Switching to energy-efficient light bulbs could save the country the equivalent of a major coal-fired power station, a R30-billion saving. South Africa makes use of an estimated 90-million — mostly energy-inefficient — incandescent light bulbs. By contrast, compact fluorescent lights last six times longer and use just 20% of the energy.
The Cape Town Book Fair provides the ideal platform for getting South Africa’s new writing and publishing out there, but it is being launched with performance, not hype, in mind. Karen Rutter reports.
The South African government does not expect the recent power blackouts experienced in the Western Cape to either derail economic growth or impact adversely on investment in the country, according to President Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki said the power failures would not derail the gross domestic product growth target of an average of 6% between 2010 and 2014.
Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile is keeping his distance from the controversy over the proposed Green Point soccer stadium, his spokesperson Bongi Sishi said on Thursday. He was speaking ahead of a meeting on Thursday afternoon between Cape Town mayor Helen Zille, Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool, and the Fifa local organising committee, which hopes to allay Zille’s concerns over the project.
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille is to meet Fifa’s local organising committee (LOC) and Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool on Thursday afternoon to discuss the financing of the proposed Green Point Stadium. The meeting, at a city hotel, would also be attended by members of her mayoral committee and Cabinet ministers, she said in a statement on Wednesday.
The government plans to improve staff and management of tuberculosis (TB) services and to improve access to laboratory services where it is poor. This forms part of the TB crisis plan launched by Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang on Friday, World Tuberculosis Day, at Durban’s King George V hospital.
A feasibility study is under way into a second nuclear power station to provide relief for the blackout-plagued Cape, the public enterprises ministry confirmed on Friday. Gaynor Kast, spokesperson for Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin, was reacting to a report that Erwin had said the new plant would be sited at Koeberg, alongside the existing power station.
Jostling over governance in the Cape Town metro continued on Friday with no apparent solution imminent. The Democratic Alliance’s tenuous hold on power in the city is being threatened by the Independent Democrats’ determination to pursue its quest for changing the executive mayor system to an executive committee system.
Phil Naledi has changed the lives of residents along a leafy street in the north-eastern Johannesburg suburb of Sydenham. He earns R900 a month for guarding the houses in the relatively affluent suburb, working 12-hour shifts. ”No one can make a life if they spend so much time working for this little money,” he explains.
Police were keeping an eye on striking private security guards in the Johannesburg city centre on Friday. About 100 guards had gathered at Beyers Naude Square by 9am, police said. In other centres, striking security workers were also expected to march in support of their demands for better wages and working conditions.
Protesting security guards in Pretoria began to disperse on Thursday afternoon after their strike turned violent earlier, with a security vehicle set alight and rubbish strewn in the inner city. At one stage police fired rubber bullets at the protesting guards in an effort to calm the situation.
Police fired rubber bullets at protesting guards after they apparently set alight a security van in Pretoria on Thursday afternoon. Guards made their way to Church Square, trashing rubbish bins and causing havoc in the city centre. Shops were also set alight. The violence came on the first day of a security-guard strike in seven provinces.
Security-guard employers were reporting little absenteeism in Johannesburg and the East and West Rand on Thursday, the first day of a two-day security-industry strike in six provinces. In the Cape and Pretoria, however, some companies experienced 80% absenteeism, and cases of intimidation were reported.
An estimated 90 000 security guards from 13 unions will strike for two days from Thursday, South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) security industry coordinator Jackson Simon said on Thursday. The figure is down from the 150 000 mooted on Wednesday.
”As I write this, I’m sitting in Centane, a rural town in the Eastern Cape and a world apart from my office in Houghton, Johannesburg. Centane, along with Butterworth and Ngqamakwe, forms part of the Mnquma local municipality — home to about 300 000 people,” writes Gloria Serobe, CEO of Wiphold.
The recent election has shown politicians who desert their parties during the floor-crossing window periods invariably lose out, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Friday. Writing in his weekly newsletter on the DA’s website, Leon said the biggest losers of the recent municipal election were the floor-crossers.
