April 26, 2016.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Thabi Madiba.
Making headlines:

ANC opens treason case against Malema.

Nersa seeks to curb Eskom coal costs.

And, Oakbay workers march to South African banks to ‘save’ their jobs.

The African National Congress (ANC) has officially opened a case of treason against Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema, it said on Monday.

“The ANC has just opened a case of high treason against EFF and its leader Julius Malema in his personal capacity with Hillbrow police station," national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa reported.

"The threat to remove a lawfully, democratically-elected leader through an undemocratic process is against the law and the Constitution.

He said the ruling party was doing this for all South Africans as well as to defend and protect the country's hard won democracy and freedom. This was after Malema told Al Jazeera that his party would "remove this government through the barrel of a gun".

During an episode of Talk To Al Jazeera last week, Malema told Jonah Hull that if the ruling ANC continued to respond violently to peaceful protests, "we will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun".

 

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) wants to determine a coal benchmark cost - an average rand/tonne cost of coal - as part of its final decision on Eskom's multiyear price determination (MYPD) process.

Nersa proposes that this coal benchmark cost it determines would then be used for comparison with the actual cost of coal for determining pass-through costs for Eskom's regulatory clearing account (RCA).

In Nersa's view, an increase in the rand/tonne unit cost from reduced production at the mines should then not be recovered from electricity customers for the first two years of the MYPD period unless volume reduction is caused by events beyond the control of Eskom or the mine.

If a coal supplier fails to deliver coal of the required quality, then Nersa wants Eskom to apply penalty mechanisms in their coal contracts to recover additional costs incurred in implementing remedies to arrive at the desired coal quality. Nersa wants no such additional costs to be recovered from the electricity consumer.

 

Hundreds of workers from Gupta family-owned Oakbay Investments will on Tuesday march to the banks in an effort to save their jobs.

The operations of Oakbay were thrown into jeaopardy after South Africa’s four main banks closed accounts of businesses owned by the controversial family.

At least 7 500 people work for Oakbay, whose businesses include Sahara Computers, The New Age newspaper and ANN7, a television news channel. The family also has mining interests.

Last week, some affected workers made a passionate plea to the banks to re-open the company’s business accounts, saying failure to do so would cost them their jobs.

Also making headlines:

Former president Thabo Mbeki says more than R1.16-trillion leaves Africa illicitly

And, Home Affairs, VFS deny Gupta, Zuma link

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today