December 3, 2014.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.
Making headlines:

The Department of Trade and Industry launches a platform for business trade in Africa. 

President Barack Obama urges Congress to approve $6-billion for the fight against Ebola.

And, South Africa ranks 67 out of 175 surveyed countries in the 2014 Corruption Perception Index.

The Department of Trade and Industry (or DTI) is in the throes of establishing a “platform” through which it and other State-owned companies (or SOCs) and government organisations can share information on available tenders and contracts in other African States with South African businesses eyeing expansion into the continent.

While African governments provided the DTI, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, State development finance institutions and other government bodies with “lots of information” on market opportunities in their respective States, these institutions lacked a channel through which this intelligence could be shared.

DTI Central and East Africa International Trade and Economic Development division director Lebogang Makoloi said they receive information on contracts and tenders in many industries, but, as government, they don’t have a way to distribute it. They send it to the various business chambers on an ad hoc basis.

Makoloi said the DTI had thus realised that they needed to create a platform through which private companies can indicate where they are experiencing issues and bottlenecks. It had been working on such a platform for the past year and a half.

The platform would further look to establish points of contact for businesses at the various African trade departments and foreign missions, enabling the companies easier access to information related to the local market conditions and prospects.

President Barack Obama has urged Congress to approve $6.18-billion to help fight the Ebola outbreak. He reminded them that even though the story has faded from the headlines, the battle against the virus is far from over.

Most of Obama's request is aimed at the immediate response to the disease. But the package also includes $1.5-billion in contingency funds. However, this is money that could become a target if lawmakers look for cuts, said Sam Worthington, president of InterAction, an alliance of US non-governmental aid groups.

Obama said the US needed to continue to fund basic research and help nations such as Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone build better public health systems so that the world could quickly contain future disease outbreaks.

South Africa scored a paltry 44 out of 100 and ranked 67 out of all 175 surveyed countries in this years Transparency International (or TI) 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index (or CPI).

This is the third consecutive year that the country has scored below 50 in the most widely used indicator of corruption worldwide.

Corruption watchdog Corruption Watch said it was concerned at the gradual erosion of trust in South Africa’s public sector, saying a score below 50 indicated a significant corruption problem and placed South Africa in "precarious territory".

This year the index surveyed experts on public sector corruption in 175 countries and territories. In 2012/13, South Africa scored 43 and 42 respectively, with rankings of 69 out of 174, and 72 out of 177.

The global index measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale of 0-100, where 0 means that a country is perceived as highly corrupt and 100 means that a country is perceived as very clean.

Corruption Watch executive director David Lewis said some of South Africa's key institutions exhibited many of the characteristics of endemic corruption.

Also making headlines:

The High Court in Johannesburg ruled on Wednesday that it was unlawful and unconstitutional to not reveal national keypoints.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has accused "a woman" in his party of a plot to unseat him and work with the opposition in a coalition government.

And, Transport Minister Dipuo Peters has published various amendments to the Gauteng e-Road regulations in the Government Gazette for public comment.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.