Water desalination contractor Herman Smit believes his pending court action  against the City of Cape Town will reveal, among others, that the city has long been ‘cooking the books’ to hide dangerously high sewage levels in the sea around Cape Town.

A  few months ago, Cape Town’s water desalination contractor Herman Smit turned in desperation to his lawyer and said, “Now I’m going to steal Patricia’s words: I need to get out of this abusive relationship!”

There’s been a sighting of Yolisa Pikie, former R900,000-a-year overseer of ethics and good governance at the South African Revenue Service. Pikie, whose 13-year career at SARS included a spell as special adviser to then commissioner Pravin Gordhan. His last job there was as special adviser to acting commissioner Ivan Pillay.

Before his departure, Pikie had been facing disciplinary charges for faking his CV – falsely claiming he held a BCom degree from the University of the Western Cape. He had also passed himself off at official meetings as a lawyer. More controversially, he featured in KPMG’s rogue unit report under the heading “Tampering with evidence”.

What was that all about?

It smacks of American Pentecostal evangelism: a well-spoken, good-looking charmer cracks jokes in several official South African languages as he moves to music across the stage against a backdrop of scenes of stylish living projected in vivid colour to a crowd of pensioners.

Lured to the show by promises of mystery gifts and other pleasures, they watch intently, seemingly hypnotised by the honeyed tones of the master of ceremonies.

I am in the audience, here to observe how one’s hard-earned cash can be handed over as a trade-off for life-long discounted travel and luxurious holiday accommodation across the globe.

Hello Vacation Hub International (VHI), the winner of an international award for the Best Vacation Club.

Kenya is pursuing a plan to build an extensive network of roads, power lines, dams, wind farms and geothermal facilities. But many of these projects are being constructed in the nation’s iconic park ...

In January 2017, Ford recalled 4,556 of its Kuga vehicles in South Africa after many reports of that specific model catching fire. Now the car manufacturer is under pressure again: Ford owners say their Fiestas and Ecosport models have alarm systems that criminals are able to override within seconds.

Independent Media executive chair Dr Iqbal Survé was appointed to the First Council of the Belt and Road News Network (BRNN) at a highly exclusive gathering of world media leaders in Beijing on Tuesday. He was the only South African to be invited to serve on the First Council, which represents 26 countries and 39 media organisations. – IOL 24/4/2019: “Top honour for Survé in China”.

State-supplied condoms are washing up on Durban’s beaches by the hundreds. They’re the tip of a much bigger problem.

When Cyril Ramaphosa, as deputy president, punted the government’s free “Max” condoms to Parliament on 1 September 2016, he might have hoped the prophylactics would at least end up on his parliamentary members’ members. And perhaps some did. After all, they came in exciting new scents of grape and apple. But thousands of these condoms are not fulfilling their purpose.

A short while ago, staff at Nestlé headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, were surprised to find a huge “plastic monster” outside their offices. Tagged with the name Ngori, it had horns and sported a big “return to sender” label.