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21 November 2018

A new bill proposed by Treasury intends to amend five acts, including one which will affect state banks.

Treasury officials on Tuesday briefed the Standing Committee on Finance on the Financial Matters Amendment Bill, which was open for public comment between August 24 and September 14, 2018. The bill has been submitted to Cabinet for approval

There are five acts affected are the Insolvency Act, the Military Pensions Act, the Government Employees Pension law, the Banks Act and the Auditing Profession Act.

21 November 2018 

R2.5bn down the drain. This is the amount of money the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) found to have been fruitless and wasteful expenditure in South African state departments and state-owned Entities (SOEs).

This figure increased by more than 200% from the previous year, Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu said on Wednesday as he presented the AGSA's general report on national and provincial audit outcomes for 2017-'18.

18 November  2018

The state will likely recoup the R2bn that it subsidised the fuel price in November over two months rather than taking it all back in December.

This is according to Efficient Group chief economist Dawie Roodt, who added that rather than using the standard formula for calculating the fuel price, the government would directly play a role by deciding how much of the so-called Slate levy it wanted to recoup.

18 november 2018

With the Emfuleni municipality under provincial administration, and a team from National Treasury intervening, it was hoped that the troubled municipality would be turned around. But concerns have been raised about the turnaround plan, and a new survey shows that residents of the municipality are increasingly unhappy.

Emfuleni was placed under administration in June 2018. According to the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, this was largely because of problems with financial administration and service delivery.

18 November 2018

Since October 2016, 24 municipalities have been placed under administration, with 13 of these being placed under administration since June.

This is according to the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), which provided an update of municipalities placed under administration to News24 last week.

15 November 2018 

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has rejected an apology by Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba for his remarks about ebola.  And the Human Rights Commission says it will be contacting Mashaba about his remarks "which could be regarded as a violation of the constitution".

The union in Gauteng urged city residents not to accept the apology because it was not “genuine”. 

Mashaba made controversial remarks on Twitter about his citizen's arrest of an undocumented foreign national pushing cow heads in a trolley in the CBD.
 

12 November 2018

Cash-strapped power utility Eskom said on Monday the risk of nationwide electricity outages had increased significantly due to a sharp fall in coal stockpiles at five of its power stations.

“The risk of loadshedding is there and its rising,” said Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe.