All news items
10 June 2014
Ministers due to testify at the arms commission will not answer fraud and corruption allegations but could be asked about a mysterious report.
The ministers who will testify at the arms procurement commission this week will not answer questions on fraud and corruption alleged to have plagued the arms deal. Yet all hope is not lost, as the mysterious affordability report of 1999, which...
9 June 2014
In early 1998, about a year-and-eight-months before the arms deal contracts were signed, former minister of defence, Joe Modise, made a strange, albeit throwaway remark about a mysterious R6-billion investment that South Africa expected would come its way.
The Arms Procurement Commission is furiously trying to find out what this investment was for. Yet judging by Friday’s proceedings, any...
9 June 2014
Former deputy defence minister Ronnie Kasrils has dismissed evidence that he was responsible for decisions which had cost implications for the government with regards to the controversial arms deal.
Kasrils began testifying at the Seriti Commission of Inquiry today which is investigating allegations of fraud, corruption and irregularities in the multi-billion rand arms deal.
He is shedding light...
9 June 2014
Patrick Bracher, Director Norton Rose Fulbright SA, expert guest was Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, head of the Refugee and Migrants Programme at Lawyers for Human Rights.
She spoke about recent amendments in the Immigration Act regulations, and in particular how these affect refugees. She will also discuss a case heard by the Supreme Court of Appeal recently dealing with related issues....
6 June 2014
Let me take this opportunity once more to welcome you to our weekly media briefing which will focus mainly on the opening of Visa Facilitation Centres inside the country as per our announcement last week.
However, may I first restate that we remain on course to implementing the new Immigration Regulations of 2014.
I have signed the necessary notices to accompany the regulations.
The last...
6 June 2014
Call for fairness at arms deal probe
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) on Thursday called on the Seriti Commission of Inquiry into the 1999 arms deal to be fair and consistent in treating witnesses.
Gina Snyman, for the LHR, told the inquiry sitting in Pretoria that Admiral Jonathan Kamerman's statement was not made available until he started testifying at the inquiry last month.
Kamerman was...
5 June 2014
Incarcerated Human Rights Lawyer Thulani Maseko yesterday launched a scathing attack on the Judiciary and the Chief Justice (CJ) Michael Ramodibedi in a statement from the dock.
Reading from the 27-page statement, Maseko punched holes in the Judiciary, the general administering of justice in the country, and further went into a personal attack of officers of the Judiciary.
He particularly...
4 June 2014
Arms transactions are shrouded in corruption and secrecy and there is no way of having a clean trade in military weaponry. That is the assumption made just about everywhere in the world.
The 13-year-long wrangle over South Africa’s strategic weapons package, known simply as the arms deal, is an example of the suspicions surrounding weapons transfers. A judicial commission of inquiry is...
3 June 2014
Passop's Bernard Toyambi helps Zimbabweans get permits they applied for years ago. Picture: Kristen van Schie
Cape Town - At the end of this year, special permits granted to Zimbabweans living in South Africa will start to expire.
Which is a problem for Alice, seeing as she’s still waiting on hers, four years after originally applying.
She was one of tens of thousands who queued...
3 June 2014
No learning for orphans
By the time he was 13, his parents had been stabbed to death by soldiers, his grandmother murdered and his aunt gang-raped.
Now the teen, who fled the Democratic Republic of Congo for South Africa with his aunt in 2011, is fighting to go to school.
The teenager, 16, is one of eight children who have taken the home affairs, basic education and social development ministers,...