News 11:00

BULLETIN 27 August 11 am

Good morning. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The GOOD Party is calling on president Ramaphosa to act against the Justice minister
# Dirco is intensifying diplomatic pressure on Equatorial Guinea over two detained South Africans
# And athletics: Olympic silver medallist Bradley Nkoana is making his Under 20 World Championship debut

# The GOOD Party is calling on president Cyril Ramaphosa to act against Justice minister Thembi Simelane. According to reports, during her tenure as mayor of Polokwane in Limpopo, she took a loan of more than half-a-million rand from the same company that facilitated 349-million-rand worth of the municipality’s investments into VBS bank. GOOD’s secretary-general, Brett Herron, says it is completely untenable to have the minister of Justice embroiled in the ongoing VBS fraud and corruption scandal:

# The South African National Defence Force is facing civil claims amounting to 1.5-billion-rand. Defence minister Angie Motshekga revealed this in a parliamentary response to a question posed by the EFF. Labour and human resources claims amounting to 418-million-rand accounts for most of the debt. Motshekga says claims for unlawful assault, arrest, and prosecution stand at 375-million-rand, while the department has to pay 147-million-rand in civil claims for breach and cancellation of contracts and services. 

# ActionSA in Johannesburg has asked mayoral committee member for Transport, Kenny Kunene, to make public the processes followed in appointing the new Bree Street contractor. The Johannesburg Roads Agency terminated the contract of Step Up Engineering due to poor performance and failure to meet contractual deliverables. The street was wrecked by a gas explosion more than a year ago. ActionSA’s Zark Lebatlang says the agency has awarded a 180-million-rand tender to a company with a dodgy background:

# The Department of International Relations and Cooperation says it is deeply concerned about the ongoing detention of South African citizens Peter Huxham and Frik Potgieter in Equatorial Guinea. The two have been imprisoned since February last year, where they had been working for Dutch oil and gas company SBM Offshore. The department says South Africa’s ambassador to Equatorial Guinea, Nolufefe Dwabayo, met with the minister of Foreign Affairs in Malabo. It adds that South Africa is continuing in its pursuit of a solution with the country’s government.

# Athletics: South Africa’s Bradley Nkoana will make his World Athletics Under-20 Championships debut in Lima, Peru, in the 100-metre heats today. He formed part of South Africa’s silver medal-winning men’s four-by-100-meter team at the Olympic Games earlier this month. Some one-thousand-700 athletes from more than 130 countries will compete for honours over the next five days. Nkoana says winning a medal in Paris was very special:

# And the financial indicators: The dollar trades at 17-rand-72-cents and the euro at 19-rand-79-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-41-cents and Bitcoin trades at 62-thousand-802-dollars-65-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-516-dollars-39-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 81-dollars-38-cents a barrel.

Stay tuned for more news………….