Yolandi Groenewald

Denny Mushrooms landed in hot fat this week when two employees were nabbed for allegedly defrauding the Johannesburg Fresh Produce Market. A vendor who buys from the market was also buttoned. The market is deeply worried about the mushrooming losses from suppliers dodging the payment of commission.

Thabamoopo Psychiatric Hospital in Polokwane has a split personality. Its sparkling new wing houses acute patients and state patients. But then there is the darker side of the hospital — the wings where chronic, long-term patients and the mentally retarded are kept.

North West’s beleagured agricultural department has spent almost R2-million this year on the salaries of at least five officials who are sitting at home on suspension. Four agriculture department officials have been suspended on allegations of corruption, fraud and maladministration following a forensic audit last year.

Brett Kebble had already appeared in a well-publicised court case on fraud charges when the Democratic Alliance accepted a R250 000 donation from him. It was also in February 2004 — the month of Kebble’s donation to the DA — that the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> revealed his dubious role in supporting ventures of the ANC Youth League’s business arm, Lembede.

Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin on Thursday denied ever saying that the infamous bolt thought to have tripped Cape Town’s Koeberg power station last year was the result of sabotage. Erwin was quoted in <i>Business Day</i> on March 2 as saying "the bolt that caused the generators destruction did not get there by accident".

Controversial draft legislation aimed at overhauling the structure of the judiciary has indeed been shelved as the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> reported at the end of June, despite furious denials by the Department of Justice at the time. President Thabo Mbeki told reporters that the government believed it would be better to reach an agreement nationally on issues affecting the judiciary.

A group of Soweto residents is challenging the very basis of South Africa’s water for households strategy. The residents, who filed papers in the Witwatersrand High Court against the City of Johannesburg and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, are asking that the government’s capped free water allowance as well as prepaid water meters be declared unconstitutional.

Workers’ growing awareness of massive executive salaries may make future negotiations much more interesting, labour analysts warned after trade union Solidarity released its report on wage discrepancies between bosses and workers recently. The report found the average CEO earned between 35 and 53 times more than the average worker.

By the time 2050 rolls around, current decision-makers will either be dead or stuck in old-age homes. Yet the decisions they make today will have a significant effect on the economic and environmental future. According to the International Energy Agency current emission policies, such the Kyoto Treaty, will not put the world on a path towards a sustainable future by 2050.

Veteran journalist and former head of South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) radio news Pippa Green has turned a harsh spotlight on the SABC’s editorial culture, noting that it sometimes degenerates into "a political grazing ground for the ruling-party faithful". Green’s comments follow a series of controversies at the SABC.

A land reform project in Worcester is on the brink of collapse after nature and bureaucracy conspired against the 52-strong community. They say the Land Bank has been a major cause of their woes. "We’ve been able to keep other creditors at bay, but the bank is demanding its pound of flesh," said community member Niklaas Prins.

<i>Stille waters, diepe grond</i> (Still waters, deep ground), runs the Afrikaans saying, but perhaps not in this case. In a move likely to heighten the row over Western Cape farm evictions, a farm workers’ compound on businessperson Christo Wiese’s Stellenbosch wine estate, Lourensford, has been converted into a set for an Afrikaans TV comedy series about pensioners.

Aids activists have questioned the government’s boasts that it has the largest anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment programme in the world. Recently, Cabinet spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe said 134 473 people were on ARV treatment in the public health sector at the end of March, and an estimated additional 80 000 were on treatment provided by the private and NGO sectors.

North West Premier Edna Molewa has fired her suspended agriculture department head, Emily Mogajane. But Mogajane has hit back by taking the premier to court. This is the latest episode in ongoing upheavals in the department of agriculture, conservation and environment, where six officials have been suspended and four directors arrested.

Congolese represent the largest slice of the almost 200 000 applications for asylum in South Africa since 1994, with Burundians and Rwandese also prominent. Unlike other African countries, South Africa offers neither accommodation in refugee camps nor assistance to recognised refugees or new arrivals seeking asylum.

North West province’s agriculture department has effectively collapsed after the arrest of four top officials on corruption charges relating to the issuing of tenders and fraudulent claims. The woes of the stricken department have led to a war of words in the North West government.

The residents of Matjhabeng in the middle of the Free State goldfields reflect the dilemmas facing many African National Congress voters.

South Africans who are injured in work-related accidents are increasingly being denied treatment by doctors and pharmacists because the labour department’s Workmen’s Compensation Fund has not processed their claims for payment. "Getting an injury while on duty is one of the worst things that can happen to someone," said Renette Oosthuizen of the union Solidarity.

South Africa’s high HIV prevalence has been described as the biggest challenge facing the country since apartheid. In light of this, one would expect to be bombarded with Aids-prevention messages on radio, television, billboards and bus stops. Yet some say that not enough of these messages are available.

Lesbian couple Cecelia Bonthuys and Marié Fourie will have to wait another year to get that little piece of white paper that symbolises a legal marriage. The Constitutional Court ruled this week in favour of same-sex marriages, but gave Parliament 12 months to draft new legislation that would legalise gay and lesbian unions.

BMW initiated a major proactive campaign against HIV/Aids in 2000 with the launch of its HIV/Aids policy. The purpose of the campaign is to reduce the effect of the disease on employees, their families and the company. The programme focuses on self-responsibility and taking ownership of the disease by knowing one’s status.

More than 60% of people infected with HIV/Aids call Africa their home — and Southern Africa remains the epicentre of the global Aids epidemic, according to the United Nations’s report on the pandemic that was released recently. Despite some light points, the UNAids report paints a bleak picture of a region where the virus is having a devastating toll on human lives.

New research from South Africa shows HIV prevalence among pregnant women has reached almost 30% — its highest level to date. These statistics show that more South Africans are contracting HIV, despite the policies the government has put in place to prevent infection.

Businesses can no longer ignore HIV/Aids in the workplace if they want to continue to be a profitable enterprise, Aids experts have warned. "It is not only right for moral reasons for businesses to have an HIV/Aids policy in place, but it also makes business sense," said Scott Billy, a counselling and testing volunteer.