First Take SA

A war of words has erupted between former president, Jacob Zuma, and State Capture Commission chairperson, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo. This is over Zuma's failure to appear before the commission. Justice Zondo has set down the 16th to 20th of November for Zuma's appearance and warned that the dates are non-negotiable. The Jacob Zuma Foundation responded by accusing Zondo of being selective...

Police Minister, Bheki Cele has lambasted liquor outlets such as taverns, shebeens and restaurants for the sale of alcohol outside the stipulated national lockdown regulations. Cele says the police will not hesitate to enforce the closure of all these outlets, arrest their owners and possibly revoke their operating licenses. Cele was updating the media in Pretoria yesterday about law enforcement i...

Human trafficking in South Africa has once again come under the spotlight following recent reports of child abductions. Residents of Orange Farm, south of Johannesburg, are up in arms as they continue their hunt for a man who they allege attempted to kidnap a child yesterday. This as police in Bloemfotein, in the Free State province, have confirmed receiving reports of an alleged human trafficking...

While United Nations leaders were arguing for greater solidarity and unity in global governance, United States President Donald Trump used his address to the annual debate of the General Assembly to attack China's response to the global pandemic. World leaders including President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke in pre-recorded messages in a hybrid model adopted by the UN during COVID-19. The AU Chair used h...

The total number of reports on corruption has increased. In 2020 there were 1-thousand-995 corruption cases reported to civil society organisation Corruption Watch compared to 1-thousand-591 cases last year. This is an increase of over 400 cases. The anti-corruption body says 55 percent of the bulk of corruption cases reported to them were gathered after the national state of disaster was declared...

The Health Workers Union, Nehawu, will meet with President Cyril Ramaphosa, on Wednesday. This comes after Nehawu's leadership protested infront of the Union Building in Pretoria yesterday and threatened NOT to support the ANC in next year's elections. Nehawu handed over a memorandum to the presidency at the beginning of September with a deadline of seven days for action. When that didn't happen t...

Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo will on the 9th of October hear an application by the Commission's legal team for a summons to be brought for Former President Jacob Zuma to testify. This is after Zuma's lawyers informed the Commission that he would be unable to appear this week as scheduled, due to his preparing for his Arms Deal criminal trial due to proceed in December and his doctors advisin...

The Khoisan community has described as both insulting and culturally insensitive the branding of their traditional ritual Rain Dance by a wine making company in the Northern Cape. The company, Namaqua Wines, has used the Khoisan illustration on their wine boxes labelled "Rain Dance" seemingly without the full understanding of the significance of the ritual dance. The DAK Network, a Khoisan organis...

Water continues to be a major challenge in rural parts of the Eastern Cape, and communities still fetch water from rivers, which they share with animals. This despite the announcement made in 2014 by former president Jacob Zuma, of the multi-billion rand UMzimvubu Water Catchment Project. The project, which entails the construction of Ntabelanga, Laleni and Mbokazi dams is meant to supply water to...

All teachers, who were granted concessions to work from home during the nationwide lockdown, have to report back to school this morning. The Basic Education Department gave 22-thousand-500 teachers permission to work from home as the country battled the Coronavirus pandemic. Substitute teachers were employed in their absence. The teachers' return to school coincides with the country's move to Lock...

Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize has urged the public to not be complacent but rather continue to practice extreme caution by sticking to the covid-19 health guidelines. This as the country enters level one of the national lockdown which was initiated as a response to the fight against the corona virus pandemic. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced last week that the country would ease its regulati...

ANC politician Andile Lungisa has started serving his two-year prison sentence while awaiting his bail hearing at the Grahamstown High Court in Makhanda slated for Monday. On Tuesday this week, the NPA gave Lungisa 48 hours to hand himself over after his appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Appeals last week. Lungisa was sentenced to two years imprisonment for assault with intent to do gri...

Humanitarian organisation, Oxfam South Africa, has called on pharmaceutical companies to provide a people-based vaccine as rich nations race to buy Covid-19 vaccine stock. This as over fifty percent of doses expected to be available for supply post successful trials have been snapped up by the US, Britain, Australia, Japan, Switzerland, Israel, the EU, Hong Kong and Macaue. Oxfam, together with va...

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that there will be a gradual easing on restrictions on international travel from the first of October. However the President said travel will be restricted to and from certain high risk countries. #I amTourism has welcomed the reopening of borders saying it will bring about the return of business travel, conferences and expanded trade. Elvis Presslin spoke to it...

Sporting fans who were hoping that they would be able to go to stadiums to support their teams on the field as the country moves to Lockdown Alert Level 1, have been dealt a major blow. President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that sporting restrictions will remain in place for now. Super Rugby has been the hardest hit despite the return of some domestic cricket games and soccer matches which saw t...

The Public Protector's Office will go ahead with an investigation into the use of state funds and resources for party interests by the ANC delegation which traveled to Zimbabwe last week. This is despite the governing party apologising and agreeing to pay back to the state the costs incurred for the trip after the ANC delegation used a SANDF plane to transport its officials to a meeting with the r...

The Public Protector's Office will go ahead with an investigation into the use of state funds and resources for party interests by the ANC delegation which travelled to Zimbabwe last week. This is despite the governing party apologising and agreeing to pay back to the state the costs incurred for the trip after the ANC delegation used a SANDF plane to transport its officials to a meeting with the...

'Africa 4 Palestine' to picket outside the embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Pretoria to protest against the Israel-United Arab Emirates normalisation agreement, or the Abraham Accord. The agreement was signed on Tuesday in Washington by US president Donald Trump and the leaders of Israel and UAE. The accord, which normalises relations between Israel and UAE is seen by others as a a 'stab in...

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has warned that the South African economy faces tough times ahead and that painful sacrifices will need to be made going forward. Mboweni wrote an opinion piece in a Sunday newspaper where he called for structural reforms of the South African economy. This follows the GDP shrinking by a record 51 percent in the second quarter, its forth quarterly contraction in a row....

Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi is to table in parliament amendments to the electoral laws that could pave the way for the introduction of electronic voting over and the above the traditional method of polling. Motsoaledi has disclosed this in a notice on the government gazette. The IEC told parliament in July that it was also considering piloting e-voting. However, such a pilot project wou...

The EFF has called off the protest action at Clicks stores with immediate effect. The party met with executives from both Unilever and Clicks in separate meetings at its headquarters in Braamfontein, Johannesburg yesterday. Clicks committed to drop all Tresemmé SA products from all its stores and replace them with locally produced products, while Unilever promised to withdraw the products from all...

With the unemployment rate expecting to worsen in South Africa and many people struggling to put food on the table, some communities are now setting up groups in an attempt to assist one another. Income deprivation and lack of jobs are becoming more acute, 5 months into the Covid-19 pandemic and lock-down.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has reassured South Africans that the change they want to see in the country will happen. Ramaphosa was speaking to editors in an engagment with SANEF, where he said the work government is doing will reveal itself.

President Cyril Ramaphosa says South Africa will "forever remember" the contribution of veteran human rights lawyer, George Bizos. Ninety-two-year-old Bizos died at his home in Johannesburg yesterday afternoon. Ramaphosa has described Bizos as an incisive legal mind and architect of the country's democratic constitution. And in the words of his late friend, Nobel Literature laureate Nadine Gordime...

Former board chair of Eskom, Zola Tsotsi, yesterday concluded his evidence at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture. Tsotsi was grilled for two days regarding governance, allegations of corruption at the power utility and how Eskom was captured by the Gupta's. He also gave damming evidence of how former Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown and former President Jacob Zuma, interfered i...