May 28, 2015.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.

Making headlines:
State-owned oil company PetroSA places its top three executives on “gardening” leave due to poor performance.

Ethiopia's ruling party sweeps to parliament in early vote results.

And, the city Johannesburg and Cape Town show improvements in the global cities index. 

State-owned oil company PetroSA has placed its top three executives‚ including the CEO‚ on gardening leave due to poor performance.

The three include CEO Nosizwe Nokwe-Macamo‚ CFO Lindiwe Mthimunye-Bakoro and acting VP of upstream operations Andrew Dippenaar, who were this week given 24 hours to accept the leave request from the board or face suspension.

The move echoes that of Eskom‚ whose board under former chairperson Zola Tsotsi in March suspended its four most senior executives ahead of an investigation.

After a court challenge‚ its former CEO Tshediso Matona left the utility‚ but the details of the probe have not yet been made public.

Ethiopia's ruling party and its allies have won a big majority in parliament, election officials said on Wednesday.

These results are based on an early count in a weekend election in which the opposition complained of harassment.

Charges of abuses were dismissed by Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, leader of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (or EPRDF), which has been in power for almost 25 years. It was widely expected to sweep the vote.

The EPRDF and its allies won 442 seats out of 547.

The provisional count suggested that the opposition, which won just one seat in the last parliament, had yet to claim a single seat in those declared so far.

Full results are not expected until next month.

Johannesburg and Cape Town are showing improvement in the spheres of political engagement and human capital respectively, according to a global report.

Partner at AT Kearney Johannesburg, Wim Plaizier, told a news agency that the growth of political engagement in Johannesburg was being driven by the growth in the number of consular and other diplomatic representation, Non Government Organisations and think tanks in the city.

Plaizier said African cities were making significant advances adding that the fact that Cape Town, which did not make the list last year, had come in at number 69 was very encouraging and indicated that the emerging cities were making positive gains.

He said this information was important for those making investment decisions.

Also making headlines:

Zwelinzima Vavi says the figures released by Statistics SA reveal a horror story of unbelievably bad news for workers and the South African economy.

Madagascar's President Hery Rajaonarimampianina has challenged an impeachment vote against him in parliament. 

A former prime minister will open his campaign for the ruling party’s presidential nomination this weekend, beginning the race to be next leader of Tanzania.

And, a University of Johannesburg report reveals that top government officials, including President Jacob Zuma, misconstrued data on public order policing before Parliament. 

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.