News 17:00

BULLETIN 13 June 5 pm

Good afternoon. I am……..

In this bulletin:

# The DA’s Reagen Allen is elected as deputy speaker of the Western Cape legislature
# The EFF welcomes the AU’s reprimand of Fitch
# And Olympics: Lionel Messi won’t play for Argentina in the Paris Games’ soccer competition 

# Western Cape MEC for Police Oversight and Community Safety, Reagen Allen, has been elected deputy speaker of the provincial legislature. Allen received 26 votes against the ANC’s Nobulumko Degracia Nkondlo with 12 votes. He will serve as deputy to elected speaker, Daylin Mitchell. Addressing the legislature in the first sitting of the seventh provincial parliament, Allen pledged to ensure that the legislature is held to account and the Constitution is upheld:

# The EFF says it welcomes the African Union’s Peer Review Mechanism for its bold and necessary reprimand of rating agency Fitch. The mechanism says it sees as inappropriate attempts to manipulate South Africa’s internal politics by Fitch suggesting that the ANC go into a coalition with the DA to form a government. The EFF says for far too long, Fitch and other Western-based rating agencies have meddled in the country’s politics to sway political outcomes in favour of the capital and financial markets.

# The minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu says a new dispensation is needed in the water and sanitation sector to ensure proper water management and propel the country to greater heights that will realise water security for future generations. Mchunu says the current state of water and sanitation services challenges government and its partners to turn things around and set high standards for the sector:

# Olympics: Argentinian soccer legend Lionel Messi won’t represent his country in the Games in Paris, saying he’s too old to play in every tournament. The 36-year-old says it would also take him a few months away from his American club, Inter Miami, after playing for his country in the Copa America competition from next Thursday. Messi, who won gold with Argentina in the 2008 Games in Beijing, says he has to choose carefully and it would be too much to play two straight tournaments.

# The financial indicators: The dollar trades at 18-rand-35-cents and the euro at 19-rand-81-cents. One British pound costs 23-rand-47-cents and Bitcoin trades at 67-thousand-922-dollars-21-cents. Gold sells at two-thousand-316-dollars-26-cents a fine ounce and Brent crude oil is quoted at 82-dollars-80-cents a barrel.

# And finally: Eskom has initiated a Save Your Transformers, Save Lives campaign, urging customers to reduce consumption and report illegal activities. The campaign follows the replacement of over 400 transformers damaged by network overloading since January. Spokesperson Aubrey Sambo warns of increased electricity demand as temperatures drop. Sambo addresses network overloading issues caused by electricity theft through illegal connections, equipment theft, vandalism, tampering, unauthorised operations, and purchasing electricity from illegal vendors:

Stay tuned for more news………….