Author: The Bulrushes
Claims that state officials trafficked eight of the decuplets to Europe and America made by Dr. Iqbal Survé – the owner of independent Media – have sparked an angry response from the Gauteng Provincial Government and the national health department. In trying to resurrect a long-discredited story that 37-year-old Gosiame Sithole from Tembisa gave birth to 10 babies several months ago, Dr. Survé on Wednesday called a press briefing during which he said eight babies survived and two died at birth. He claimed the mother saw them before they were trafficked with the help of hospital and home affairs officials…
Eskom is ramping up its load-shedding from stage 2 to stage 4 from Wednesday at noon. Eskom said “it regrets to announce” that stage 4 load shedding will be implemented from 12 pm today until 05:00 on Friday. “Thereafter load-shedding will continue on Stage 2 till 05:00 Saturday morning,” said the power utility in a tweet. More to follow … Eskom regrets to announce that #Stage4 #loadshedding will be implemented from 12pm today until 05:00 on Friday, thereafter loadshedding will continue on Stage 2 till 05:00 Saturday morning — Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) October 27, 2021
Eskom has strong-armed the City of Johannesburg to agree to implement load-shedding from Monday night after initially refusing to do so. At the weekend City Power – the City of Johannesburg’s power utility – refused to implement the load-shedding schedule imposed by Eskom. Johannesburg’s new Mayor Mpo Moerane boldly declared he was “prepared to go the legal route to halt Eskom’s blanket heavy-handedness”. But in an about-turn on Monday Eskom and City Power said they have agreed to work together in the national interest and to protect the national grid. “City Power will follow and implement the directive of the…
The new mayor of Johannesburg Mpho Moerane has refused to implement Eskom’s load-shedding that was supposed to kick in on Saturday night. Shortly after Eskom announced it was implementing load-shedding to beef up reserve capacity, Moerane issued a statement rejecting the schedule. Only in the job for a few weeks, Mayor Moerane has put his foot down and refused to implement Eskom’s impromptu load-shedding schedule.. The mayor said Eskom’s load-shedding move was “an unwarranted decision that can not be left unchallenged.” Eskom said it was implementing Stage 2 load-shedding from 21:00 Saturday until 05:00 on Monday in order to replenish…
Former cop Nomia Rosemary Ndlovu was on Friday found guilty of six counts of murder of her relatives and lover whom she had clandestinely insured with herself as a benefactor. Judge Ramarumo Monama pronounced his guilty ruling in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court, Johannesburg, after a lengthy judgment. He said in the last 79 years South Africa had not known such a murder streak. Judge Monama also found Ndlovu guilty of attempted murder and defrauding the insurance of about R1.4 million. All the while the 46-year-old accused made facial expressions suggesting she was in pain or struggling to stay awake.…
Mpumelelo Secondary School, Maritzburg College, Paul Roos Gimnasium, and the University of Cape Town were on Friday named as winners of various categories of the JSE Investment Challenge. These learners and students are eager to gain the financial skills that will improve their future and give them independence, judging by the calibre of entrants in this year’s JSE Investment Challenge. Every year the competition allows school learners and students from higher learning institutions to invest virtual money in the financial markets, giving them a solid understanding of financial instruments and the freedom to learn and speculate without any risk. Each…
The Cool Hacks, a team of three developers, scooped the top prize at the recent mental health hackathon hosted by the technology non-profit organisation, Empire Partner Foundation (EPF). Team members, 35-year-old Placide Ebongue, 35-year-old Nomfundo Cele and 25-year-old Senzo Ndlovu, developed an app, SMILE, over two days at the hackathon in an effort to tackle the growing problem of mental health in SA. The SMILE app uses machine learning technology to mitigate mental health in the workplace by focusing on anxiety, stress, and mood. For their efforts, Cool Hacks collected R8 000 of the total R30 000 cash prize for…
The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development at the weekend announced it has made strides in recovering from the ransomware attack and had restored some services. Since the ransomware attack occurred last month, several services have been unavailable including the web portal used to download court recordings for transcription purposes and the Integrated Case Management System (ICMS). The ICMS is used at all courts, particularly the Office of the Master of the High Court. The department said over the past few weeks its officials, industry specialists, and advisors from organs of state successfully contained the spread of the malware. “A…
