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/ 11 November 2006
Fraud convict Tony Yengeni — the former African National Congress chief whip — would be released on weekend parole, the Department of Correctional Services said on Friday. A few offenders per prison are released each weekend, with 22 prisoners from the Western Cape benefiting this month.
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/ 8 November 2006
The church handyman who is going to bury PW Botha says he has no reason to think ill of the former state president. ”As I see it, he was a good person,” Manie Botman (40) said on Wednesday morning at the Dutch Reformed Church at Hoekwil near Wilderness where Botha is to be interred.
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/ 8 November 2006
Eskom will decide within six months whether to commission a second nuclear power plant to supplement its Cape Town Koeberg plant, media reports said on Wednesday. Phumzile Tshelane, Eskom’s technical strategy manager, said the company was looking at models of light-water reactors from French and United States suppliers, and one type of heavy-water reactor from a Canadian supplier.
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/ 7 November 2006
A nuclear reactor at Koeberg in Cape Town was restored on Tuesday after it automatically shut down on Sunday night, Eskom said. ”The power level will be increased during the course of today [Tuesday] and the unit is expected to be back to the previous power level of 84% on Wednesday morning,” said a spokesperson.
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/ 6 November 2006
A nuclear reactor at Koeberg in Cape Town automatically shut down on Sunday night but risk of power interruption was minimal, Eskom said on Monday. "The initial indication is that the fault is on the turbine control system, which is currently being investigated," it said in a statement.
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/ 6 November 2006
While President Thabo Mbeki will only give up his Union Buildings office in 2009, the next president will effectively be chosen in just over a year’s time at the ANC’s watershed elective conference in Polokwane, Limpopo. How will it happen? And how are the cards stacked? Zukile Majova and Mbuyisi Mgibisa investigated to bring you this exclusive report, taking you into the mechanics of an elective conference.
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/ 4 November 2006
The military will not be used to help cash-in-transit teams, but business and the government will work together to battle the heists, said Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula on Friday. ”There are other ways which this particular problem can be attended to,” Nqakula told a press briefing in Johannesburg.
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/ 3 November 2006
The deal brokered in Cape Town by Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi this week was little more than a face-saving mechanism for the African National Congress, acting Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Kraai van Niekerk said on Friday in DA leader Tony Leon’s internet column.
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/ 3 November 2006
Former president PW Botha ought to be remembered for the fact that during his time as head of state, he saw the need for change ”even though his approach to this change was in itself controversial”, says African National Congress deputy leader Jacob Zuma.
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/ 3 November 2006
Yolandi Groenewald looks at books that explore things that go bump in the night in South Africa.
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/ 3 November 2006
While the British government is making climate-change combat its priority, South African officialdom is squabbling over who should administer a green tax worth up to R600-million a year. Electricity users pay between R400-million and R600-million annually as a tariff on electricity usage to promote energy saving.
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/ 2 November 2006
Over 8Â 000 health practitioners have been struck off the roll after failing to pay their annual fees, the Health Professionals’ Council of South Africa (HPSCA) said on Thursday. ”A total of 8Â 593 health professionals have been struck off the roll after failing to meet the deadline,” said HPCSA spokesperson Tendai Dhliwayo.
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/ 1 November 2006
Former president PW Botha, who is to be laid to rest next week, will not have a state funeral, according to a spokesperson for the church where his memorial service is to be held. He died on Tuesday night at his home in the Western Cape. The news follows a visit on Wednesday by Director General in the Presidency Frank Chikane to Botha’s wife Barbara at the couple’s home in the coastal town of Wilderness.
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/ 1 November 2006
The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the city of Cape Town has noted and welcomed the agreement reached between Western Cape local government and housing minister Richard Dyantyi and Cape Town mayor Helen Zille, saying it should reduce tension and instability in the city.
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/ 1 November 2006
South African politicians paid tribute on Wednesday to former president PW Botha, who died on Tuesday night at his home in the Western Cape. Messages were received from President Thabo Mbeki, former presidents FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, former parliamentarian Helen Suzman and many others.
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/ 1 November 2006
By the early 21st century, Pieter Willem (PW) Botha’s name had become a byword for unaccountable government and the autocratic exercise of power. Botha, who died on Tuesday night at his home Die Anker near the Wilderness in the Western Cape, aged 90, was the archetype ”kragdadige” Afrikaner and a worthy successor to John Vorster, whom he replaced as prime minister.
