News 09:00

BULLETIN 6 July 9 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# John Steenhuisen slams the National Dialogue as an expensive talk shop
# A labour lawyer asks for an urgent ghost worker audit in all government departments
# And cycling: Jasper Philipsen wins the first yellow jersey in the Tour de France

# DA leader John Steenhuisen says the forthcoming National Dialogue will be an enormously expensive process with a lot of talking but nothing else to address the concerns of South Africans.  He says an open letter by former president Thabo Mbeki confirmed that the dialogue was meant to benefit the ANC. Mbeki and president Cyril Ramaphosa earlier criticised Steenhuisen and the DA for withdrawing from the National Dialogue, after the axing of former deputy minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Andrew Whitfield. Steenhuisen says the dialogue is clearly a quest by the ANC to reach out to its disillusioned constituencies.

# The Ministry of Defence and Military Veterans has noted with concern what it calls a misleading social media post by the DA, dragging Minister Angie Motshekga’s name into disrepute.  Ministry Spokesperson Onicca Kwakwa says this refers to allowances due to members of the South African National Defence Force deployed under the SADC Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She says there are no missing millions and the claim is false, unfounded, and deliberately misleading:

# A veteran labour lawyer, Michael Bagraim, has asked for an urgent proper ghost worker audit is all government national and provincial departments. He says in May this year, Finance minister Enoch Godongwana announced a cleanup expenditure review of more than 300-billion-rand in government spending since 2013, to root out inefficiencies, including ghost employees. Bagraim says the issue of ghost employees in the public service is an intentional medium for systemic corruption: 

# Wildfires have broken out on an island and in towns near Athens in Greece, with blazes also being sparked in Turkey and Syria. Two villages on the island of Evia were evacuated after the blaze started late on Friday. More than 160 firefighters, 46 trucks and five aircraft were deployed to the island. Evia was one of several regions in Greece placed on high alert for wildfires with gale-force winds expected over the weekend. It marks the latest wildfires to break out in Greece, where blazes are common during the hot summer months.

# And finally sports news:

# Motorsport: Red Bull’s Max Verstappen claimed pole for the British Grand Prix after qualifying at Silverstone on Saturday. McLaren’s championship leader, Oscar Piastri, will start alongside the Dutchman on the front row of today’s race. Piastri’s teammate, Lando Norris, starts on the second row, with the Mercedes of George Russell next to him. Piastri took provisional pole until Verstappen produced a perfect final flying lap to front the grid by only a tenth of a second from the Australian. Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc made it an all-Ferrari third row.

# And cycling: There were mixed fortunes for the thousands of Belgian fans who poured over the border for the opening stage of the Tour de France on Saturday as Jasper Philipsen won, but star rider Remco Evenepoel lost valuable time. Philipsen took the yellow jersey in a frantic sprint finish at the northern city of Lille, while double Olympic champion Evenepoel was trapped in a second group and lost around 40 seconds. Philipsen, in yellow, will lead the peloton out for Sunday’s second stage, a hilly 209-kilometre route to the beaches of Boulogne-sur-mer.

Stay tuned for more news………….