Bereaved families fight for answers from ZambiBush waterpark and police long after the deaths of their children.

It was a warm and sunny day in Pretoria on 29 November 2017 and Elna du Toit and two of her friends decided to take their children to the ZambiBush Resort in Sinoville, north of the CBD.

It was supposed to be a fun-filled day for the children who had just finished writing exams and were looking forward to the Christmas break. But within hours the outing turned into a nightmare when Elna’s son, 10-year-old Aiden, bumped his head while going down one of the resort’s supertube water slides, known as The Toilet Bowl. Despite the efforts of paramedics from a private ambulance service that had arrived to assist, Aiden was declared dead at the scene.

Will the real 'Ukhozi' please stand up.

Plastered among others under that of BCPS Forensics and Professional Services reads the sign “Ukhozi Group Holdings” outside 313 Rivonia Road in Johannesburg’s Morningside.

Within, however, there’s only to be found – housed within BCPS – the offices of similarly named Ukhozi Forensics and Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd. Which suggested to us a probable link between the forensics company and the holding company named on the wall outside.

SARS’s so-called rogue unit was not unlawful. That was the finding of retired judge Robert Nugent’s commission of inquiry last year. ‘While the National Strategic Intelligence Act prohibits the covert gathering of certain intelligence, that applies to intelligence concerning threats to the safety of the state, which hardly applies to intelligence relevant to collecting tax,’ reads Judge Nugent’s final report. The judge concludes: ‘I see no reason why SARS was and is not entitled to establish and operate a unit to gather intelligence on the illicit trades, even covertly, within limits.’

But did Judge Nugent get it wrong? Weren’t the establishment and operations of the rogue unit specifically designed to counter the threat to the safety of the state from organised crime that was running riot and sapping countless billions of rands annually from the fiscus? And what were/are those ‘limits’ to what SARS may covertly do?

We examine the conundrum.

Noseweek reports were ‘unlawful and intentionally false, defamatory, injurious, misleading and malicious’.

Johann van Loggerenberg writes us a 3,500-word letter of complaint about our reports on the SARS ‘rogue unit’ and his alleged role in it.

Investec continues to employ the Stalingrad Strategy to avoid being held accountable for its role in the Kebble frauds.

When lawyers refer to the Stalingrad Strategy as a defence, they mean wearing down the plaintiff by tenaciously fighting anything the plaintiff presents by whatever means possible and appealing every ruling favourable to the plaintiff. Here, the defendant does not present a meritorious case. This tactic or strategy is named for the Russian city besieged by the Germans in World War II.

Tshwane Metro lease agreements dumped at recycling plant during office move reveal council housing scandal.

The Tshwane metro cop cuts a lonely figure perched on a barrier at the bottom end of De Kock Street in Sunnyside, Pretoria, captured forever in a Google Earth street-view image that was shot in 2015. He is keeping watch over a council house instead of patrolling the streets; his cop car, marked with insignia and fitted with blue lights is parked under a tree 50 metres up the road.

Tiso Blackstar’s asset-stripping chief Andrew Bonamour has struck a killer blow to the media
group’s support of its surviving pensioners – 286 of them at the last count.

Their medical aid subsidy is to be terminated at the end of July. No time to appeal; the sternly-worded declaration went out on June 1.Termination payments are derisory. Bonamour has told Brenda Etherington, 77-year-old widow of Graham Etherington, former deputy editor of the now defunct Evening Post in Port Elizabeth, that she will get R59,767. From that, Blackstar will deduct tax before making payment.

MRC asked at Australian AGM if it will put up reward to help find killer of Wild Coast activist. Australian mining company Mineral Commodities Ltd (MRC) was asked at its recent AGM whether it would ...

If readers pay for your news, you’re one of the lucky ones.

Every year, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism based at Oxford University in the UK, comes out with its Digital News Report, a survey of global trends and attitudes towards online news. Depending on your position in the media industry, it can be either good news or bad news. According to the latest edition, if you’re a prosperous digital giant with a well-established subscription programme, then you are probably in great shape, thanks to the growth of digital and mobile consumption of the news. If you’re a small publisher that still relies predominantly on print and your subscription plan still isn’t lucrative, however, the report is probably going to cause nightmares.