All news items
19 November 2014
On a cloudy Monday afternoon, an imposing group of watchful, youthful men and women in bright yellow bibs religiously congregate along Thabo Sehume street in central Pretoria. They do so almost every day, in different streets.
Their work is partly inscribed on their bright yellow bibs - Pretoria central community policing forum (CPF). Some in the group are wearing police issue black boots, some...
13 November 2014
The task team established by Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba to investigate the implementation of the new visa regulations was aware of the report on job losses commissioned by the Tourism Business Council of SA, the council said on Monday.
The report conducted by auditors Grant Thornton and leaked to The Times newspaper this week warned that more than 100,000 jobs in the tourism industry...
13 November 2014
On 4th November the UN launched a global campaign to end statelessness within ten years. I confidently predict that the result of this campaign will be to ‘increase’ statelessness by many millions of people. This is not because I think that the campaign is misconceived — far from it — but because the statistics on the numbers of stateless persons are currently so...
13 November 2014
SANDF chief of acquisitions during the 1999 arms deal period Shamin “Chippy” Shaik did not hand-pick the particular suppliers, the Seriti Commission of Inquiry heard on Tuesday.
“I merely would like to place it on record that I did not in any way influence the technical terms to select or de-select any products that were offered to the various prime contractors,” Shaik...
11 November 2014
The long-awaited appearance of Shamin “Chippy” Shaik at the arms deal commission on Monday is likely to bring some renewed interest to the beleaguered inquiry. Shaik, government’s head of acquisitions during the 1999 arms deal, is set to give evidence for four days this week.
Previous high-profile government leaders involved in the deal have proved to be something of a damp...
10 November 2014
In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Alice mutters bitterly that the game played in the kingdom run by the Queen of Hearts does not "seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them". Similar murmurs could be heard in a courtroom in Swaziland on Monday, as the Supreme Court heard two appeals in the series of litigation cases emanating from...
10 November 2014
The long-awaited appearance of Shamin “Chippy” Shaik at the arms deal commission on Monday is likely to bring some renewed interest to the beleaguered inquiry. Shaik, government’s head of acquisitions during the 1999 arms deal, is set to give evidence for four days this week.
Previous high-profile government leaders involved in the deal have proved to be something of a damp...
10 November 2014
The crux of the case against Chippy Shaik – if such a case exists – is that he was key to influencing the awarding of bids to arms companies. This allegedly resulted in dodgy tender awards at hugely inflated prices – an allegation Shaik has denied.
But you would never know this just by listening to his evidence at the arms deal commission this week.
Shaik, who now lives in Perth...
6 November 2014
More than 195,000 Zimbabweans have in recent weeks applied to remain in South Africa under the new Zimbabwe Special Permits dispensation, the home affairs department said Tuesday.
Almost another 50,000 were expected to do so by months’ end.
“In October, we received up to 5000 applications a day and therefore the department is confident that we will reach the target of processing 242,...
6 November 2014
Shocked MPs heard yesterday that four prison projects worth more than R1bn were still incomplete years after the contracts’ completion dates, due to defaulting contractors engaged by the Department of Public Works.
A delegation led by Department of Correctional Services acting national commissioner Zach Modise told a parliamentary committee that the construction of two prisons and the...