July 31, 2014.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba insists the new immigration rules won’t change.

Liberia shuts schools as Ebola spreads, while the Peace Corps leave 3 countries.

And, while municipalities’ audits have improve somewhat, the challenges persist.
 

Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba insists the home affairs department won’t relax the onerous new immigration rules, but says it will fast-track visa centres and biometric-data capturing systems to reduce upheaval.

He was speaking after a two-hour meeting with his tourism counterpart, Derek Hanekom, who has publicly expressed concern that the new rules were damaging the country's lucrative tourism sector.

Gigaba explained that spending R5-million on installing biometric systems at all South Africa's international points of entry would eventually do away with the need for transit visas.

"That will mean that instead of us issuing people with transit visas, when those biometric systems are operating properly, we will then obtain biometric details and be able to check those against their travelling schedule,” he said.

Liberia will close schools and consider quarantining some communities, it said when rolling out the toughest measures yet imposed by a West African government to halt the worst outbreak on record of the deadly Ebola virus.

Lewis Brown, Liberia's information minister, said this was a major public health emergency. He said the country needed the support of the international community now more than ever.

Security forces in Liberia were ordered to enforce the action plan, which includes placing all non-essential government workers on 30-day compulsory leave.

Highly infectious Ebola has been blamed for 672 deaths in the West Africa nations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organisation. Liberia accounted for just under one-fifth of those deaths. The first cases of this outbreak were confirmed in Guinea's remote southeast early this year. It then spread to the capital, Conakry, and into neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Meanwhile, The US Peace Corps said it was temporarily withdrawing 340 volunteers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Two of its volunteers had been isolated and were under observation after coming in contact with a person who later died of the Ebola virus.

The latest Auditor-General South Africa audit has revealed that while unauthorised expenditure by South Africa’s municipalities has declined year-on-year, irregular expenditure has recorded a R2-billion increase as municipalities failed to follow legislated procurement procedures.

Unpacking the 2012/13 audit outcomes of municipalities and municipal entities, which had a combined total expenditure of R268-billion, Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu explained that irregular expenditure emerged within 265, or more than 80%, of the 319 municipalities audited. Further, irregular expenditure, at R11.6-billion for the period under review, had increased significantly from the R9.32-billion reported in the prior year.

Makwetu said this was a result of a “significant breakdown” in controls, with the municipalities and entities entering into transactions valued at a collective R8-billion without following the prescribed and transparent supply chain protocols.

Makwetu stressed that the value of these controls couldn’t be emphasised enough, as they were an important mechanism to narrow the space for widespread abuse of the public resources that are required to provide services to citizens.

Also making headlines:

The chairperson of the South African National Roads Agency Limited, Tembakazi Mnyaka, has resigned from her position with immediate effect.

South Africa’s electricity tariffs are likely to increase by more than the 8% already sanctioned for the year starting April 1, 2015, after the energy regulator determined that Eskom had under recovered R7.82-billion in revenue between 2010 and 2013.

And, President Jacob Zuma authorises a Special Investigating Unit probe into issues relating to maladministration and alleged corruption in a number of government departments, entities and two municipalities.

Also on Polity:

Recommended readings include a white paper by the World Economic Forum on business sustainability and why it matters, as well as research findings by Econ3x3 on how the old age pension is helping young people from rural areas find jobs.

Also watch the interview with director of the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation, Greg Mills on his book ’Why States Recover’.

Follow us on Twitter @PolityZA for updates on breaking news.
 

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.