In a bid to alleviate the burden on indigent households during the COVID-19 pandemic, Eskom is reminding qualifying members that they should apply for the free electricity they are entitled to, despite the fact that at least 200,000 households who have already qualified are not using it. Eskom today launched a campaign to raise awareness […]

Deeds offices across the country will reopen on Wednesday 13 May under strict guidelines, with only conveyancers allowed in the buildings, the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development has announced. All services would be available and all lodgements accepted, but only conveyancers would be allowed to enter the building, and in big offices […]

This is an URGENT APPEAL for help… writes Sadhana (Sharon Ryan). [UPDATE 15 May 2020: Light at the end of the tunnel for South Africans stranded in India.] We are over 250 South Africans stranded all over India, since Lockdown started on 24 March, with no repatriation plans in sight yet by the South African […]

Following a video going viral of KwaDukuza municipality peace officers allegedly trying to take a screaming four-year-old child out of a Chaka’s Rock complex while his father tries to pull him from them on Sunday morning, The Courier’s Penny Fourie spoke to Paul* (37) – one of the men who was arrested – who captured the […]

The Unemployment Insurance Fund has  paid out R11 billion in benefits to over two million employees affected by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in the past month. A total of 161,567 companies launched claims on behalf of their workers over the course of the last month. The funds were disbursed through the COVID-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief […]

An investigation is reportedly underway in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, after a video went viral on Monday showing two officers entering a property where they grab a young child and lead him away. (Watch below.) The young boy can be heard crying as an adult male, believed to be his dad, races to his rescue and […]

“If we continue like this the virus is going to kill us.” Shopper Zimasa Nkuhlu is worried that other customers at the Nyanga Junction Mall in Philippi in Cape Town are not respecting social distancing rules or wearing masks. She told GroundUp many people did not take the risk of Covid-19 seriously because when the […]

The Eastern Cape Department of Health has bowed to pressure by unions to shut down Zwide Clinic in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The closure on Monday morning comes after the death of a nurse a few weeks ago and 11 staff members testing positive for Covid-19 on Saturday. Staff at the clinic have been demanding […]

Appeals against plans for a huge new wind farm on the West Coast have been dismissed by environment minister Barbara Creecy, paving the way for the addition of up to 140 megawatts of renewable energy into the national grid. John Yeld reports. This is the Juno Wind Energy Facility, planned for a farm in the […]

The South African government seems to have gone from an absence of data coupled to a firm but sensible strategy of lockdown to delay the pain of COVID-19, to a multitude of inputs and a seemingly cavalier attitude to the restrictions. Statistics South Africa has submitted data on how the pandemic has devastated the country’s […]

While the South African government plans to steadily reduce the COVID-19 alert level by stabilising infection and anticipating the inevitable increase in cases, President Ramaphosa has warned the virus might be around for another year. South Africa moved to Level 4 of the national lockdown on 1 May. The lockdown is aimed at curbing the […]

South Africa’s confirmed COVID-19 cases have risen to 10 015. Regrettably, the Health Department has reported eight more COVID-19 related deaths: 3 from the Western Cape, 1 from the Eastern Cape, and 4 from Gauteng. This brings the total national deaths to 194. “We wish to express our condolences to the loved ones of the […]

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting worried… writes Alan Knott-Craig. The Corona-virus lockdown is getting me down. It’s getting me depressed. It’s making me a bit scared. It’s not the curfew, or the lack of exercise, or too much time in a confined space with my family, or the alcohol & cigarette ban, […]

“Government must force our employers to pay us our wages or register us for UIF so we can claim because we didn’t create this virus and now we are suffering,” says Vaidah Sande, a domestic worker in Johannesburg. Sande has lived and worked in South Africa intermittently since 2004. She has worked for her current […]

Today saw violent protests erupt in Shallcross, Durban, as food parcels were again not delivered… writes photojournalist Kierran Allen. As I have said before… people are hungry, desperate and will take drastic measures to get what they want, or – should I say – what they have been promised! Forty-five days have passed in this […]

Helium gas, it turns out, isn’t just for blowing up balloons and making friends laugh with a squeaky voice. It’s actually critical in life-saving industries. And just when world supplies of the non-renewable gas were dwindling – and the need for helium increasing – two South Africans made a miraculous discovery in the Free State. […]

In gratitude to the many South African soldiers who are women – and who will be unable to celebrate Mother’s Day with their children today – a women’s veteran’s organisation handed out female hygiene parcels to over 300 female soldiers on Friday. Former Umkhonto weSizwe and SA National Defence Force (SANDF) member, Granny Seape, said […]

Throughout their range leopards are in rapid decline, having disappeared from North Africa, much of the Middle East and Asia. Declines have been so severe that the species is now considered vulnerable to extinction. No comprehensive estimates of the number of leopards remaining in the wild exist. In southern Africa, 62% of leopard distribution falls […]

Top trainer Mike de Kock has warned of a “grim reality” featuring “loss of jobs and euthanasia” of significant parts of the horse population if the South African racing shutdown continues… writes Nicholas Godfrey from Horse Racing Planet. On Tuesday, the South African Government blocked plans for a resumption when it refused to allow the […]

In its virtual Caucus meeting held today, 9 May 2020, the ANC Caucus said it condemned in the strongest terms the “ill-timed and irrational” calls by the DA for the Lockdown to end. The ANC Caucus said in a statement on Saturday evening that the “levels of incitement by the DA Leader and calls for […]

A couple who made up a batch of home-brew beer to get round South Africa’s alcohol-purchase ban during lockdown died in agony last weekend after drinking one bottle of the ale each. Estate agent Tony Hilliar, 54, and his fiancée Alida Fouche, 42, had run out of their own supplies of alcohol and decided to […]

Eskom has received offers from a group of engineers, all former employees, who want to contribute their skills free of charge to help rebuild the organisation. Eskom said in a statement yesterday that the offers were unsolicited, and that many of the group – which one news report numbered at 60 – were former employees […]

Ronald Lamola, Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, said about 19,000 low-risk offenders may qualify to be released from prisons across the country, which will decrease the prison population by about 12%, reducing overcrowding. Lamola was addressing the media on Friday afternoon after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the authorisation of parole for selected categories of […]

This week, Carte Blanche gives us an insight into the other side of the Global Pandemic that has caused distress to homeowners and tenants worldwide. You can watch the show on Sunday 10 May in South Africa on DStv Now or stream it overseas in most countries from Tues 12 May if you’re abroad. COVID-19: […]

In a hard-hitting speech where he said the government’s continued, irrational and unexplained lockdown was destructive and going to devastate many more lives than were necessary, Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen said citizens were being treated like common criminals. “Much of the hardship we’re going through is unnecessary,” Steenhuisen said in an online speech today, […]