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 […]

South Africa needs an economic miracle in order to recover, says Carte Blanche which this week investigates how both the ANC and Business for South Africa have tabled plans for getting the country out of the quagmire. You can watch the show on Sunday 9 August in South Africa on DStv Now or stream it […]

Thanks to improved service at Cape Town harbour, the wine industry, badly affected by the months-long lockdown and prohibition of alcohol sales in South Africa, was able to export 38 million litres of wine in July, 12 million litres more than in June.  Rico Basson, the MD of Vinpro, which represents 2,500 wine producers, thanked […]

President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Dr Sydney Mufamadi and Baleka Mbete as Special Envoys to Zimbabwe following recent reports of “difficulties that the landlocked country is experiencing”, the Presidency said. The “difficulties” referred to include reports from those in Zimbabwe of security forces unleashing a brutal and sometimes physically violent clampdown on citizens across the […]

A big push is being made by South African chef Jan Hendrik at his Michelin-starred restaurant in the south of France (in Nice, on the Cote d’Azur) to serve as much South African wine as possible to help the local industry during its crisis as the ban on local alcohol sales continues. And he has […]

In the midst of an ongoing avalanche of negative press  questioning his seriousness in dealing with corruption, President Cyril Ramaphosa today announced a committee of six cabinet ministers to deal with allegations of corruption surrounding the country’s response to the COVID pandemic. The public response has been less than positive – more cynical than anything […]

President Cyril Ramaphosa will this afternoon receive the report of the Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The President will chair the online meeting of the Commission where Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, and Deputy Chair of the Commission, Professor Marwala Tshilidzi, will present the report. “The landmark report is a […]

National Treasury Director-General Dondo Mogajane says an instruction will be issued to government departments across all spheres to halt the emergency procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) as the State tightens the lid against corruption. At a joint virtual meeting of the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces Finance Committees on Wednesday, Mogajane said […]

COVID-19 has wrought havoc on poor households in countries across the world. In South Africa, more and more people are facing hunger resulting from mass job losses and small, poorly implemented supplementary cash grants. On top of this the pandemic has put in stark relief the country’s poorly understood food system, in which powerful firms […]

More than double the number of containers are being moved daily in the port of Cape Town compared to the end of May, and vessels at anchor are berthed in one day rather than 20, according to Western Cape Minister of Finance David Maynier. At the end of June, Maynier urgently requested the government deal […]

The rights of tobacco farmers were today represented in court by Saai (Southern African Agri Initiative) in the matter of British American Tobacco South Africa (BATSA) and nine others against the Minister of COGTA, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, and two others in the Western Cape High Court. Saai explained in a statement that the ban […]

Dear Mr President The Covid-19 pandemic caught the entire globe by surprise, and despite this, South Africans willingly joined the fightback in March. The pandemic has had severe effects on the populations of the world – economic collapse, hunger, and poverty have been exacerbated in countries already struggling with internal issues such as inequality, high […]