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Daily Podcast – May 21, 2015

Daily Podcast – May 21, 2015

21st May 2015

By: Sane Dhlamini
Creamer Media Senior Contributing Editor and Researcher

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May 21, 2015.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.
Making headlines:

Gauteng’s e-tolls are cut by half as Sanral mitigates civil disobedience.

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The Islamic State's Egypt affiliate urges attacks on judges.

And, political commentator Aubrey Matshiqi says the Eastern Cape ANC is weakened by infighting.

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A new “fair, affordable and sustainable” fee structure has been tabled for users of the South African National Road Agency Limited’s (or Sanral’s) Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (or GFIP), Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa announced yesterday.

To mitigate the increasing challenge of Gauteng’s disobedience and refusal to pay the e-toll fees that Ramaphosa admitted, in its current form, had placed a disproportionate burden on middle- and low-income households, the tariffs would be cut in half.

Sanral would, over the next few months, in phases, apply a single, reduced tariff to all motorists, with light motor vehicles passing the gantries liable for a standard tariff of 30c/km and a monthly cap of R225 – regardless of whether the user had an e-tag or not – from the current 58c/km, R450 cap applied to registered users.

The new e-toll dispensation, which was the product of “extensive public consultation, deliberations within government and approval by Cabinet”, would also see revised, reduced rates and caps applied to other vehicle classes.

 

Islamic State's Egypt affiliate on Wednesday urged followers to attack judges, declaring a new front in an Islamist militant insurgency in the world's most populous Arab state.
The leader of the group Sinai Province called for violence against judges in an audio statement posted on a prominent jihadist website.

A spate of attacks on judges suggested they are the latest targets of an insurgency centred in North Sinai that has killed hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police in the past two years.

Any full-blown campaign against judges could spell trouble for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who as army chief removed the Muslim Brotherhood from power in mid-2013 after mass protests against its rule.

Sisi has only just managed to deliver a degree of stability to Egypt after years of political upheaval triggered by an uprising in 2011 that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

 

Internal wrangling, power battles and money have compromised the African National Congress government’s stability, particularly at municipal level in the Eastern Cape, says political commentator Aubrey Matshiqi.

He said this was the core of the problem facing the ANC in the Eastern Cape, especially in its biggest region in the province, Nelson Mandela Bay metro.

Matshiqi  said in provinces such as the Eastern Cape, wealth creation and the creation of the middle class depended mainly on the state, adding that one needed to access political power through the ANC in order to find access to or gain access to wealth through the government, through the province, or even through the municipality.

He went on to say that battles are more intense at municipal levels because that was “the last coach of the gravy train”.

With next year's local government elections looming, there was a fight for positions on the ANC's list.


Also making headlines:

Suspended Independent Police Investigative Directorate Robert McBride’s lawyer has lodged a stay application at his disciplinary hearing. 

Eskom has implemented stage 1 load shedding from 08:00 am until 2:00 pm and then stage 2 would be implemented from 2 pm until 10:00 pm this evening.

Chinese fishing boats have been illegally fishing off West Africa, but the government said they are within the law.

And, France gave broad backing to an EU scheme to share out asylum-seekers among EU states to deal with a surge of migrants, after a week of ambiguity that reflected growing public opposition to immigration.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter [@PolityZA]
That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.

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