Thursday January 20, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Brad Dubbelman

Making headlines:

The Auditor-General’s office will start quarterly performance audits at national and provincial levels, in an effort to timeously detect red flags in the financial reporting and operational performance of State departments.
Auditor-General Terrence Nombembe said that “by conducting these audits on a quarterly basis, instead of annually, we will ensure that early warning signs relating to noncompliance and transgressions by departments are identified and that action can be taken by the relevant leadership.” In the 2009/10 Auditor-General report, only three out of the 35 departments were able to show improvements. The remaining departments seemed stagnant, with nine remaining unchanged with qualified audits, nine remaining unchanged with unqualified audits, seven regressing and seven improving.

Zimbabwe Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, said that Zimbabwe's economy will grow by about 8% to 15% in 2011, but any attempts to push through an election could deal it a devastating blow. "We have been very conservative. Our growth forecasts are for 8%," he said on the sidelines of the Global Poverty Summit in Johannesburg. He added that growth could be as high as 15% if there are no elections or major disruptions to the recovery in the impoverished State. Earlier this month, State media reported that Zimbabwe was likely to postpone a Parliamentary election that President Robert Mugabe's party wanted by midyear in order to allow the completion of constitutional reforms.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is to seek clarification from the African National Congress (ANC) on reports that it was backtracking on its stated intention to create "decent work".
Cosatu spokesperson, Patrick Craven, said that: "If it is being correctly reported, it’s obviously a cause for concern."  The reported about-turn by the ANC was based on comments made by ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe on Monday. Asked at a news briefing whether the jobs created in the ruling party's current employment drive would be decent, Mantashe said that this would be "putting the cart before the horse". "Our view is that jobs must be created. Once created, then those people can engage on conditions of employment," Mantashe said.

Also making headlines:

South Sudanese have voted overwhelmingly to declare independence from the north in a referendum held last week, according to early figures.
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga said that African efforts to mediate the Côte d’Ivoire’s disputed poll had failed, and that Laurent Gbagbo rejected him as mediator after Odinga warned that he faced sanctions or force. And, Uganda's electoral commission admitted for the first time that political parties in the East African country have formed militias to protect their turf ahead of next month's Presidential election.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.