afrikaans tabloid Son. This will entail, among others, a page three pin-up girl, who will not be topless. ”It’s not going to be sleazy, but a genuine Sunday newspaper with a sports, news and business section.”
Central Africa, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will overtake Southern African countries in the next 10 to 20 years as Africa’s dominant diamond producers, a conference heard on Tuesday. At the same time, Africa is the world’s preferred destination for exploration, with about -million spent in 2006 compared with -million in 2000.
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) is doing very little to help the poor access their rights, the ad hoc committee on the review of Chapter Nine institutions heard on Tuesday. Deputy Justice Minister Johnny de Lange said the SAHRC has failed to fulfil its mandate.
South African technology firm Allied Technologies (Altech) lifted full-year headline earnings per share (EPS) by 10% and said on Tuesday it expected real growth in the current year. Altech said headline EPS — the key profit measure for South African firms, which excludes non-trading, capital and certain extraordinary items — rose to 418 cents.
A grade two teacher was shot dead by a balaclava-clad gunman in front of her terrified young pupils at Mount Frere on Monday. Captain Zamukulungisa Jozana said the 30-year-old was teaching at Niyona Junior Secondary School at 11am when the man entered the classroom and shot her three times.
The chairperson of the Commission on Gender Equality, Joyce Piliso Seroke, said it was significant to receive a National Order for her contribution to the struggle against gender oppression in the same building on which women once marched to demand their rights. She was one of 24 recipients who received the country’s highest honours.
Two shots were fired at Johannesburg’s busy Bree Street taxi rank on Tuesday, just a day after a taxi driver was shot and killed at the same rank, Gauteng police said. Meanwhile, commuters were left stranded at Dobsonville in Soweto on Tuesday morning as taxis were not operating in the area.
Sex workers’ advocacy group Sweat said on Tuesday that the legal action it has launched to stop police harassing prostitutes is a last recourse. ”Bringing this legal action is not a step that Sweat has taken lightly,” the organisation said in its first substantive comment since it filed papers in the Cape High Court last week.
Annanias Mathe, the C-Max prison escapee, was brought to the Pretoria Regional Court in a wheelchair for a brief appearance there on Tuesday. Mathe, who was arrested in December after he escaped from C-Max prison the previous month, was still wearing shackles and handcuffs in his wheelchair.
The official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) says that President Thabo Mbeki is quite right to criticise ruling party African National Congress (ANC) councillors for not doing their jobs — but it argues that words must be turned into action. On Tuesday, DA local government spokesperson Willem Doman said: "A year after the local elections it is clear that many councillors are not effective."
While business activity levels in Gauteng slowed down in March, overall performance remains at a high level and businesses in virtually every sector should experience healthy activity, according to the latest Gauteng Business Barometer.
If South Africa are to host a Super 14 semifinal for the first time since 2001, then the Sharks are first going to have to overcome some tough local challenges. But the men from Durban will also hope the second-placed Auckland Blues falter against the Northern Bulls in Pretoria this weekend.
The fraud case against Brett Kebble’s former security chief, Clinton Nassif, was postponed in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday. The prosecutor told the magistrate the state and the defence had agreed that the matter be postponed to September 11 for further investigation.
Game-park owner Dirk Brink (58) died of a stroke and was not killed by the lions that mauled him, media reports said on Tuesday. This came to light during the post-mortem on Brink, who owned the Krugersdorp Game Reserve. It showed that he was attacked by the pride at Ngonyama Lion Lodge only after his death from a stroke.
The South African Football Association (Safa) on Monday claimed a ”campaign of hate” was being waged in sections of the media against soccer’s national controlling organisation and some of its top officials — with little regard of how it would affect South African soccer or the hosting of the World Cup in 2010.
Too often land for the poor is demarcated in apartheid fashion far from employment opportunities, President Thabo Mbeki told the South African Local Government Association (Salga) conference in Midrand on Monday. Mbeki also expressed concern about the high turnover of councillors in local government.
A taxi driver was shot dead and four other people were wounded during a shoot-out at Johannesburg’s busy Bree Street taxi rank on Monday afternoon, city emergency services said. Spokesperson Malcolm Midgley said two of the injured people were critically injured and two others were in a serious condition.
The prospect of President Thabo Mbeki staying on as African National Congress (ANC) head would harm the country, official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon said on Monday. At a farewell meeting in Port Elizabeth the DA leader said an anointed presidential successor would become a ”puppet president owing his or her position to Mbeki”.
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African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma and French arms-maker Thint have been granted leave to appeal a Durban High Court ruling that Mauritius can be asked to provide documents relating to alleged arms-deal corruption, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Monday.
The idea of expanding fan parks in which people can view the 2010 Soccer World Cup in every local municipality outside the host cities is under discussion. Dennis Mumble of the World Cup’s local organising committee on Monday said his organisation was in discussions with Fifa about getting licensing for the signal required to enable such fan parks.
The challenge faced by women, especially in rural areas, is simply poverty and powerlessness, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka told a women’s congress in Durban on Monday. ”It goes without saying that negative conditions in rural areas have a greater adverse effect on women than citizens working in the cities,” she said.
Liberation stalwart and former general secretary of the South African Communist Party Joe Slovo is to receive a posthumous Freeman of the City Award, the City of Johannesburg said on Monday. The award is bestowed upon people who have contributed greatly to the welfare of the City of Johannesburg and in the struggle for freedom and democracy, spokesperson Nkele Ntingane said.
An agreement between Equity Aviation and the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) was signed on Monday, averting planned industrial action. Satawu threatened to go on strike last week over the company docking pay from employees across the board for the offences of individuals. Wage demands were also a factor.
The African National Congress (ANC) provincial executive committee in the Free State on Monday dismissed a failed court challenge to its leadership as ”counter-revolutionary”. ”The matter referred to the court has never been a legal matter but has always been a political matter,” said Free State ANC deputy chairperson Pat Matosa.
A website has zeroed in on the road rage of South Africans by developing an online game that allows them to beat up the usual targets of their ire — minibus taxi drivers — and smash their vehicle to smithereens. Players of Taxi Wars can choose from among five weapons — a fist, a paint can, a golf club, a screwdriver and a plastic vuvuzela.