August 15, 2014.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

President Jacob Zuma responds to reports on Nkandla upgrades.

The World Health Organisation says evidence suggests that the Ebola death toll is vastly underestimated.

And, Statistician General Pali Lehohla says informal businesses contribute 5% to South Africa's GDP.
 

President Jacob Zuma presented his response to reports on the security upgrades at his private Nkandla homestead to Parliament on Thursday, the Presidency said.

Presidency spokesperson Mac Maharaj said in a statement that "the report has been prepared with due consideration of the following reports – the report of the joint standing committee on intelligence, the report of the public protector titled "Secure in Comfort", and the progress report in terms of the Investigating Units and Special Tribunals Act submitted by the head of the Special Investigating Unit (or SIU). The report was submitted to the speaker of the National Assembly, he said.

Zuma had undertaken to give Speaker Baleka Mbete a comprehensive report on the outcome of three separate investigations into state spending of some R246-million on his Nkandla home in KwaZulu-Natal. Public spending on security upgrades at Nkandla turned into one of the major controversies of the Zuma presidency as costs escalated and it emerged that the project included a swimming pool, an amphitheatre and a chicken run.

Zuma declined to respond to Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's report in full within the required fortnight and said instead he would wait for the SIU findings.

Staff with the World Health Organisation battling an Ebola outbreak in West Africa see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimates the scale of the outbreak, the UN agency said on its website on Thursday.

The death toll from the world's worst outbreak of Ebola stood on Wednesday at 1 069 from 1 975 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, the agency said. The majority were in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, while four people have died in Nigeria.

The agency's apparent acknowledgement of the situation as worse than previously thought could spur governments and aid organisations to take stronger measures against the virus. International agencies are looking into emergency food drops and truck convoys to reach hungry people in Liberia and Sierra Leone cordoned off from the outside world to halt the spread of the virus, a top World Bank official said.

Informal businesses contribute 5% to South Africa's gross domestic product (or GDP), with the sector itself growing in recent years, Statistician General Pali Lehohla said on Thursday.

"The informal sector contribution to GDP has stayed at 5% throughout, from 2001 up to 2013," he told media at the release of Statistics SA's latest Survey of Employers and the Self-Employed (or SESE) in Pretoria.

The document is based on a survey of households, done last year, and is the fourth such survey having been previously conducted in 2001, 2005, and 2009.

Lehohla said the survey had highlighted the changing composition of the country's informal sector, and its contribution to employment.

Also making headlines:
 

Ebola fear factor threatens to dampen the African business buzz.

And, a survey by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory reveals that while residents of Gauteng were happy with service delivery, they had no faith and trust in the people elected to lead them.

And, National Director of Public Prosecutions Mxolisi Nxasana says he's a victim of a plot by some of his colleagues.

Also on Polity:

Watch the latest multimedia as Shannon de Ryhove speaks to the CEO of one South Africa foremost beauty salon’s, Ian Fuhr, about his entrepreneurial journey.

Also, be sure to read the climate change report titled ‘Keeping track of adaptation actions in Africa: Targeted fiscal stimulus actions making a difference’.

Don’t forget to follow @PolityZA on Twitter for updates on breaking news.
 

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.