The African Christian Democratic Party has suspended five of its candidates who allegedly offered the African National Congress control of the Theewaterskloof municipal council, in Caledon, in exchange for a list of demands. They fell for an ”age-old trap” when they responded, in writing, to the ANC after it asked what they would want in return for their cooperation in controlling the council.
Global positioning systems units in South Africa are retailing for twice as much as they sell for in the United States, bringing into question the markup on the latest technologies that are imported into South Africa. A Garmin E-trex Yellow GPS unit retails in the US for about $100 (R617).
The Independent Democrats may fulfil its pre-election prophecy of being the king-makers in the City of Cape Town on Wednesday, when the first council meeting elects the new mayor. ”If there is no resolution, the ID has to decide if it will vote for Nomaindia Mfeketo [incumbent ANC mayor] or not,” said the Democratic Alliance.
Convicted German confidence trickster Jurgen Harksen’s controversial senior counsel Johan van der Berg was struck from the roll of advocates in the Cape High Court on Monday. This was on five charges brought by the General Council of the Bar, including excessive fees he made from the Harksen saga.
The African National Congress announced its mayoral candidates for six metropolitan councils after a national working committee meeting on Monday. Nomaindia Mfeketo is the candidate for Cape Town, Duma Nkosi for Ekurhuleni, Obed Mlaba for eThekwini, Amos Masondo for Johannesburg, Nondumiso Maphazi for the Nelson Mandela metro and Gwen Ramokgopa for Tshwane.
Economists have warned that the economy will suffer because of the Transnet strike and intermittent power outages in major cities, media reports said on Monday. These factors would keep the country’s growth rate for the first quarter below 3%, economists said at the weekend.
The Democratic Alliance insisted on Sunday that its candidate for mayor of Cape Town, Helen Zille, should get the top job in the hung metropolitan council. The African National Congress has insisted that Zille not be mayor. According to media reports, Zille’s position was compromised during horse-trading with other political parties.
South Africa has taken a giant step towards the goal of gender equality and the emancipation of women in the recent municipal election, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. The election results show the success the African National Congress has achieved to increase the numbers of women in the municipal system, he said.
Wine consumers were expected to bear the brunt of a white wine shortage, the chairperson of Wine Cellars South Africa said on Friday. ”Due to the exhaustive drought experienced last year, the crop was 11% down on that of 2004, resulting in a colossal shortage of white wine for the domestic and export markets,” Henk Bruwer said in a media statement.
Former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s behaviour as a former leader of the government’s campaign against HIV/Aids as well as the moral regeneration movement ”is testimony to the sad state of leadership in South Africa today”, says Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon, who has also criticised the Koeberg ”sabotage” debacle.
South African wine producers fear that weeks of power cuts in the Western Cape, South Africa’s wine-making region, may have spoiled production of its white wines. The Western Cape has been hit by blackouts since December when an electricity generating nuclear plant in Koeberg outside Cape Town broke down.
Power-broker Patricia de Lille’s Independent Democrats (ID) wants to convince Cape Town’s two major political parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the African National Congress (ANC) to work together in a unity government in Cape Town and 23 other Western Cape towns.
The SA Transport and Allied Workers’ Union has threatened to make its national strike on Monday next week the launching pad of a second round of downing tools. This follows the union’s claim that Transnet, at the weekend, went ”behind labour’s backs” and signed an agreement to transfer Metrorail to the SA Rail Commuter Corporation by the end of this month.
The Democratic Alliance said on Monday afternoon that it had been offered a deal that would give it control of the city of Cape Town. DA Western Cape leader Theuns Botha said the offer would give a grouping of 106 seats — enough for a clear majority in the 210-seat council.
The Independent Democrats, who emerged kingmakers in the Cape Town metro and also holds the balance of power in various other municipalities in the Western Cape after Wednesday’s election, remains adamant it will not enter into coalitions with any other party.
The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) has called for a multi-party governance system in the Western Cape after Wednesday’s local government elections. The party’s leadership made the call on Friday after no single party won an absolute majority in Cape Town, paving the way for political parties to form coalitions.