Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane. Picture: Gallo Images/Netwerk24/Deaan Vivier
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The Public Protector’s office allegedly paid a legal advisor R87 000 to write opinion pieces denouncing those who were critical of Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
This was revealed by Public Protector Legal Services manager Thembinkosi Sithole on Friday during the parliamentary inquiry into Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office.
Sithole said Mkhwebane’s office paid Paul Ngobeni large sums to write articles published in the “Africa News 24” website, which is no longer operational.
According to a report in News24, the R87 000 went towards articles that admonished those who were critical of Mkhwebane, such as former Finance Minister Tito Mboweni, former State Security Minister Ayanda Dlodlo and former Minister of State Security Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba.
Some South Africans are standing by Limpopo Health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba for protecting South Africa’s healthcare system by launching an online petition to President Cyril Ramaphosa to protect her from those lambasting her for her comments.
The petition on Change.org titled “We South Africans agree and stand by Dr Phophi Ramathuba,” had garnered more then 36,000 signatures at the time of publishing this article.
Ramathuba was lambasted by some after she was seen in a video “explaining” to a foreign national patient why she should pay for the medical procedure she had just received at a public hospital.
The aim of the petition is to reach 50,000 signatures. It was started by Kabelo Mkhondweni and was trending on Twitter on Saturday.
Zimbabwe’s opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) Member of Parliament, Tendai Biti, has been lauded for calling on the country’s Minister of Health and Child Care Constantino Chiwenga to be summoned to parliament to explain the country’s public hospitals.
Biti made the request on Thursday after visiting a relative in hospital.
“I rise on a matter of national importance, which is the conditions in the public hospitals. I was at Parirenyatwa hospital recently. My grandfather is not feeling well, he has got cancer,” said Biti.
“They are forcing you to buy even syringe, bandages and painkillers. The public health system in Zimbabwe has collapsed.”
Australia beat the Springboks 25-17 in a Rugby Championship match played in Adelaide on Saturday.
The Boks scored two late tries through Kwagga Smith to make the result look more respectable, but the reality is Jacques Nienaber’s side were outplayed and again caught out by the Wallabies. The last time the Boks won in Australia was in 2013.
Nienaber’s team have now won three and lost three this year.
The Boks failed to make the most of the chances they created in the first half, while the Wallabies gobbled up every chance that came their way.
The UN children’s agency Unicef on Saturday condemned an Ethiopian air strike that “hit a kindergarten” in the rebel-held Tigray region, killing at least four people including two children.
The government denied targeting civilian areas in Friday’s air raid and accused the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) of staging deaths.
“Unicef strongly condemns the air strike … (that) hit a kindergarten, killing several children, and injuring others,” the agency’s executive director Catherine Russell said on Twitter.
“Yet again, an escalation of violence in northern Ethiopia has caused children to pay the heaviest price. For almost two years, children and their families in the region have endured the agony of this conflict. It must end.”
An Italian man who returned from a holiday in Spain has tested positive for Covid-19, monkeypox and HIV on the same day.
Scientists said the 36-year-old is the first known case of a person testing positive for the three viruses all at once.
International correspondent Adam Gilchrist told Cape Talk that the man started experiencing a series of symptoms after he returned home in Sicily, Italy, from the trip in Madrid.
According to a report by the Journal of Infection, the man spent five days in Spain from 16 to 20 June 2022.
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