Gauteng Premier David Makhura on Friday joined New Johannesburg Mayor Mpho Moerane at the Kelvin Power station, where the city signed a power purchase agreement. The agreement will see an additional power supply of 100MW – up from 80MW – to Johannesburg households and businesses. The new agreement will ensure that City Power is able to guarantee the reliable electricity supply to Johannesburg, and mitigate against load-shedding. Meanwhile, Eskom announced on Thursday that it was implementing stage 2 load-shedding which would carry on through to Saturday morning. The power utility said the move was meant to help it replenish emergency…
Johannesburg residents can now pay their bills and access municipal customer services online after new mayor, Mpho Moerane, on Wednesday launched the much-anticipated e-Joburg portal. The portal will see residents experience the convenience of accessing municipal customer services online. The mayor, who launched the portal alongside the project owner, Member of the Mayoral Committee for Finance, Cllr Matshidiso Mfikoe, said the portal was a milestone step towards transforming Johannesburg into a Smart City. “The e-Joburg portal is a new tool designed for the delivery of smart municipal services in the most convenient way for Johannesburg residents,” said Moerane. “It is…
In a move to tackle the massive backlog of expired driving licences, the Department of Transport will on Thursday open two new licence centres in Gauteng. “To alleviate the public’s frustration with the renewal of driving licences, the Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula will on Thursday, 07 October 2021 officially open two driving licence centers in Gauteng,” said the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC). Gauteng has the largest number of expired licences with more than 400 000 drivers seeking licence renewals that were delayed by Covid-19 lockdowns. “The initiative is part of efforts to improve efficiency and reduce the backlog…
Gauteng Premier David Makhura on Wednesday visited the cannabis CBD Full Spectrum factory in the Vaal, where he urged South African growers to build a sustainable industry. The factory houses various strains and medicinal purposes of the cannabis plants. The facility, founded by CEO Prof De Beer is the first licensed and most advanced cannabis plant in South Africa. Prof De Beer also unveiled a cutting-edge indoor cannabis medicinal growing unit technology that is ushering in new industrialisation. The Gauteng Provincial Government is committed to building new sustainable industries. The cannabis industry is a very critical industry that is at the centre…
The highly anticipated opening of apartment sales at Steyn City – owned by South African billionaire Douw Steyn – is happening on Monday. With the finalisation of Phase I, as many as 283 apartments have been completed at the City Centre. Of these, 185 apartments and two penthouses have been made available to potential buyers when sales open to the public next week. The occupation for these newly released apartments is scheduled for August 2022. When complete, the City Centre will offer over 700 one-, two-, three- and four-bedroomed simplex and duplex apartments, measuring from 68m2. Added to this, 11 penthouses…
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has launched a new and exciting competition with cash prizes up for grabs for its Virtual Trading Game (VTG). The new VTG competition takes place on an online platform that simulates a real trading environment and gives members of the general public a risk-free opportunity to practice trading shares. Entry into this competition will be free of charge and open to qualifying individuals. Competition winners stand a chance to win a share of R60 000 in Satrix vouchers – R30 000 for first place, R20 000 for second, and R10 000 for third. All prizes will be in the…
The six-hour outage of Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms on Monday – which has been resolved – left users worldwide fuming and unsure of the reliability of the services. Billions of users around the world could not access Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, cutting them off from communications they have come to rely on. The social media platform last suffered a massive blackout in 2019, when the network shut down for 14 hours. Forbes is reporting that Facebook stock came under pressure from two fronts: an unusually long outage of its namesake platform, Instagram and WhatsApp, a mistake likely costing…
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on Monday said while it encourages voluntary vaccination against COVID-19 it was not against forced jabs if ordered by the government. Medical scientists are united worldwide that the best defence against Covid-19, at the moment, is vaccination. The SAHRC said it “strongly supports” Covid-19 vaccination as its benefits have been shown to clearly and significantly outweigh any possible disadvantages. More than 17 million Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered in South Africa out of a population of about 60 million. The government intends to vaccinate at least 40 million adults by the end…
The University of Mpumalanga (UMP) revealed at the weekend that it had suffered a cyberattack that could have cost the institution R100 million but the threat had been resolved for much less. The incident, which was said to be an “attempted hacking” was reported at a Council of the UMP meeting on Thursday. The council was informed at the meeting by the university management of the attempted hacking incident that would have cost the University about R100 million. Management said the incident was averted and “the university only lost R3 000”. “This is as a result of robust cyber security…
