JOHANNESBURG – A second high ranking Prasa official was hijacked and kidnaped in Johannesburg in three-months.
The Prasa Board Chairperson Khanyisile Kweyama was pepper-sprayed and bundled into the boot of her car near her home.
She was later dumped unharmed in the East of Johannesburg.
Three-months ago, Prasa’s Acting CEO Lindikhaya Zide was also hijacked as he left his office.
His hijackers used the same modus operandi and only made off with his brief case.
Police are investigating.
eNCA
SAMARA, Russia – England comfortably beat Sweden 2-0 on Saturday to reach the World Cup semi-finals for the first time in 28 years.
READ: Titanic cast get sinking feeling from England World Cup fans
Harry Maguire headed England ahead from a corner in the first half in Samara and Dele Alli doubled the lead with just over half an hour to go.
England will play the winner of the Russa v Croatia quarter-final that takes place in Sochi later on Saturday.
AFP
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Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Zweli Mkhize has distanced the government from comments former president Kgalema Motlanthe made about the relationship between traditional leaders and the communities they serve.
Mkhize led talks between members of the National House of Traditional Leaders (NHTL) and an inter-ministerial task team, recently set up to engage traditional leaders on the issue of land, at Cogta’s offices in Pretoria on Friday.
The meeting was also a follow up to one they held in the National Assembly two weeks ago and it was attended by Mkhize, Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Senzeni Zokwana.
“Former president Kgalema Motlanthe’s statement has been seen as uncomfortable to traditional leaders, but it does not reflect [the] position of Cabinet, government or Parliament,” the minister said.
He added that the matter would be taken to the National Assembly.
When he spoke at the African National Congress’ land summit in May, Motlanthe referred to traditional leaders as “village tin-pot dictators”, who were often seen as the rightful owners of the land, urging the ANC to remember that it was the people and not traditional leaders who voted it into power.
READ: Traditional leaders act like village tin-pot dictators – Motlanthe
The former leader’s comments were based on findings of a high-level panel he led, which looked into the implementation of policies since the dawn of democracy in the country.
No expropriation of land under traditional leaders
The different leaders agreed that the issue of expropriation did not apply to land already under the control of traditional leaders, with chairperson of the NHTL Nkosi Sipho Mahlangu asking: “When you expropriate, who would you be expropriating from and to whom?”
“What was key in those agreements is that 13% of the land in traditional hands should not be touched when it comes to the issue of expropriation. It belongs to the people and traditional leaders living there,” said Mahlangu.
When asked if the government was not worried that it was putting traditional leaders ahead of its subjects, who sometimes complain that they are mistreated by them, Mkhize said there were instances where people complained. He added that they had the right to do so.
“When we deal with issues of traditional leaders, we don’t deal with them as individual men and women but as leaders who represent the views of the people in those area”.
Mahlangu admitted that there were issues and that theirs was “not a perfect sector like any other”.
He added that people were allowed to openly share their views, but raised a flag at those using platforms, like current public hearings on the whether or not the property clause in the Constitution should be amended, to “exaggerate” issues.
“People are taking advantage of this process on land public participations. Some parts there are exaggerations of issues with people and traditional leaders,” said Mahlangu.
RUSTENBURG – The North West health department has cancelled the controversial Mediosa contract and revised the scope of private ambulance services, health member of the executive council (MEC) Dr Magome Masike said on Friday.
“We can announce now that Mediosa contract has been cancelled. With regard to Buthelezi EMS and High Care EMS, the North West department of health has revised the scope of work for these two contracted private ambulance service providers,” he said.
READ: Motsoaledi says Gupta-linked mobile clinic a money-making scheme
“We had contracted these two service providers to do inter-facility transfers to allow state ambulances to focus on emergencies. Effective from 1 June 2018, contracted private ambulance service providers will only respond to cases as and when called to do so by authorised personnel within the department.”
Private ambulance service providers will only be utilised when provincial state resources were over stretched. The department purchased and registered 40 ambulances.
Mediosa received an upfront payment of R30-million before it did any work for the department.
Masike said the department would claim back the money from Mediosa.
“It can’t be that in a village of 2,000 people you got 16,000 patients or so, we have issues with that. We have to iron out all those so that we subtract them from the R30 million that they were paid in advance for doing nothing. That is the point of controversy and we think we are on the right track, we want to recoup the money of the taxpayers and we are going to do.”
He said the department was working with the administrator Jeanette Hunter, to address the problems faced by workers at administration level in the provincial office and in the districts.
“These include areas of financial management particularly to deal with irregular expenditure and accruals. Supply chain management which is characterised by irregular supply chain and material deviation from procurement practices have been identified as carrying fiscal risks which end up draining the resources of the department.”
Hunter said the department had a budget of R204-million but, would run out of money by September and they would ask Treasury for assistance.
Masike said despite the problems in the past, the department was now getting back on track to deliver quality services to the people of the North West.
READ: NW government contract with Gupta-linked company probed
The department was expected to welcome more than 100 doctors who had completed their studies in Cuba and workers’ problems were being attended to.
“All issues raised by the labour union [National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union] Nehawu as demands and areas of concerns are being attended to by the Intervention Team assisted by the Management Team of the Department, including the Performance Management Development System,” he said.
“We saw this department go to greater heights to become became the first in the country to cure an XDR patient. We are now able to conduct operations of the cancers of the brain, spine and stomach operations and no longer have to take patients to Gauteng for that.”
African News Agency
Following the 2007/08 global financial crisis, it became evident that there was a need for a strengthening of the global financial safety net (GFSN). However, the manner in which this should be achieved became a polarising issue of debate in international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the G20. The empirical evidence concerning the impact of the GFSN remains scarce, therefore, this paper seeks to contribute to the debate by investigating the potential impacts that the various layers of the GFSN can have on sovereign borrowing costs in emerging markets. After initially replicating common methodologies in the literature concerned with identifying determinants of foreign currency sovereign spreads in emerging markets, the analysis is expanded to include elements of the GFSN. The results indicate that whilst the liquidity buffers provided by the overall GFSN appear to lower sovereign spreads, the impact of individual layers of the safety net are more ambiguous.
Statement of Assets and Liabilities
This notice provides detail of the US dollar equivalent of the level of the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) official gold and foreign exchange reserves, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) and foreign currency deposits received from customers published today in the SARB’s Statement of Assets and Liabilities as at 30 June 2018.
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