Author: Ground Up
Lawyers from 10 organisations representing victims of road accidents have issued a stinging memorandum on the “crisis” in the Road Accident Fund (RAF). They blame CEO Collins Letsoalo and call for a new board to be appointed. This comes after the deputy minister for transport and the RAF blamed lawyers for the RAF’s many woes, including the backlog in processing claims and long delays in paying out road accident victims. Lawyers from ten organisations have compiled a stinging joint memorandum about what they term a “crisis” at the Road Accident Fund (RAF). The signatories include the Law Society of South…
By Matthew Hirsch Professor Debra Roberts, the Durban-based climate researcher who is running for the position of chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says that you no longer need to beat the climate drum; the impact of climate change is already here. Roberts will become the first woman from Africa to chair the IPCC, if she wins the elections next month in Nairobi. The IPCC is arguably the most important institution in the world tackling climate change. It is a United Nations body and every country on the planet is a member. It produces definitive scientific reports on climate change. …
By Tania Broughton A Johannesburg advocate, who defrauded the State Attorney out of more than R34-million – effectively earning almost R67,000 a day for 511 calendar days – has been disbarred. In a ruling handed down this week, Johannesburg High Court judges Motsomai Makume and Willem Wepener said Hassan Ebrahim Kajee’s conduct “exhibited serious flaws”, he had shown no remorse, and worse, he was still insisting that the Johannesburg Bar Council had no jurisdiction over him because he had resigned. He had also disobeyed a court order that he submit billing information to the council’s professional ethics committee. The Johannesburg Society…
By Paul Wani Lado The Upstream Petroleum Resources Development Bill currently being considered by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee for Mineral Resources and Energy is fatally flawed and should be rejected by South Africans. The bill will create a separation of the regulation of the upstream petroleum industry from the regulation of the mining industry, with the former regulated by the bill and the latter continuing to be regulated by the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act. This split is significant as it means a new regime for the regulation of South Africa’s nascent gas industry would come into effect. However, the…
By Steve Kretzmann The Post Office has been deducting pension fund contributions from workers’ salaries, but the last time any money was paid over to the retirement fund was in April 2020. Authorities will not say how much is owed to the retirement fund, but it may be R1-billion. If the Post Office is liquidated, outstanding workers’ pension payments are low down on the list of creditors to pay, according to the retirement fund rules. Each month, 7.5% of workers’ salaries are deducted by the Post Office as a contribution to the Post Office Retirement Fund. The employer’s contribution is supposed…
By Raymond Joseph The Cabinet has approved the appointment of a new board for the National Lotteries Commission, after the term of the interim board that was appointed for a year in 2022 ended. The new board replaces the four-member board appointed by Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition Ebrahim Patel in March last year for a one-year term which ended on 31 March. The new board will serve a five-year term. Patel has retained three members of the previous interim board. They are Beryl Ferguson, who is a businesswoman as well as the deputy chair of the South African National…
By James Stent More than 1 million people have directly benefitted from the Presidential Employment Stimulus (PES) programme launched by Cyril Ramaphosa in 2020. About 800,000 short-term jobs, mostly for young people, have been created so far. Most of the jobs are in education and in social programmes such as early childhood development and community safety. Programme lead Kate Philip says the PES could be expanded almost immediately. The Presidential Employment Stimulus (PES), launched by Cyril Ramaphosa in response to the Covid pandemic, has pulled more than 1 million people into jobs or supported their livelihoods since it was launched. Since…
By Raymond Joseph The Special Investigating Unit, which has been investigating corruption involving Lottery grants since 2020, is applying for its mandate to be extended to allow it to probe procurement by the National Lotteries Commission. The SIU has come across several instances of potential fraud and corruption involving NLC procurement. The Auditor-General (AG) also highlighted problems with procurement, and the NLC itself has received several tip-offs about questionable procurement, which are being investigated internally and by three audit firms. But until its mandate is extended, the SIU’s hands are tied, as the 2020 proclamation signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa only…
By Tania Broughton The High Court in Johannesburg has ordered a financial services company to pay a client more than R800,000 stolen by fraudsters through email cybercrime. Judge Denise Fisher ruled in favour of Jan Jacobus Gerber who sued a PSG Wealth Financial Planning for the loss he sustained due to the unlawful electronic transfer of money intended for his retirement that he had invested with the company. Judge Fisher said it had become routine for business to be conducted via email and it had now become common for these emails to be accessed remotely by fraudsters. She said business email compromise (BEC)…
By Daniel Steyn, James Stent and Marecia Damons A temporary manager has been appointed to take over control of the Mangaung Correctional Centre operated by multinational security company G4S. An investigation by the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) found that G4S’s director has lost control of the facility. DCS says that Thabo Bester was assisted to escape from the prison in May 2022, but G4S maintains that Bester died in his cell. Also in this article: Who owns G4S and what do they have to say? (Not much) What happens when a vehicle enters the prison? How many recent escapes have there been in…