Daily news update: SA records first case of Monkeypox, state capture report and ZEP holders in limbo

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Daily news update 24 June

South Africa records its first case of Monkeypox

South Africa has recorded its first case of Monkeypox in the country.

Health Minister Joe Phaahla was briefing the media on Thursday on the repeal of regulations on notifiable medical conditions dealing with the covid-19 pandemic and on monkey-pox.

Phaahla says they received a report late on Wednesday from the National Health laboratory Services CEO that they have confirmed through laboratory tests the first case of monkeypox in South Africa.

“The patient is a 30-year-old male from Johannesburg who has no travel history, meaning that this cannot be attributed to having been acquired outside South Africa. Working with the relevant health authorities a process of contact tracing has begun.”

Estina dairy project: Guptas were pulling Magashule, Zwane’s strings

The State Capture Commission has recommended that former Free State Agriculture MEC Mosebenzi Zwane and ex-premier and corruption-accused Ace Magashule be investigated for their roles in the botched Estina dairy farm project that saw over R200 million paid to companies linked to the Gupta family.

The commission found that all role players in the Free State project did the bidding of the Gupta family without any care for public funds or poor residents who should have benefited from the dairy farm project Zwane had promised them.

The report further recommends that a legal opinion be sought on how to recoup the looted public funds from Magashule and Zwane.

Zimbabweans’ stark choice: go start from scratch at home or live undocumented in SA

Three Zimbabweans who held Zimbabwean Exemption Permits, which the South African government has now scrapped, share their anxiety and anguish as they face deportation, uprooting their lives and children and starting all over again in Zimbabwe, or continuing to live in South Africa as undocumented aliens.

Shepherd Muroyiwa is one of about 178,000 Zimbabweans badly affected by the cabinet decision not to renew the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP), which expired in December 2021. ZEP holders were given until the end of December 2022 to legalise their status in the country by other means. For most this is not possible.

State capture report: Public Protector to monitor implementation of all recommendations

Home affairs condemns ‘slave-like’ working conditions at Chinese factory in Ekurhuleni

The Department of Home Affairs has condemned the slavery of human beings at a plastic factory in Alrode, Alberton.

A Home Affairs-led law enforcement operation swooped in on the Chinese owned factory on Monday after receiving information from a whistleblower about the slave-like conditions, but was refused entry by security.

“As much as Home Affairs Minister Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi is strongly against the breaking of immigration laws, in the same vein, he equally condemns the abuse and exploitation of any human being, in this case, the fifty-one illegal migrants from Malawi, Zimbabwe and China, who were forced to work, eat and sleep inside a plastic factory in Alberton, in Ekurhuleni.”

ALSO READ: Daily news update: State capture report, MP salaries and all Covid regulations officially scrapped