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday night further relaxed South Africa’s lockdown restrictions down to Alert Level One. The president said hours of curfew are now from 12 midnight to 4 am, nonessential establishments such as bars, restaurants, and fitness centres must close at 11 pm. Ramaphosa said indoor gatherings were now limited to 750 people, while outdoor gatherings have been increased to a maximum of 2 000. However, the president warned that political campaign activities pose the greatest risk of infections. He urged parties to act responsibly and follow Covid-19 safety protocols. Political parties are campaigning for the 1 November local…
The Empire Partner Foundation has announced that it is hosting the Mental Health Hackathon for young African developers at the weekend. Africa’s leading technology non-profit organisation is hosting the Mental Health Hackathon on 2 and 3 October 2021, in partnership with the WIB Group. The two-day hackathon event allows young African developers to develop real-world skills. Participants gain direct experience by pitching solutions to real-world problems, networking, and earning monetary prizes. The competition will take place through a hybrid model (physical and online) from 8:00 a.m- 4: 30p.m. The physical event will be in Illovo, Sandton, and face masks are required.…
A warrant for the arrest of Ronica Ragavan, a co-director of Islandsite Investments Pty Ltd a company owned by the Gupta family, has been issued – but stayed. Ragavan failed to appear on Tuesday before the Bloemfontein Regional Court as a representative of the company citing medical reasons. The case relates to procurement fraud involving R24.9 million by the Free State Department of Agriculture (FSDoA) to Nulane Investment 204 (PTY) LTD, a company owned and controlled by Iqbal Sharma. Sharma is a Transnet Board member. The money was purportedly paid to Nulane to conduct a feasibility study for the Free…
The South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) on Monday said it welcomes Cabinet approval of the Multipurpose Reactor (MPR). The MPR is intended to succeed SAFARI-1 when it reaches its end of life. SAFARI-1, a 20 MW light water-cooled research reactor, went critical (a reactor achieves criticality when each fission event releases a sufficient number of neutrons to sustain an ongoing series of reactions) on 18 March 1965. It is operated by Necsa and located at Pelindaba, west of Pretoria. SAFARI-1 boasts a proud safety record having operated for over 56 years without any major incidents. The Cabinet approval allows…
The rising star of the Director-General (DG) Dr. Sandile Buthelezi has come crashing down after the Department of Health’s announcement on Sunday that it has suspended him over a dodgy tender. Last year, Buthelezi – whose mom was a domestic worker – beamed with pride when he was appointed DG of the National Department of Health on 20 May. Before his appointment, he had spent two and half decades working his way up through different hospitals and health facilities. But the inspirational rise from the very bottom to the top came to an unceremonious halt on Sunday. The Department of…
Bryanston-based software solutions company Reverside has received praise for nurturing and empowering female talent in the information and communication technologies (ICTs), particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds. The company, which has been in existence for over 15 years, has been increasingly promoting initiatives that encourage female talent to join the ICT sector, saying the country is in urgent need of diverse skills that will drive the economy. Reverside runs Geeks4Learning an accredited training academy that aims to prepare the next generation for exciting careers in the in the ICT industry. The academy is a consequence of a Reverside programme called #SkillsRevolution to…
Nearly 300 000 jobs earmarked for young people are up for grabs at the Department of Basic Education. Youths – even those without Matric certificates – are being urged to apply. The Department of Basic Education on Monday said it was “pleased to announce that recruitment for Phase II of the Basic Education Employment Initiative will open on 27 September and close on 03 October 2021”. The department said it seeks to provide 287 000 unemployed young people, (+/-192 000 Education Assistants and +/- 95 000 General School Assistants) employment and training opportunities in the education sector. Youth between the…
Jobless refugees and asylum seekers living in South Africa – who already receive child grants – are being urged to apply for the government’s Special Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant. “To this end, SASSA [South African Social Security Agency] calls on the unemployed holders of the 7777 identity number [who are already] receiving child grants to apply for the Special Covid-19 SRD,” said CEO Busisiwe Memela-Khambula. She added: “It would not have made sense to exclude them from receiving the Covid-19 grant if there is every indication pointing to the fact that they are unemployed and have no alternative…