The ANC has admonished Minister of Finance and national executive committee (NEC) member Tito Mboweni for his utterances on Twitter on Tuesday evening when he, once again, expressed his frustrations relating to the role and independence of the SA Reserve Bank (SARB).

After much debate on social media, with ANC leaders wrestling each other over the tweet, the party finally spoke out, calling on Mboweni to refrain from making statements that contradict resolutions made at the party’s Nasrec elective conference.

In a statement on Wednesday, the ANC said leaders of the party were expected to appreciate the need to articulate a consistent, coherent and unifying message on policy positions.

Unfortunate public spats initiated without any form of provocation feed into the narrative of lack of policy certainty. The character of our organisation confers on the membership the authority to determine policy and to hold the leadership accountable.

“Only the national conference has the right and power to review, ratify, alter or rescind any decision taken by any of the constituent structures, committees or officials of the organisation. The constitution of the ANC enjoins only the president, as the political head, to make pronouncements for and on behalf of the NEC, outlining and explaining the policy or attitude of the ANC on any question,” national spokesperson Pule Mabe said.

In the tweet, Mboweni said the party had adopted “a wrong resolution” on the

Six-and-a-half-year-old Zachary Williams leaned into his mom’s hug one last time before walking up the steps to his brightly decorated class to start Grade 1 at a primary school in the Cape Town suburb of Bellville.

Lee-Anne Scullard gave Zachary a last kiss goodbye as the bell rang, and she and his granny Sheila watched him go back to the classroom.

He had already found his seat earlier, and his bag was neatly lined up.

There was a slight bottleneck at the door as parents and guardians streamed in and out, some embarrassed that they had missed the first bell in the congestion that back-to-school brings.

Zachary waited politely as a future classmate’s dad lingered at the door to make absolutely sure his son had settled in nicely.

“Say ‘excuse me, please’,” said Lee-Anne in a stage whisper, and Zachary disappeared inside to join the teacherHis favourite things to do are swimming, jumping on the trampoline (after mom banned him from jumping on her bed and invested in one), and football.

On Tuesday night, he helped mom do the last of the seemingly endless stationery labelling, and it was off to an early night.

Asked what he was looking forward to the most, he said: “Making new friends.”He knows he is special’

After her chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, she was given the all clear after a few years, and was ready for the reimplanting procedure in 2010.

The procedure was a success and, three years later, she would give birth to a son, Zachary.

To her knowledge, Lee-Anne is the first woman in South Africa to have had a child through this intervention, which is increasingly being chosen by people receiving treatment for cancer.

“He knows he is special,” said Lee-Anne lovingly.

A woman who lost a leg when her blind date crashed his car says he is trying to force her to marry him by withholding cash for her medical bills so that as her husband he would escape prosecution.
The 28-year-old woman woke up in hospital with her right leg already amputated and her left leg severed shattered following the crash in the early hours of 12 October last year.

It happened just hours after Ms Ma, a Chinese woman, went on an arranged date with a suitor only known as Zhang, who reportedly took her car keys and insisted on driving her home in his car despite being intoxicated.

He crashed into traffic barriers in the middle of the road and flipped his car onto its roof. Both Ma’s legs broke in the process

The first day of the academic year is always eventful, sometimes overwhelming, for pupils and their caregivers.

Some parents took to social media to share pictures and videos of their children’s first day in “big school”.

“Bundle of joy” was trending at number two on Twitter on Wednesday with South Africans sharing anecdotes of how the first day was going. Parents and guardians noted, in jest, that they were glad the children were going back to school as they could be a handful during the holidays.Another commentator pointed out the inequalities that still exist in the education system, saying there were still pupils living in rural SA who had to overcome numerous challenges including walking a long way and crossing rivers.

‘Prasa has suffered from mismanagement and deteriorating corporate governance. Today it is a broken organisation,’ says Fikile Mbalula.
Image: Ruvan Boshoff
The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) – incorporating the South African Rail Commuter Corporation, Metrorail and Shosholoza Meyl – has in the past two years lost almost R1bn to train fires, vandalism, public disorder, train collisions and floods.

Speaking at a media briefing on Wednesday, transport minister Fikile Mbalula and Prasa’s administrator Bongisizwe Mpondo conceded that the state entity was a “broken” business in need of urgent intervention.

“Prasa has suffered blows from many years of mismanagement and deteriorating corporate governance. Today it is a broken organisation, struggling to provide an efficient commuter and passenger rail service,” said Mbalula.

Mbalula said overcrowded trains, ageing infrastructure, old rolling stock, rampant crime, poor internal controls and other ills were the order of the day at Prasa.in August after realising that Prasa had seen a sustained decline over the years in its ability to provide a reliable, safe and predictable service with Metrorail and Shosholoza Meyl.

He said the war room focused on service recovery and getting operations to a level that meets, if not exceeds, expectations. He added that the war room unearthed many landmines due to internal dynamics and external factors.

Mbalula also took a swipe at the old interim board, which he fired in late 2019, stating that even if they went to court and challenged his decision, they would never return as Prasa board members.

“They can do all their tricks. The thing is the old board lied about the problems at this entity. In this place people do as they please … there are no consequences for poor performance and theft.”

He said the downward spiral of Prasa was self-inflicted due to poor and indecisive leadership, which had allowed a culture of impunity to prevail.

“In his 2018/19 audit report, the auditor-general was scathing in his assessment of leadership at Prasa. We declined from an unqualified opinion … we are now at disclaimer, the worst audit you can get … but all this happened when we had an interim board.”The work of the war room was supplemented by an organisational assessment conducted by the Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC), part of the National Treasury.

Mbalula said the GTAC report “flagged critical systemic issues that caused bottlenecks in the achievement of the war room targets”, including:

the collapse of internal systems and controls;
dysfunctional supply-chain management processes;
hollowed-out project management capability; and
a business model that requires urgent review.
“These were further compounded by incidents of theft and vandalism and prevalent crime,” he added.

In the past year, Prasa incurred a deficit in revenue of R1.7bn. In 2018 it had a surplus of R1.4bn.

Prasa could not provide appropriate documentation to enable the office of the auditor-general to do its job. The A-G issued a disclaimer of opinion on the 2019 annual financial statements, meaning that no reliance could be placed on the financial statements.

Mbalula dissolved the interim board in December and placed Prasa under administration.