News 15:00

BULLETIN 11 September 3 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The High Court in Pietermaritzburg provides reasons for rejecting Zuma’s attempt to remove Downer from his case
# The Health minister seeks mediation for medico-legal claims
# And more than a quarter of South Africa’s municipal councillors do not have matric

# The High Court in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, has detailed its decision to dismiss former president Jacob Zuma’s bid to remove state prosecutor Billy Downer from his arms deal corruption trial, set from 14 April next year. Zuma’s legal team argued that understanding these reasons is essential before confirming trial dates. Judge Nkosinathi Chili ruled that Zuma’s arguments, previously rejected by the Supreme Court of Appeal, lacked sufficient grounds and failed to present credible evidence of bias:

# Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi says his department is exploring mediation to address rising medico-legal claims. According to the Special Investigating Unit, these claims, seeking compensation for losses caused by the department, have grown by ten-percent from 2017/18 to 2022/23. Addressing Parliament, Motsoaledi expressed concern over fraudulent claims highlighted in the report:

# The Pension Fund adjudicator, Muvhango Lukhaimane, has warned the new two-pot retirement system launched this month, may reveal widespread employer failures in paying pension fund contributions. Her office has reported 82-percent of current complaints involve such failures. Lukhaimane anticipates a further rise in these complaints, as employees discover discrepancies. Many employers have been found to not have been paying any contributions towards the pension funds of their workers.

# Cricket: Jordan Cox, Jacob Bethell and Jamie Overton are set to make their England T20 debuts in the opening game of the three-match series against Australia today. Phil Salt captains the side in Southampton in the absence of injured skipper Jos Buttler. The T20 series is followed by five one-day internationals against the same opposition, with England picking youthful squads after relinquishing their T20 and 50-over world titles over the past year.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-87-cents and the euro at 19-rand-74-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-39-cents and Bitcoin trades at 56-thousand-684-dollars-37-cent. Gold sells at two-thousand-523-dollars-12-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 70-dollars-59-cents a barrel.

# And finally, more than a quarter of South Africa’s three-thousand-800 municipal councillors do not have matric. According to the South African Local Government Association’s Lance Joel, 27-percent of councillors have not passed grade 12 and 36-percent only have a matric qualification. He highlighted these challenges to Parliament, noting the significant gap in governance capacity, exacerbated by the pandemic and high turnover in local government. The 2021 local elections introduced many new councillors, leading to a loss of institutional memory and a need for enhanced induction programmes.

Stay tuned for more news………….