August 3, 2015.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.
Making headlines:

Transport Minister Dipuo Peters has asked the auditor general’s office to probe PRASA’s financial mismanagement allegations.

Nigeria's army has rescued 178 people that were captives of Boko Haram.

And, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela is expected to correct “misstatements and distortions” about her Nkandla report.

 

Transport Minister Dipuo Peters has asked the auditor general’s office to conduct a forensic investigation into allegations of financial mismanagement at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (or PRASA).

Peters has commissioned the AG’s office – a Chapter Nine institution – to look into alleged violations of the Public Finance Management Act and other related statutes regarding contracts, engagement of service providers, and payments to service providers. These include issues that have received wide media coverage recently.

Peters encouraged the PRASA leadership to remain focused on ensuring that trains continued to run daily as well as the efficient delivery of the new rolling stock programme.

 

Nigeria's army said that it had rescued 178 people held by Islamist militant group Boko Haram in Nigeria's Borno state, the heartland of the insurgency.

Spokesperson Colonel Tukur Gusau said that 101 of those freed were children, 67 were women and the rest were men. He added that a Boko Haram commander had also been captured and several militant camps were cleared around the town of Bama, about 70 km southeast of the state capital Maiduguri.

Boko Haram has been waging a six-year insurgency in the northeast of Africa's biggest economy in an attempt to establish an Islamist state adhering to strict sharia law.

Boko Haram was pushed out of most of the vast swathes of territory it controlled at the start of the year but they have dispersed and returned to their guerrilla tactics of hitting soft targets with bombs and raiding towns.
President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to crush the group and a multi-national joint taskforce made of 8 700 troops from Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad and Benin is being set up in the Chadian capital N'Djamena to tackle Boko Haram.

 

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela is expected to correct “misstatements and distortions” about her Nkandla report at a briefing on Monday.

“The Public Protector is of the view that, left uncorrected, the misstatements and distortions have a potential to undermine and erode public confidence in her office, an important independent institution charged with strengthening the country’s constitutional democracy through public accountability,” her spokesperson Kgalalelo Masibi said on Friday.

Last week, Parliament’s Nkandla ad hoc committee used its African National Congress (or ANC) majority to vote against calling Madonsela to be questioned about her report into the R246-million upgrades to President Jacob Zuma’s rural KwaZulu-Natal homestead.

Addressing the ad hoc committee, ANC Chief Whip Mathole Motshekga said Madonsela had misled South Africa about Nkandla.

In her report, released in March 2014, Madonsela recommended that Zuma repay a reasonable amount of the money spent on non-security related features, like the swimming pool, visitor’s centre, cattle kraal, chicken run and amphitheatre.

 

Also making headlines:

The Democratic Alliance has called on President Jacob Zuma to fire police commissioner Riah Phiyega for her conduct at Marikana.

Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said South Africa should raise the economic growth rate and promote inclusive growth to win the fight against poverty, inequality and unemployment.

After the killing of Zimbabwe's best known lion, a second animal has been poached by a foreigner.

Five people were killed and 12 wounded during clashes in eastern Libya between forces loyal to its internationally recognised government and Islamist groups.

Egypt postpones its verdict in the retrial of Al Jazeera journalists to August 29.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said the US and Egypt were returning to a "stronger base" in their relationship despite tensions and concerns over human rights.

And, at least one soldier with the UN peackeeping mission in Central African Republic was killed during clashes with armed assailants in a northern neighbourhood of the capital Bangui.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.