News 08:00

BULLETIN 9 January 8 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# OUTA vows to defend any legal action over its corruption allegations against NSFAS
# Minister Mchunu says water challenges in eThekwini is due to poor governance
# And golf, Tiger Woods’ nearly three-decade partnership with Nike has ended

# The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse says it will defend any legal action taken against it by Higher Education and Training minister Blade Nzimande. This comes as the organisation has alleged that the minister and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme chairperson, Ernest Khosa, have been involved in corruption at the student funding scheme. Nzimande has denied the allegations and is considering taking legal action. Outa says it looks forward to president Cyril Ramaphosa announcing a broader scope for the NSFAS investigation by the Special Investigation Unit.

Meanwhile education activist Hendrick Makaneta says the National Student Financial Aid Scheme should not be derailed by the allegations made by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse. It is alleged that service providers awarded multimillion-rand tenders to administer Nsfas’ controversial new direct payment system paid kickbacks to Nzimande, Khosa and the South African Communist Party. Makaneta says Nsfas should focus on disbursing funds to students as the academic year is about to begin:

# Water and Sanitation minister Senzo Mchunu says poor governance in the eThekwini Municipality has resulted in a failure to proactively solve challenges within the water network. The department has been pushing for the idea that Umngeni-uThukela Water takes over ten of eThekwini’s water works, which, according to the minister, represents 90-percent of sewage processing in the city. Speaking to Newzroom Afrika, Mchunu says eThekwini’s water infrastructure needs to be fixed:

# Former US president Donald Trump will today seek to have the criminal conspiracy case against him in Georgia thrown out at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. His lawyers argue that he should enjoy immunity because he was president at the time of the alleged crimes. Trump faces four charges related to election interference, conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and obstruction and conspiracy against the right to vote and to have votes counted. The former president has denied all charges.

# Golf: Fifteen-time major champion Tiger Woods and sportswear giant Nike have ended their partnership after more than 27 years. The 48-year-old has been wearing Nike since turning professional at age 20. The partnership with Nike has generated about 12.28-billion-rand for Woods. Nike says throughout the course of the partnership, Woods has not only redefined the sport of golf but broke barriers for all of sport. Woods has suggested that the Genesis Invitational next month could be his first tournament of the year.       

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-57-cents and the euro at 20-rand-36-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-70-cents and Bitcoin trades at 47-thousand-and-3-dollars-39-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-34-dollars-25-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 76-dollars-46-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….