February 19, 2016.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.
Making headlines:

Cosatu welcomes postponement of tax law.

Preliminary results show Yoweri Museveni leads Uganda polls.

And, Zuma sails through Sona reply.

The decision to postpone the Taxation Laws Amendment Act showed that government acknowledged that implementing the new law was wrong, trade union federation Cosatu said yesterday.

However, Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said the decision was not a final and ultimate solution to the impasse.

Pamla said the the mandate from workers was not to secure a postponement but to get government to commit that they will expunge all the areas that prevent workers from accessing their money.

Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe said during a briefing on this week’s cabinet meeting that government would be meeting with critics of the Act,  including Cosatu, for further consultations.

Cosatu opposed the legislation signed into law by President Jacob Zuma last year, which would force workers to preserve their retirement savings, instead of withdrawing lumpsums of cash.

 

Incumbent Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, appeared to be taking the lead following a preliminary tally of yesterday’s presidential and parliamentary election votes, released today by Uganda’s Electoral Commission (or EC).

However, these results refer largely to Uganda’s rural districts an EC source told Uganda’s news agency.

Provisional results in the capital Kampala put opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye, from the Forum for Democratic Change, ahead.

71 year old Museveni from the ruling National Resistance Movement was leading with 63.7%.

The election’s provisional results followed the second arrest of Besigye this week as he tried to enter a house he said was being used for “rigging national elections”, reported the Voice of America.

 

President Jacob Zuma's highly anticipated reply to the State of the Nation Address (or Sona) debate lasted just over an hour, with no sign of the disruptions and heckling which characterised proceedings earlier this week.

The EFF, who had become synonymous with disrupting the president when he addressed the National Assembly, were missing from proceedings.

In his reply yesterday, Zuma took the opportunity to chastise MPs, focusing more on the opposition and their behaviour in the House, saying they were damaging the image of the country.

Most of the president's reply focused on the economy and plans that the government had in place.

He assured South Africans that, this time around, the National Development Plan would be implemented – some four years after it was initially introduced.

 

Also making headlines:

The ANC march for unity and non-racialism to the Union Buildings will get underway in Pretoria today.

And, the executive chairperson of the Global Electricity Initiative Philippe Joubert, said there were drastic changes in store for energy sector after the 2015 ‘turning point’.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today