First Take SA

Communicating with your service provider if you are unable to meet your financial obligations is vital if you want to avoid dire consequences. This is a lesson that Moshibudi Mothapo from Polokwane learnt the hard way after being involved in a car accident.

The Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, says free tertiary education is only for the poor. He told Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Higher Education today that those who can afford will have to pay. The committee had asked about his department's plans to address the matter of student fees at universities. Nzimande assured MPs that government was trying to source the extra 37 billion r...

Flitting between the 50s and contemporary South Africa, A New Song, is an elegy, a lament and a triumphant new work by playwright, director and poet, Napo Masheane. Set in a middle class Johannesburg suburb, we are introduced to nine women who formally eke out their existence as domestic workers, juggling the struggle, intemperate madams and motherhood.

Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande confirms that an agreement has been reached that tuition fee increases will be capped at 6 percent.

Protesting Wits students have overturned the car of a fellow student who drove through their blockade and beat the driver up. Police rescued him from the protesters. The student's condition is not clear at present. Protesting students are wielding rocks and sticks on Empire Road in Parktown in Johannesburg - which has been closed - causing major traffic disruptions. The university's Executive Coun...

Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande is to meet with vice chancellors from various institutions to tackle the issue of fee hikes. It comes after country-wide protests at institutions of higher learning over fee increases. He will also be meeting with university council chairs, students and workers. At a media briefing in Pretoria this afternoon, the minister appealed to students t...

Wits University students have blocked their Vice Chancellor, Professor Adam Habib, from leaving the Braamfontein campus. Habib was due to address the students on the way forward with regards to their protests against the proposed ten-point-five per cent increase in tuition fees. Today, marks the third day of the students' protests which led to the suspension of all activities on the university's c...

Newly appointed Independent Electoral Commission(IEC) chairperson, Vuma Mashinini says his past position within the president's office should not be viewed as him being a 'presidency man'. Mashinini briefed media in Pretoria on his new role, and preparations for next year's municipal elections. Opposition parties have raised concerns with his appointment.

John Block has resigned as Northern Cape Chairperson of the ANC and PEC as well as MEC for Finance and Tourism. This after Block was found guilty of corruption and money laundering by the Kimberley High Court . His co-accused, Trifecta director Christo Scholtz was found guilty while deputy secretary Alvin Botes has been acquitted of all charges.

The M1 highway in Sandton, north of Johannesburg has been re-opened to traffic after it was closed for about 24 hours. This follows the collapse of a pedestrian bridge under construction near the Grayston Drive off-ramp yesterday afternoon. Two people died and more than 20 others injured, three of them critically. Johannesburg Mayor Parks Tau re-opened the road after he was assured that it was saf...

The national civic alliance is urging government to conduct an urgent investigation into the cause of yesterday's structural bridge collapse near Grayston Drive in Sandton. Two people died and more than twenty others were injured following the incident.

The Democratic Alliance has welcomed President Jacob Zuma's decision to suspend National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega. Phiyega has been suspended with immediate effect, pending a board of inquiry into her fitness to hold office. The inquiry was instituted following the recommendation of the Marikana Commission that probed the deaths of 44 people during the strike at the Lonmin platinum mine in...

The AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo's bid to avoid imprisonment is gradually fading as the state has filed papers opposing his application for the extension of his bail. The King intends taking the Supreme Court of Appeal's decision to the Constitutional Court on the grounds that indigenous legal aspects were never taken into consideration during his conviction. He was convicted of crimes in...

The judge in the case against Northern Cape ANC chairperson, John Block, party deputy secretary, Alvin Botes, as well as Trifecta director, Christo Scholtz is expected to continue to hand down judgment at the High Court in Kimberley tomorrow. The three are accused of fraud, corruption and money laundering relating to multi-million rand government lease tenders. Economic Freedom Fighters members ha...

An agreement has been reached in principle for the world's largest brewer Anheuser-Bush InBev to buy South Africa's British brewing company SABMiller for more than a trillion-rand. If the take-over deal succeeds, a single company will be selling one in every three beers across the globe. The deal is still subject to international regulators' scrutiny

Human Rights Watch in southern Africa says South Africa's threat to pull out of the ICC will undo the country's good work as a promoter of human rights on the continent and worldwide. The ANC has directed government to review its membership of the international court. The governing party says the ICC has lost direction and it is being used by some powerful states that are not signatories to the Ro...

With just hours away from the opening of the ANC's national general council, the governing party's alliance partners - the SACP and Cosatu - have a mixed bag of expectations. E-tolls, the National Development Plan and the struggling economy are some of the issues that the two tripartite alliance members want clarity on.

The ANC's National General Council gets underway tomorrow. The party has confirmed that it's all systems go. Some of the key economic issues that will be discussed include the rand's performance, SA companies listed overseas and the problems facing the low performing economy with high unemployment rate

In 1980 Nkululeko Mxokiswa worked for Mercedez Benz and left in 1984. He received his pension fund payout shortly after leaving the company. In 2008 the Motor Industry Fund Administrators announced that all workers in the motor industry who had withdrawn their benefits before 2004 qualified for a surplus. Mxokiswa tried in vain for the past seven years to get a pay out from the Surplus Fund. This...

The Public Protector cannot fulfill the constitutional purpose of her office if other organs of State second-guess her findings and ignore her recommendations. That's the ruling made by a full bench of justices of the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein. The ruling follows the application lodged by the SABC, Communications Minister and broadcaster's chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng. The court di...

With just hours away from the opening of the ANC's national general council, the governing party's alliance partners - the SACP and Cosatu - have a mixed bag of expectations. E-tolls, the National Development Plan and the struggling economy are some of the issues that the two tripartite alliance members want clarity on.

The Public Protector cannot fulfill the constitutional purpose of her office if other organs of State second-guess her findings and ignore her recommendations. That's the ruling made by a full bench of justices of the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein. The ruling follows the application lodged by the SABC, Communications Minister and broadcaster's chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng. The court di...

African Court on Human and People's Rights has been commended for dispensing justice across the continent. In just a decade of its existence the court is to have recorded tremendous achievements. This year alone the court based in Arusha, Tanzania has received 17 contentious applications. And joining me in the studio is the President of the Court, Justice Augustino Ramadhani.

SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago on the SABC is adamant that there's nothing illegal about the way in which it has obtained emails relating to Bob Hewitt rape and sexual assault case. SABC News is in possession of documents showing that the three women who accused former tennis champion Bob Hewitt of rape and sexual assault may have colluded prior to his trial. The 75-year-old former tennis coach...

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance, launched today, indicates that over the last four years, governance progress in Africa has stalled, and reveals a shifting landscape. During the period 2011-14, the African average overall governance score in the IIAG increased only slightly by +0.2 points to 50.1 with considerable changes in performance during the last four years at all levels of the Index...