BHISHO has condemned an impoverished Eastern Cape municipality’s plan to splash out R1.8-million on a two-day jazz extravaganza this weekend, saying the council should concentrate on issues of service delivery. But the Matatiele festival last night appeared set to go ahead tomorrow, even though only 975 of the 7 000 tickets had been sold just [...]

MARKING of matric exam papers got off to a smooth start yesterday in the Eastern Cape with the department being commended for its preparedness. Members of the provincial legislatu portfolio committee on education, who visited all 15 marking centres in the Eastern Cape, said staff at the centres were well prepared.

“The Democratic Alliances’s environmental affairs spokesman, John Cupido, said the metro had not been proactive in monitoring the population growth of the Gonubie informal settlement.” AROUND 1 200 shacks in Mzamomhle informal settlement have been built on environmentally sensitive sand dunes which form a buffer between the ocean and the sprawling Gonubie township. Residents of [...]

ADELEGATION of 40 government officials returned from Port Alfred yesterday after a three-day junket where they were pampered with massages, dined on four-star meals and treated to a boat cruise up the Kowie. Dubbed a leadership and management workshop fused with a Christmas party, the gathering at the coastal town was attended by 30 Eastern [...]

SOME 15 000 non-striking Eastern Cape teachers are finally going to be reimbursed, almost a year after their salaries were docked as part of a “blanket” punishment by the Education Department. These teachers, who did not take part in the crippling national teacher strike in August and September last year, are still owed more than [...]

JOHANNESBURG – The ANC came under fire over its “wrong priorities” for having allocated R27 million to political parties in the Eastern Cape legislature. It rejected the criticism, however, saying that the allocation, provided for in the Adjustments Appropriation Bill 2011, was standard practice and would benefit all parties.

THE Eastern Cape education department will have to write off nearly R119-million as bad debt because it can’t provide adequate documentation. This was revealed when department officials responded to questions by members of the provincial education portfolio committee stemming from the past financial year’s annual report.

POLITICAL parties in the Eastern Cape are in line for a cool R27-million Christmas bonus if MPLS vote in favour of the proposal at the next sitting of the provincial legislature in December. If accepted, the Christmas bonus will be divvied up among the five parties that make up the Eastern Cape legislature, with the [...]

“It’s a smokescreen to hide corrupt activities so they can’t be detected. They would rather get a disclaimer than be exposed.” — Edmund van Vuuren. VITAL documentation detailing payments and transactions worth possibly billions of rands made by the Eastern Cape Department of Education have allegedly been dumped in eight shipping containers outside the department’s [...]

DETERIORATING roads in the Langkloof are threatening to cripple the area’s billionrand fruit industry and have already cost farmers hundreds of thousands of rands in damages. The state of the roads has made it impossible for farmers to transport produce to the market without damaging fruit. The bruised product subsequently fetches much lower prices, leading [...]