For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Thabi Madiba.

Making headlines: Carl Niehaus expelled from the ANC; Ramaphosa says the recovery of SA’s economy, society is underway; And, City of Joburg begs Eskom for 3-day loadshedding break to help tackle faults, outages

Carl Niehaus expelled from the ANC

Former African National Congress ANC Veterans' League spokesperson Carl Niehaus has been expelled from the ANC.

The ANC's National Disciplinary Committee found Niehaus guilty of six charges of misconduct for bringing the party into disrepute.

This was in relation to his defence of former president Jacob Zuma following the Constitutional Court ruling he be imprisoned for contempt of court.

One of his comments was that "the ruling of the Constitutional Court is a travesty of justice... The law is being used selectively as an instrument to fight political and factional battles."  

Ramaphosa says the recovery of SA’s economy, society is underway

President Cyril Ramaphosa said today that South Africa’s road to recovery will be a long one, however, he pointed to the resilience of South Africans and urged citizens to act decisively together.

In the first half of the year, South Africans experienced devastating floods in parts of KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and North West.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict sent shockwaves through global energy and food markets, leading to supply chain disruptions and rising prices that continued to be keenly felt, including in South Africa.

Ramaphosa is certain that citizens will overcome the current challenges, and believes that South Africans are more than capable of bringing about the recovery the country needs. He said the recovery of the country’s economy and society was underway, and, despite the electricity challenges, the economy was recording growth.

And, City of Joburg begs Eskom for 3-day loadshedding break to help tackle faults, outages

The City of Johannesburg has pleaded for a three-day loadshedding exclusion so that it can overcome escalating faults and outages after torrential rains in Gauteng.

Johannesburg Mayor Mpho Phalatse submitted the urgent request to Eskom as City Power struggled to clear the increasing backlog.

Environment and Infrastructure Services MMC Michael Sun said the City had made progress but due to continuous rainfall, additional faults were being logged every hour.

Sun said given the urgent need for City Power to attend to the widespread and escalating faults, the entity has expressed its concern that loadshedding is not only causing additional faults and stress on the network but also preventing the entity from being able to effectively attend to the outages and to stabilise the situation.

As of this morning, there were more than 4 000 service calls related to outages. A significant proportion was for issues that persisted for multiple days.

Areas that were hit the hardest were the larger Roodepoort area, Hursthill, Northcliff and Lenasia, where infrastructure was severely damaged by flooding.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

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