News 07:00

BULLETIN 17 July 7 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The Basic Education minister is going to review the Grade 12 pass mark
# SARS’ artificial intelligence tool is having a positive impact
# And six are found dead at a luxury hotel in Bangkok

# The minister of Basic Education, Siviwe Gwarube, has announced plans to review the Grade 12 pass mark, currently at 30-percent. Gwarube, addressing criticism of the existing pass rate, also revealed plans to establish an advisory council comprising key stakeholders and experts. The council aims to ensure efforts to strengthen education are targeted, evidence-based, and informed by best practices. She says the focus is on enhancing literacy and numeracy:

# South African Revenue Services Commissioner, Edward Kieswetter, says the artificial intelligence tool they use to detect fraud has saved the fiscus billions of rands in fraudulent refunds. The revenue service has already paid out about ten-billion-rand in refunds to at least 1.6-million taxpayers, who were auto-assessed ahead of this year’s Tax Season. Kieswetter says they have worked extremely hard this past year to improve the accuracy of bulk data submissions:

# The High Court in the Western Cape has barred NSFAS from ending its agreement with eZaga Holdings, which handles student allowance payments. Acting Judge Sven Olivier’s ruling also stops NSFAS from allowing universities to pay students directly. This decision extends to Coinvest Africa, Tenet Technology, and Norraco Corporation, all awarded the tender with eZaga. Despite their validity, NSFAS had sought to terminate these contracts, pending a full court review.

# Cancer Alliance, represented by SECTION27, has filed a lawsuit against the Gauteng Health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko and the Gauteng Department of Health and Wellness for failing to address backlogs. SECTION27 spokesperson Pearl Nicodemus says the department and the MEC have failed to use 784-million-rand allocated to address radiation and surgical backlogs. She says the case will be heard on 23 July at the High Court in Johannesburg:

# Police have launched an investigation into the death of six people, who were found in a room at the five-star Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel in Thailand’s capital, Bangkok. The deceased, three men and three women, were all Vietnamese nationals, and some had dual American citizenship. Thai prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, says there was no sign of robbery or an attack, adding that the cause was presumably poisoning. Police are currently searching for the seventh person who was part of the hotel booking, and is now a possible suspect.

# Cricket: England has made one change to their squad for the second Test against the West Indies at Trent Bridge, with pace bowler Mark Wood recalled. He replaces the retired James Anderson, who ended his record-breaking career following the win in the first Test at Lord’s. England won by innings and 114 runs in a little over two days. Wood, who has 108 wickets in 34 Tests, last played for England during their tour of India earlier this year. The second Test starts on Thursday.

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-3-cents and the euro at 19-rand-67-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-41-cents and Bitcoin trades at 65-thousand-582-dollars-15-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-472-dollars-64-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 83-dollars-68-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….