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/ 20 October 2006
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has acquired another executive mayorship in the Western Cape, the party said on Friday. DA councillor Rudi Laws has been elected as the new mayor for the Eden district municipality in George following the resignation of Independent Democrats councillor Leon Dorfling.
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/ 18 October 2006
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille and Western Cape provincial minister of local government Richard Dyantyi are to hold further talks with Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi. This follows a 90-minute meeting between the three at Mufamadi’s Cape Town office on Wednesday.
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/ 18 October 2006
In 2001, the Jali Commission started its inquiry into alleged incidents of corruption, maladministration, violence and intimidation in the Department of Correctional Services. It is now 2006 and the report of commission, named after Thabane Jali, the chairperson of the commission, has been publicised.
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/ 17 October 2006
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille and Western Cape provincial minister of local government Richard Dyantyi will meet face to face on Wednesday to discuss Dyanti’s plan to strip Zille of her power. The meeting has been arranged by Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi, who will also attend.
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/ 17 October 2006
The Independent Democrats (ID) have accused Cape Town mayor Helen Zille of arrogance and contempt for her decision not to meet Western Cape local government minister Richard Dyantyi. Zille and her Democratic Alliance (DA), and the DA’s six coalition partners in the city government boycotted the meeting, which was attended only by the ID and the African National Congress.
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/ 17 October 2006
The Scorpions were conducting a selective prosecution in the parliamentary travel-voucher fraud case, the Cape High Court was told on Tuesday. ”In terms of the novel Animal Farm, some of us are less equal than others,” attorney Reuben Liddell, representing travel agent Soraya Beukes, told Cape Judge President John Hlophe.
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/ 16 October 2006
Workers on three wine farms in the Western Cape will take ownership of one of the farms, said the owners on Sunday. ”An innovative empowerment deal will transform employees on the three Franschhoek-based Solms properties into land owners after generations of tilling vineyards on which they had no claim,” said Paula Wilson, the spokesperson for the farms.
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/ 12 October 2006
Opposing views regarding a possible change in the type of governance of the city of Cape Town — the only metro area in the country ruled by parties other than the national ruling African National Congress (ANC) — have the potential to evolve into an intergovernmental dispute, says Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi.
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/ 11 October 2006
A bid by the African National Congress to wrest back power in Cape Town, a lone bastion of opposition to South Africa’s ruling party, has triggered a fierce backlash across the political spectrum. Western Cape minister of local government Richard Dyantyi has summoned members of the city council to a meeting next Tuesday where he will flesh out plans to amend the system of government.
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/ 10 October 2006
The Western Cape, already boasting some success in bringing down crime, hopes to better the crime-busting feats of New York mayor Rudi Giuliani. A five-year 40% drop in crime by 2008 ”is a target that can be achievable”, provincial police commissioner Mzandile Petros said in Cape Town on Tuesday.
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/ 10 October 2006
An attempted hostage-taking by a South African police officer backfired on Monday when he shot himself in the leg inside his boss’s office at a station near Cape Town. The incident happened when the 24-year-old constable held up his station commander and two other senior officers while he was on duty, police spokesperson Captain Elliot Sinyangana said.
South Africa and China have signed an extension to the memorandum of understanding in the labour field agreed to in 2002. Briefing the media at Parliament after the signing ceremony on Monday, Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana said the agreement focused on human resources development, job creation strategies and cooperation in the International Labour Organisation.
Complaints against Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe for working outside his judicial functions would come under scrutiny again this week, media reports said on Monday. Hlophe and his relationship with Oasis Crescent Property Fund Managers hit the headlines this year.
Former New National Party (NNP) leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk should have been in the dock in the Roodefontein case alongside him, David Malatsi said on Friday. ”I personally feel somewhere, somehow, I was used as a fall guy by some people,” he told the Bellville Regional Court in Cape Town. Malatsi, a former Western Cape provincial minister of environment, was testifying in mitigation of sentence.
The licence to operate the national lottery has been awarded to Gidani, Minister of Trade and Industry Mandisi Mpahlwa announced on Wednesday. Mpahlwa told journalists in Pretoria — at a briefing beamed to Parliament in Cape Town — that it had a significant black economic empowerment component and government was a 20% shareholder.
Former Western Cape Premier Peter Marais was on Wednesday found not guilty in the Belville Regional Court on two counts of corruption. His co-accused, former Provincial Environment MEC David Malatsi was however convicted one count of corruption.
The high rate of credit extension in South Africa had become a major concern for the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), the bank’s Governor Tito Mboweni said on Monday while addressing trainee chartered accountants in the Western Cape. "Consumer spending through credit-card lending has recorded year-on-year growth of 38,6% to a level of R36,9-billion at the end of July 2006.
