South Africa

Government has expressed sadness at the untimely passing of one of its communication foot soldiers, Sidwell Medupe.

Public Service and Administration (DPSA) Director-General, Yoliswa Makhasi, has urged public servants to refrain from fraudulent attempts to benefit from the R350 COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced sweeping changes to his Cabinet on Thursday evening, as well as to the configuration of some government departments and Ministries - key among those, the doing away of the Ministry of State Security, with the political responsibility for the latter, now being placed firmly in the Presidency.

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday evening announced a few major changes to his Cabinet as part of improving the capacity of government.

Cabinet has approved the Norms and Standards for the safe operations of the tourism sector in the context of COVID-19 and other related pandemics.

Cabinet has described as unjust and unilateral the decision the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) to grant Israel observer status in the African Union (AU).

Cabinet has approved the release of the report of the Inter-Ministerial Committee into the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).

Acting Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, says Cabinet is pleased with the country’s vaccination rollout programme, which is seeing one million people inoculated every three days in both the public and private health sectors.

Cabinet on Thursday welcomed to the completion of Eskom’s Medupi power station.

Cabinet has welcomed government’s R36 billion economic relief support to sectors reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and the recent public violence, where businesses were looted and damaged.

Cabinet has commended law enforcement agencies for restoring calm to KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng following incidents of civil unrest last month.

As government continues to rollout the COVID-19 vaccination programme, the Coega Development Corporation (CDC) Wellness Centre in Gqeberha is now a COVID-19 public vaccination site.

Water and Sanitation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has welcomed the announcement by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) that it is now ready to investigate alleged tender irregularities at the department dating back to 2012.

KwaZulu-Natal Finance MEC, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, has commended the department for receiving its 12th consecutive clean audit.

South Africa has already experienced 650 hours in power outages in the first half of 2021 where 963 Gigawatts hours (GWh) of estimated energy was shed, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) said.