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/ 1 November 2006
PW Botha, the former prime minister and president of South Africa, long known as ”the Groot Krokodil”, died on Tuesday night at his home in the Wilderness, in the Western Cape. He was 90. His second wife Barbara found him dead in bed just after 8pm. He had seemed to be in good health.
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/ 31 October 2006
Provincial environment and planning authorities have given the go-ahead for Cape Town’s R2,5-billion 2010 soccer stadium to be built on the site of the golf course at Green Point. However, they have set tough conditions to limit noise and light pollution, and reduce its visual impact.
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/ 31 October 2006
The widespread use of prepaid services by South African households has thrown up lucrative business opportunities for banks to bring previously un-banked people into the financial services loop. Prepaid electricity and Telkom airtime — introduced in April 2006 this year — is increasingly becoming a key cellphone banking volume transaction driver.
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/ 30 October 2006
Crime levels on commuter trains are still unacceptable, but the dedicated rail-police unit is making a difference, government and commuter-rail officials said on Monday. They were speaking in Cape Town at the national launch of the South African Police Service Railway Unit, which began operating in the Western Cape in 2004.
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/ 30 October 2006
President Thabo Mbeki’s International Investment Council (IIC) endorsed the medium-term budget policy delivered by the Department of Finance in Parliament this week, the Presidency said on Sunday. It said the government’s goals for a higher gross domestic product and employment growth rates by 2014 were a step forward for South Africa
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/ 29 October 2006
Landing in Johannesburg from anywhere else in Africa can be a deeply disorienting experience, no matter how many times you do it. In fact the contrasts are so great, you can end up wondering if you are still in Africa at all. Confusion sets in as soon as you head into town along a network of fine roads that would put London to shame.
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/ 27 October 2006
The Cape Town city council has given mayor Helen Zille a mandate to declare an intergovernmental dispute if necessary in her battle with Western Cape local government minister Richard Dyantyi. The mandate takes the council a step closer to a court challenge to Dyantyi’s plan to strip Zille of her executive powers.
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/ 27 October 2006
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille met Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi on Friday for a second round of discussions on the African National Congress’s plan to change the city’s form of government. The two met last week, with Western Cape provincial minister of local government and housing Richard Dyantyi present.
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/ 26 October 2006
OR Tambo International airport is one of hundreds of South African place names that have been officially changed since 2000. The airport’s new name and a bust of Tambo are due to be unveiled on Friday by President Thabo Mbeki. The South African Geographical Names Council lists 833 new names approved since 2000, including at least 145 names that were completely changed.
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/ 26 October 2006
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The South African government is setting ”an appalling precedent” by paying former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s legal fees, said the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA). DA justice spokesperson Sheila Camerer said on Thursday: ” … the government has finally admitted that the taxpayer will have to fork out R10-million to pay for Zuma’s highly publicised trials.”
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/ 26 October 2006
The South African Cabinet has given its approval to the proposal to create six regional electricity distributors (REDs) which will be established as public entities under the auspices of the Electricity Distribution Industry. This was confirmed on Thursday — after the Cabinet’s meeting on Wednesday.
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/ 25 October 2006
The government will be spending close to R2,3-billion on its HIV/Aids programme by 2010, according to the mini-Budget tabled in Parliament on Wednesday. The figure was contained in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement, which gave no breakdown of how the amount was arrived at.
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/ 25 October 2006
The African National Congress’s efforts to change Cape Town’s multiparty government is doing ”incalculable harm” to South Africa, city mayor Helen Zille said on Wednesday. ”They are not damaging the multiparty government, they are doing incalculable harm to South Africa,” she said in an opening speech at a full council meeting.
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/ 25 October 2006
South Africa’s nine provinces are to receive an additional R28,2-billion over the next three years, according to Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement. Provincial government is projected to get R178,3-billion this year — 2006/07 — including R150,7-billion from the equitable share and R27,5-billion in conditional grants.
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/ 25 October 2006
President Thabo Mbeki warned earlier this month that strategic proposals conveyed by the South African Communist Party’s Blade Nzimande would result in the ”destruction of the African National Congress and the rest of the democratic movement”. But he decline of the ruling alliance was prophesied more than a decade ago, writes Ranjeni Munusamy.
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/ 24 October 2006
Provincial minister for local government and housing in the Western Cape, Richard Dyantyi, has turned down the city’s invitation to address the full Cape Town city council on Wednesday, according to a statement from Mayor Helen Zille’s office on Tuesday. Zille said he would have had the opportunity to provide substantive reasons for his proposed change of the system of governance in Cape Town.