For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Thabi Madiba.
Making headlines: Authorities pull out all stops, high-level meeting planned with KZN school; No load-shedding expected for next three days; And, Mkhwebane says courts are being abused to weaken the Public Protector's office
Authorities pull out all stops, high-level meeting planned with KZN school
South Africa's health authorities were pulling out all the stops since the news broke that there was one case of coronavirus in South Africa.
According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, a high-level meeting was expected to be held on Friday with the authorities of the school which the children of South Africa's first coronavirus patient attend.
A briefing was expected to be held afterwards.
This followed the decision to shut down the school today following the announcement that a parent at the school had tested positive for Covid-19.
No load-shedding expected for next three days
No load-shedding was expected on Friday and over the weekend, Eskom said.
The State-owned power utility said that even though the generation system remained constrained, Eskom did not expect to implement load-shedding this weekend although unplanned breakdowns remained above the 10 500 MW mark.
Eskom reminded South Africans, however, that the generation system remained vulnerable and unpredictable, and that there was a possibility that load-shedding may be implemented at short notice should there be an unexpected change in the generation system performance.
It said unplanned breakdowns or outages were at 10 728 MW as at 06:50 on Friday morning while planned maintenance outages were at 4 660 MW.
And, Mkhwebane says courts are being abused to weaken the Public Protector's office
South Africa's judicial system was being abused by politicians and if this trend was not reined in, other institutions that demand accountability - like the Office of the Auditor-General - would also find themselves under attack, said Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
Speaking at an event held by the Advancement of Black Accountants of Southern Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand last night, Mkhwebane argued that the country's courts were now taking over the role of running institutions, instead of administering justice.
The Public Protector had been taken to court numerous times by politicians unhappy with the findings of her reports, including President Cyril Ramaphosa and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.
Mkhwebane said South African courts should be focusing purely on interpretation of the law and should not be dragged into administrative issues.
That’s a roundup of news making headlines today
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