Parts of the Western Cape can expect heavy rain and snow on Monday, Weather SA warned on Monday. ”Heavy falls of rain are possible in the Overberg, Breede River Valley, Ruens, Garden Route and the Little Karoo,” said Weather SA. ”Very cold, wet and windy conditions are expected on the high-ground areas of the Western Cape province and western parts of the Northern Cape province.”
The past year has provided myriad opportunities to reflect on South Africa’s future. Many of us are still hung over from the euphoria of the celebrations of 2004. We also feel the increasing confidence that comes with growing up. We no longer debate the merits of the African renaissance because we have found a way to declare unwavering allegiance to the continent with the same tongue with which we speak xenophobia.
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/ 28 September 2006
Many schools are urban war zones, with teachers struggling to cope with unruly pupils, some of whom are armed, the South African Human Rights Commission was told in Cape Town on Thursday. Violence at schools varied from blunt assault to human bite wounds and firearm-related injuries, the director of the Child Accident Prevention Foundation of Southern Africa said.
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/ 27 September 2006
Judgement is to be given on Monday in the Roodefontein corruption case, in which former Western Cape premier Peter Marais and his then-provincial minister for environment, David Malatsi, face two charges of corruption. The Bellville Regional Court case stems from two alleged corrupt donations that were given to the then-New National Party as sweeteners to expedite approval for a golf estate.
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/ 26 September 2006
Multimillionaire Italian Count Riccardo Agusta has never attended a single day of the marathon corruption trial of former Western Cape premier Peter Marais and his environment provincial minister David Malatsi. Yet as the hearing entered its final stages on Tuesday in Cape Town’s Bellville Regional Court Two, his shadow lay over proceedings as surely as if he had been there in person.
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/ 23 September 2006
Cape Town executive mayor Helen Zille is calling for a municipal poll to decide how the city should be governed, media reports said on Saturday. Zille’s call came after Western Cape local government minister Richard Dyantyi sent a letter to the city notifying it of a proposed change to the municipal structure by replacing Cape Town’s executive system with a executive committee.
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/ 22 September 2006
President Thabo Mbeki is behind African National Congress (ANC) plans to replace Cape Town’s executive mayoral system with an executive committee, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Friday. If successful, the plan will strip the city’s DA mayor, Helen Zille, of her powers.
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/ 20 September 2006
The L&R Consortium, which has British, South African and Dubai elements, has been named by Transnet as the successful bidder for the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront (V&A) in Cape Town. The bid came in at R7,04-billion. Among leading South African black business leaders involved in the project are Vincent Maphai and Hassan Adams.
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/ 19 September 2006
Western Cape provincial minister of local government Richard Dyantyi’s move to change Cape Town’s system of government is a blatant abuse of power with serious implications for South Africa, city mayor Helen Zille said on Tuesday. She was reacting to a letter Dyantyi sent her earlier in the day, announcing that he was considering scrapping the current mayoral committee system.
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/ 19 September 2006
Western Cape provincial minister of local government Richard Dyantyi has taken the first step in his bid to strip Cape Town mayor Helen Zille of her executive powers. He sent a letter to Zille on Tuesday giving her notice of a ”proposed amendment” to the form of government the city has.
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/ 19 September 2006
A 40-year-old Somalian was shot dead and his colleague seriously injured after three armed men robbed their store in Delft in the Western Cape, police said on Tuesday. Captain Randall Stoffels said Yusuf Abdille, a shop-owner, was parking his car at his house at Mango Street in Delft South on Monday night when three armed men approached the vehicle.
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/ 18 September 2006
The T-shirt tells the story of the South African clothing industry and the struggle to maintain local production against the wave of cheap imports from China. T-shirts rose from 1% to 7% of total textile and clothing imports from China between 1995 and last year, according to Quantec data.
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/ 17 September 2006
Refugees who fled war-torn Somalia in search of safety and a better life in South Africa now fear becoming the next victims in a string of murders of their compatriots in the Cape peninsula. ”I ran from the bullet to find violence here,” said Malyun Aden, who ran a clothing store at Masiphumelele, near Cape Town, until it was trashed in mob attacks last month.
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/ 17 September 2006
One of the most popular, and ridiculous, arguments put forward to justify apartheid, was that it provided ”for separate but equal” opportunities and was therefore fair and just. So it is sad and surprising that an ANC Cabinet has approved legislative proposals providing for ”civil unions” between same-sex partners that replicate this bankrupt logic.
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/ 16 September 2006
There is a tendency in South Africa to think that the future is dependent on what happens in the political domain. We debate the prospects of long-term political stability and economic growth as a question of the future of the tripartite alliance, economic policy and globalisation. This is all very important. Yet it draws attention away from an area of South African society that may be equally important.