News 06:00

BULLETIN 5 March 6 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The ANC considers corruption claims in its candidate selection
# Make-or-break Super Tuesday for US presidential candidates
# And rugby: The tickets for the Boks’ first Test against Ireland sold out in 30 minutes

# ANC secretary general, Fikile Mbalula, says the party is considering corruption claims against its members in the finalisation of the candidate selection process. The National Executive Committee met to finalise candidate lists for provincial legislature and Parliament ahead of the Independent Electoral Commission’s Friday deadline. According to Mbalula, the NEC will thoroughly deliberate on all names, considering aspects such as performance and integrity before submitting the finalised lists. He assured transparency, stating specific clarifications would be provided once the process is complete:

# President Cyril Ramaphosa says the government is progressing in professionalising the public service. In his weekly newsletter, the president says the Public Administration Management Amendment Bill and the Public Service Amendment Bill, will improve the functioning of public service, strengthen accountability and increase efficiency. The National Assembly has passed the two pieces of legislation and will now go to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence. Ramaphosa says the two legislations will also give effect to the state capture inquiry’s recommendations.

# Tshwane city manager Johann Mettler will lead one of the biggest disconnection drives today as part of the #TshwaneYaTima campaign. The campaign is aimed at recouping 23.3-billion-rand the metro is owed by customers. Just last month, 70 residents were disconnected from the electricity grid and water supply for defaulting on the payment of their municipal bill. The metro says today’s action will focus on high-consuming residential and business customers whose water and electricity services will be disconnected due to accumulated arrear debt.

# KwaZulu-Natal premier, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, says the strike by employees affiliated with the South African Municipal Workers Union in the eThekwini Municipality, is pure criminality, economic sabotage, and tantamount to treason. Workers have been on strike since last week Tuesday demanding fair wages. Dube-Ncube says the Justice Crime Prevention and Security cluster and businesses operating in eThekwini have come up with several interventions:

# Americans from 15 states and one territory vote simultaneously on “Super Tuesday” today. The campaign calendar milestone is expected to leave Donald Trump a hair’s breadth from securing the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. Typically, the event – the biggest single day of voting in the country’s drawn-out, state-by-state primary season – has been a make-or-break moment for candidates as the race narrows. On the Republican side, more than a third of the delegates who will be assigned to the party’s national nominating convention in July are up for grabs today.

# Rugby: Springbok fans will be disappointed over the news all general tickets for their first home Test of the year are sold out. It took just 30 minutes for all the tickets for the Test against Ireland at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria on the sixth of July to be snatched up. But there are more opportunities. Tickets for the second Test in Durban a week later opens on Tuesday. The world champions start their season against Wales at Twickenham in London on the 22nd of June.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 19-rand-05-cents and the euro at 20-rand-68-cents. One British pound costs 24-rand-18-cents and Bitcoin trades at 68-thousand-535-dollars-08-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-113-dollars-33-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 82-dollars-67-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….