The five people accused in the murder of Danie, Breggie and Elzabie Brand in Hartswater, made their second appearance in court on 13 August. The triple murder of the family members on 27 July shocked South Africans around the country. The case was postponed until 27 August to allow the accused to apply for bail. […]

Not everyone’s impressed by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement on Saturday evening, in his address to the nation, that South Africa will move into Lockdown Level 2 with many regulations relaxed, including a lift on the ban on cigarettes and alcohol, and the opening of borders for inter-provincial travel. While some rejoiced – and looked forward […]

Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs – Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma – has today signed an extension to the already extended National State of Disaster (Covid-19). The State of Disaster was due to end today, but has now been extended a further month to 15 September 2020. According to the Government Notice 765 published in […]

To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, Charles de Gaulle and Martin Luther King, it takes a crisis to show the mettle of a true leader. And if anyone in South Africa has proved that over and over again during the past five months, it would be Western Cape Premier Alan Winde. Inasmuch as Cyril Ramaphosa has […]

Naked Wines has launched an exclusive case to raise over £225,000 to support  South African winemakers affected by the strict ban on domestic alcohol sales. The online wine retailer launched the online crowdfunding event this week – to raise funds for South African winemakers impacted by Covid restrictions in the country The South African wine […]

The Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi, recently announced a further extension of visas for foreign nationals in South Africa. However, in the words of the Democratic Alliance (DA), he has “bizarrely refused” to make any provision for South Africans abroad whose passports will expire as a result of the extended lockdown. The DA is […]

Members of the South African cabinet and their deputies have taken more than one trip overseas every day for the past two years – that’s 949 trips, to be exact – in the 912 days since Cyril Ramaphosa became president in February 2018. All have been funded by the taxpayer. The worst offenders were Lindiwe […]

The African National Congress is allegedly planning to start a “sweetheart” union for the tourism sector sanctioned by Luthuli House and favourable to the ANC, to serve as the official voice of the tourism industry, an industry whistleblower has told the Democratic Alliance. The DA said it had been advised that the ANC planned to […]

StreetSmart South Africa usually raises R1 million a year to feed street children. This year the organisation expects to raise only raise half as much. StreetSmart is funded mostly through voluntary add-ons to hotel and restaurant bills (usually R5 a table). It had about 100 participating establishments. Charities funded via the hospitality industry are an […]

South Africa has once again been plunged into darkness on Thursday morning when stage 2 load shedding was implemented countrywide due to the delay to return five generation units to service and a further two units went offline. Some will be experiencing their loadshedding later today. Eskom has issued warnings of a “severely constrained” power system and […]

241 patients came through its doors. But now the temporary Covid-19 field hospital in Khayelitsha will close. It is yet another sign that the Western Cape, at least for now, is beyond the worst of the pandemic, although it is far from over. In March, Khayelitsha was the first township in South Africa to have […]

The drill rig DeepSea Stavanger has arrived in Cape Town before it heads to Mossel Bay to begin drilling in the Outeniqua Basin as part of a $400 million oil and gas drilling campaign by the French company Total. It will be there for up to 300 days. The massive rig has been commissioned by […]

If you listen to the challenges facing Bongisizwe Mpondo, your first thought is, who in their right mind would want his job? They are Sisyphean. What was once one of the world’s great rail networks (read your history) has, through more than a decade of neglect, mismanagement, corrupt and bungled contracts, theft and vandalism, been […]

The Department of Public Enterprises is once again boasting its readiness to implement the business rescue plan for South African Airways, to create a “lean, agile” airline, but no mention is being made of where the more than R10 billion needed to effect the BRP will come from. The department headed by minister Pravin Gordhan […]

Democratic Alliance (DA) leader John Steenhuisen says it is high time for President Cyril Ramaphosa to “grow a spine, stand up to his party and start putting South Africa first”, in his party’s call for the South African president to end hard lockdown immediately and end the “irrational bans on tobacco and alcohol”. In a […]

The Aalwynhof Old Age Home in the Karoo town of Aberdeen in the Eastern Cape is one of hundreds across the province which have not received their usual subsidy from the government since March. The home, which looks after 35 elderly people, has run out of money and may soon be unable to buy food […]

To support home and community food gardens, the Western Cape government’s “One Home, One Garden” initiative has already helped establish 1,371 food gardens – in the form of vegetable gardens or chicken coops – in two months, with more than 400 in just one week. “One of my key priorities for agriculture is farmer support […]

The North Gauteng High Court has referred a 5-year-old case between the City of Cape Town and the Minister of Energy and the National Energy Regulator of South Africa back to the Intergovernmental Dispute Resolution Framework, further delaying the city’s ability to buy electricity from independent power producers rather than Eskom. The judgement, said the […]

Cape Town architectural design firm SAOTA has worked on countless glistening projects around the world, but most recently has been in the news for designing the $35.5 million mansion Hillside in Los Angeles that has featured on the Netflix reality series “Selling Sunset.” Here’s a video of the house at 8408 Hillside Avenue: For the […]

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse has written to the executives of a Chinese state-owned locomotive manufacturing entity asking for the return of at least US$284 million (more than R5 billion, at current exchange rates) in South African government funds looted by the entity on behalf of the Guptas. The letter was written by OUTA’s CEO […]

Martin Pretorius, a Capetonian architect with Workshop and Machine has won the coveted San Francisco Affordable Housing Challenge with his project titled, Rethinking row-houses/apartments blocks. The concept’s aim is to redevelop the row-house and apartment blocks of San Francisco into a system that uses space more efficiently and introduces greenery to the city. The striking […]

Brand South Africa – which usually promotes all things South African around the world – has issued a statement on Tuesday, declaring it is aware of allegations mooted by the former CEO, Dr Kingsley Makhubela, against Brand South Africa, through an article on the City Press, Sunday 9 August 2020, titled “Damning Account of Brand […]

While the best available estimates show that over 3 million people in the private sector have already lost their jobs and that a fifth of private sector employees did not receive a salary in June as a result of the ANC lockdown crisis, the DA says it can exclusively reveal that at least 84 337 […]

Heritage Day, 24 September, marks the official launch of the new live-work-play precinct in downtown Johannesburg, Jewel City (a great new development SAPeople reported on earlier in August). Six blocks of previously unused buildings, from Maboneng to the newly refurbished Towers Main, have now opened for business. Jewel City has been built around the headquarters […]

The Democratic Alliance (DA) says it welcomes the statement by Western Cape Premier, Alan Winde on his Government’s resolution to allow for the sale of alcohol and the safe reopening of all businesses. “This is because the Western Cape Government from the very onset of this pandemic immediately set to work in building healthcare capacity […]