The best thing about Zandile Tshabalala’s resignation as SABC chair this week, staffers say, is that they will go into festive season parties less likely to be the butt of all jokes. “It’s a bit funny the first time you stand around the braai and people demand to see your matric certificate,” a
President Jacob Zuma on Monday dismissed media reports that he was angry about the Gauteng ANC’s position on electronic tolling in the province. “South Africa is a democratic country and the leadership of the ANC in Gauteng has every right to state their views and that of the
There was nothing wrong with cabinet members having business interests as long as there was no conflict of interest, communications minister Faith Muthambi said. “Government has noted media reports which highlight the private business interests of President Jacob Zuma and members of the executive,” Muthambi said in a statement on
The SOS Coalition, which represents trade unions, community media and content producers hoping to support quality public broadcasting in South Africa, has slammed President Jacob Zuma’s decision to dump his communications minister, Yunus Carrim, instead creating two new departments headed by two new ministers. The Coalition has accused Zuma of
A dozen police officers apprehended a man who flew a radio-controlled mini helicopter over the Pretoria hospital where former president Nelson Mandela was being treated on Friday. The “multicopter” had a rotating camera and was in the sky for a few minutes. A multicopter looks like a spider. It has several arms
The ANC in Gauteng has called on its members to boycott mobile operator MTN after the Democratic Alliance began running an election campaign printed on 2,5m of the operator’s prepaid airtime vouchers. The Sowetan newspaper reported on Tuesday that the DA bought advertising space on MTN vouchers to be sold in spaza shops
Former MTN CEO Phuthuma Nhleko is rejoining the group’s board, this time as its chairman, outgoing chairman Cyril Ramaphosa announced at its annual general meeting on Tuesday. Nhleko, who was appointed as the group’s CEO in 2002 and led a series of acquisitions across Africa and the Middle East that built MTN into a leading
New twists have emerged in the US$4,2bn lawsuit filed by MTN’s cellphone rival, Turkcell, in a US court. Chris Kilowan, the disgruntled former MTN director in Iran who, according to sources, approached Turkcell with MTN memos that formed part of the court filings but have yet to be verified, could find that his actions backfire on him.
Emerging-markets telecommunications giant MTN is gearing up to fight a series of damaging allegations and legal action by Turkcell over claims by the Turkish operator that the JSE-listed group was awarded an operating licence in Iran corruptly. MTN claims
MTN Group chairman Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday delivered a tribute to outgoing CEO and president Phuthuma Nhleko, who is leaving the telecommunications operator at the end of March. See the video here
