Author: Agency

The Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, has noted the new court application by Telkom to set aside the Invitation to Apply (ITA) for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) spectrum issued by ICASA. On 10 December last year, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) issued the final ITA for the International Mobile Telecommunications spectrum. In a statement on Thursday, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies said that this development happens without affording Minister Ntshavheni an opportunity to resolve whatever concerns Telkom may have with the current ITA. “The Minister reiterates that the conclusion of a process to…

President Cyril Ramaphosa will formally receive the first part of the report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector including Organs of State. A statement on the Special Cabinet Meeting that took place on Thursday said the hand-over of the first part of the Commission Report will take place on Tuesday, 4 January 2022. “The Commission Chairperson, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, will hand over the first part of the report at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. This follows the ruling of the Gauteng High Court on 28 December…

A special Cabinet meeting has approved several changes to the Adjusted Alert Level 1 COVID-19 regulations. This follows meetings of the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) and the President’s Coordinating Council (PCC), which received updates on the management of the current fourth wave of COVID-19 in South Africa, which is mainly driven by the Omicron variant. In a statement on Thursday, Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele said all indicators suggest the country may have passed the peak of the fourth wave at a national level. “The information gathered through the system used by the Department of Health has reported…

Eskom has connected Unit 4 of Kusile Power Station project to the national grid. The unit was connected to the grid for the first time on 23 December. “This synchronisation milestone means four generating units of the power station are now connected to the grid, and will contribute an additional 800MW to the country’s power system once the unit is fully optimised, following a series of tests and other commissioning activities,” said the power utility on Thursday. Situated near eMalahleni in Mpumalanga, Kusile is South Africa’s largest construction project and will be the world’s fourth largest coal plant. The unit…

South Africa conducted 50 377 COVID-19 tests on Sunday, with 15 465 new cases detected. According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the majority of new cases in the past 24 hours were from KwaZulu-Natal (4 135), followed by Gauteng (3 582), Western Cape (2 849), Eastern Cape (1 303) and Free State (1 104), while the rest of the provinces recorded less than a thousand new infections. The latest figures represent a positivity rate of 30.7%, pushing the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3 308 074. In addition, a further three people succumbed to complications related…

Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla has urged people to take the COVID-19 jab in their numbers during the festive season after announcing that vaccination sites will remain open over the holiday period. “We also call upon South Africans to celebrate this festive season with a lot of caution, especially with regard to alcohol consumption,” Phaahla said on Friday. “Our health facilities are already under a lot of pressure with the COVID-19 as we indicated a 70% rise in admissions and we’re least ready to handle large numbers of casualties, from motor vehicle accidents and also interpersonal violence.” He told the…

The government has noted Fitch’s decision to affirm South Africa’s long-term foreign and local currency debt ratings at ‘BB-’ and revise the outlook from negative to stable. According to Fitch, the revision of the outlook to stable reflected the “faster than expected” economic recovery, the surprisingly strong fiscal performance this year and significant improvements in key fiscal indicators following the rebasing of national accounts, said National Treasury in a statement. Treasury said Fitch warned that the pandemic continued to weigh on economic performance and remained a source of downside risk for public finances. “However, the likelihood of severe negative effects…

Former SABC Chief Operations Officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng has been ordered to pay back at least R11.5 million “success fee” paid to him by the broadcaster’s Governance and Nominations Committee in 2016. The decision to pay Motsoeneng the fee was reviewed and set aside by the Gauteng Local Division of the High Court sitting in Johannesburg on Wednesday. In the judgement, the court found that Motsoeneng had accepted the fee knowing that no South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) policies allowed for such. “Motsoeneng was not an innocent bystander in all of this, he set out to obtain a benefit that he…

The South African government, through the African Renaissance Fund (ARF), has signed an agreement with the African Vaccination Acquisition Trust (AVAT) to donate 2 030 400 doses of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines, valued at R288.6 million, to African countries. AVAT was formed following the establishment of the African Union’s COVID-19 African Vaccination Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) in November 2020 by President Cyril Ramaphosa, as the then Chairperson of the AU. In a joint statement issued on Friday, the South African government and AVAT said the main purpose of the task team is to secure the necessary vaccines and financing…

The Omicron variant has thrown the spotlight on the COVID-19 vaccine shortfall in Africa, with the continent remaining the worst hit by inequitable access to safe and effective vaccines. Poorer countries continue to scramble to get their hands on the lifesaving jabs, with less than 10% of Africa’s 54 nations projected to reach the year-end target of fully vaccinating 40% of its population. However, this could be a thing of the past, as Africa forges ahead to develop its first vaccine manufacturing capacity, to ensure viable vaccine security. Mid-year, the World Health Organisation (WHO), together with the South African and…