The South African government says it is working tirelessly to deal with the danger of fake news in the fight against COVID-19 and the vaccination plan. Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, believes that while social media is beneficial for communicating, it can be easily hijacked to spread false claims about inoculation. […]

Reports coming from a Daily Maverick investigation have revealed shocking findings that South Africa’s Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, is implicated in an improperly awarded contract by the Department of Health. The investigation has found that long-time personal associates of the Minister allegedly pocketed Covid-19 funds after being appointed as consultants of a KwaZulu-Natal company. […]

South Africa’s unemployment rate rose to 32.5% in the last three months of 2020, Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke has revealed. The increase presents a 1.7 percentage point increase from the third quarter of 2020. Despite the grim picture painted in the fourth quarter (Q4) Labour Force Survey, released on Tuesday, Stats SA said the Quarter 4 […]

Everything is falling apart in Kannaland: water supplies, sewage, rubbish collection. Even the Ladismith city hall is in a mess in this Little Karoo municipality marked by strange political alliances and in-fighting. The municipality includes Ladismith, Zoar, Calitzdorp, and Van Wyksdorp. A brief trip by GroundUp to Ladismith and Zoar revealed serious municipal service failures, […]

As the world marked World Pangolin Day yesterday (20 February), pangolins tragically remain the most trafficked mammal in the world… surpassing elephants and rhinos. They are poached for their scales and meat for use in traditional medicines, even though there is no scientific proof that their body parts have any medicinal value.   According to […]

The South African Police Service (SAPS) management says it will urgently execute a turnaround plan in four of the country’s provinces with “worryingly high crime rates”. The four provinces are: Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and the Western Cape provinces. Police Minister Bheki Cele, who released the 2020/21 third quarter crime statistics on Friday, said […]

The latest farm attack and farm murder statistics for South Africa show that the crime continued relentlessly despite the Coronavirus pandemic and ensuing Lockdowns leading to an overall decrease in most other crimes. AfriForum on Wednesday released comprehensive farm attack and murder statistics for 2020, revealing that there were almost 20 more farm murders in […]

Free State Agriculture (FSA) have expressed outrage at the announcement made during the State of the Nation Address Debate, by former Minister of Agriculture Tina Joemat-Pettersson, that MK veterans will receive expropriated farms. “This is nothing more than a repetition of Zimbabwean land policy,” said the FSA, accusing the ANC have hanging out “their Zimbabwe […]

In June last year, GroundUp wrote about pensioner Amos Khumalo, who used his state pension to build a bridge so that his wife could safely cross a fast flowing stream to Bara taxi rank from Elias Motsoaledi informal settlement in Soweto. A bridge built by a pensioner in a Soweto informal settlement has washed away. PPC cement […]

The South African Police Service (SAPS) this week seized unregistered medicines – suspected to be Ivermectin – worth a market value of R126 million at the OR Tambo International Airport. The unregistered medicines which are believed to be Ivermectin were mainly found to be in tablet form. The discovery of the tablets was made by […]

Barely a month since Cyclone Eloise swept into southern Africa, a (currently) moderate tropical storm, named Guambe, is on its way. Guambe is intensifying and expected to reach Tropical Cyclone status… but is fortunately unlikely to have too much impact on South Africa; although a large part of the Mozambique coast is “highly likely” to […]

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has revealed that the group of “supposed” MK vets, operating under the banner of Tlhapi Zizi (Pty) Ltd, who have been controversially allocated Ivan Cloete’s farm, are ANC-connected individuals and people who already own farms. “This raises very serious questions on the fairness and transparency of the process that was used […]

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, a leading global cruise company which operates the Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises brands, yesterday announced an extension of its current suspension of global cruise voyages as the world continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic. The suspension now includes all voyages on Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania […]

South Africans, who have had to adjust to loadshedding schedules and been urged to use as little electricity as possible, have now been informed that the price of the electricity they do get will be rising by 15%. The North Gauteng High Court has ordered that an amount of R10 billion be added to Eskom’s […]

Afriski was hit by its most brutal flood ever, with 60mm of rainfall measured in 30 minutes… which is equivalent to one-tenth of Johannesburg’s annual rainfall in half-an-hour. This is the first time that flooding has occurred at the Lesotho resort since it opened its doors in 2000. The damage to internal roads, infrastructure and […]

Desperate job-seekers are falling victim to fake job posts on Facebook, Indeed.com, and other platforms that pretend to offer stable employment. Scammers are targeting desperate job-seekers, promising jobs. The fraudsters use Facebook, Indeed.com, Careers.24.com and other platforms including SMS. Some charge “administrative” fees, others ask candidates to pay for online “police clearance” checks. SAPS says […]

Tanzania’s health minister said earlier this month that the country has no plans to procure COVID-19 vaccines. Moina Spooner, an editor with The Conversation Africa, asked Catherine Kyobutungi, African Population and Health Research Center, to explain Tanzania’s COVID-19 response and why it’s problematic. Why has the decision been taken not to vaccinate? Tanzania has had […]

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called for charges to be brought against former President Jacob Zuma as he has refused to appear before the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture this week. Zuma previously announced through his legal team that he intended to ignore the summons of the Commission, and the judgement of the Constitutional […]

It was the last day of school of 2020. For months my colleagues and I had been taking measures to prevent getting ill with Covid. But on this day in December, all our efforts to keep the school safe went out the window. And, while I cannot prove it, I believe a deadly price was […]

Civilian residents at the Marievale military base say police ignore their complaints of torture and assault carried out by soldiers and that the police rarely help them when the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) contravenes court orders. Civilian residents at Marievale base say soldiers beat and tortured them on Sunday before demolishing their homes. […]

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape will appeal to the South African Police Service (SAPS) to urgently consider engaging with private laboratories to assist with the backlog in DNA testing that threatens to delay justice in the Brand farm murder case. Retired couple – Daniel (Danie) Brand, 82, his wife Hybrecht (Breggie), 73 […]

Size does count, and the Covid-19 pandemic has confirmed it. Thanks to the networks of scientists across the world who are running big clinical trials, we can better decide which medicines should be used. Large well-designed clinical trials show us which medicines work and which don’t against Covid-19. The trials of ivermectin have been poorly […]

The Hilton College and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) community is still reeling after the tragic deaths of popular Hilton College Director of Operations Tony Richter, and his daughter Alice, over the weekend. There has been an outpouring of tributes, including this poignant letter below from a close family friend. The tragic incident apparently happened on the N3 […]

South Africa represents the biggest percentage of hunting outfitter exhibitors at the Dallas Safari Club (DSC) annual convention, according to the Humane Society International (HSI). The DSC, a Texas-based trophy hunting industry organisation, hosts the USA’s biggest industry hunting event, which is being held online this year. Based on research conducted by both the HSI […]

Eskom is once again switching off the lights for South Africans, although this time it’s implementing Stage 3 load shedding. It began at 1pm Wednesday afternoon and is scheduled to last until 6am tomorrow. “This load shedding is necessary as the power generation system is still severely constrained due to high generation unit breakdowns during […]