Author Archives: Abongile Dumako

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DA challenges Ramaphosa to address drought crisis

9 January 2020, 4:05 PM

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to use his address at the African National Congress (ANC) birthday celebrations to address the drought crisis in the Northern Cape and other parts of the country.

Party interim leader John Steenhuisen says: “This is a simple reality that the government can no longer afford to ignore for a single moment, and which surely has to be addressed by the President in his January 8th Statement on Saturday. The drought is not something that happens far, far away that affects somebody else. The impact on our food security as a nation is something that will touch each and every South African and always it will be the poor of our country who will suffer the most.”

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Eastern Cape 4IR summit seeks inclusivity

21 November 2019, 5:07 PM

Information Communication Technology gurus, academics and business people have converged on East London for the 15th ICT summit.

This in a bid to find fitting solutions for the country to address the digital divide within society and the continent at large.

The theme of the summit: Building an inclusive 4IR environment.

The organiser, Motse Mfuleni, says this summit has grown as it tackles the challenges the ICT sector is facing.

“One of the things we have achieved, we have trained over two hundred young people in this program who are highly qualified ICT specialists. Who ordinarily would not afford qualify to go to a university for an ICT related qualification. The important one is to be able to get government business and stakeholders under one roof and begin to unpack and understand these difficult concepts such as 4IR.”

ICT academic, Dr Andile Ngcaba says South Africa is ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

“The conclusion is that we are ready. South Africa is ready, Africa is ready, this is great for the continent. I think we came a long way and there is still a lot to be done of course to build the infrastructure and the applications that will take us to the next generation of technologies.”

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State Capture could have been avoided – Chikane

19 November 2019, 2:11 PM

Former Director-General in the Presidency Reverend Frank Chikane says the phenomenon of State Capture could have been avoided if the country’s National Intelligence Services was in order.

He has concluded his testimony at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, under way in Johannesburg.

He says he is now convinced that the Gupta family was “not an accident of history” – and it could have easily been prevented from happening.

He added that even the VBS Saga signals something wasn’t right.

“The leadership, whoever this leadership is, says we going to change the law so you can put money there – but they don’t put the law, yet the money is there. They sign the documents – and I say before you sign any documents you check which laws are going to be affected – what law will have to be changed? And if they did that, none of the money of local government would have been put in VBS bank.”

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Maxine Waters challenges SA youth to carry on with OR Tambo’s legacy

26 October 2019, 9:28 PM

Congresswoman Maxine Waters has challenged the youth of the country to make sure that they carry on with the legacy of the late former president of the African National Congress, OR Tambo. She was delivering the sixth OR Tambo Memorial Lecture in Boksburg on Gauteng East Rand.

Waters says Tambo made sure that the young people continued to be a symbol of hope to the elders.

The United States based activist and public servant says there’s a lot to learn from the late Oliver Tambo.

“This was president Tambo’s gift…South Africa’s promising youth. I want you to know that OR built the ANC on the values and on a foundation of humanitarian values and he was given by the ANC the moral high ground. His undeniable voters granted him a chance to fight the Apartheid regime. His values were helpful because they were and remain fundamental human rights.”

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Rockman to continue testifying at state capture commission

17 October 2019, 8:01 AM

The commission of inquiry into State Capture continues on Thursday in Parktown Johannesburg with the testimony of former MEC for Finance in the Free State Province, Elizabeth Rockman.

On Wednesday Rockman told the commission that Free State Treasury would not have been aware of the operational issues at the Vrede Dairy Project in 2013.

She said that in 2013 when she participated in a site visit Estina Dairy Farm it looked like a project being well run.

Rockman says it would not have been easy for her department to know whether or not the R104 million that was earmarked for Estina each year was used for the intended purpose.

She is adamant that monitoring and evaluation was the responsibility of the Free State Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

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