For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.

Making headlines: Ramaphosa removes De Lille's powers to discipline suspended public works DG, Wits pauses Covid-19 vaccine trial and, Medupi conveyor belt failure raises risk of load-shedding

 

Ramaphosa removes De Lille's powers to discipline suspended public works DG

Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille no longer has the mandate to discipline suspended public works director-general Sam Vukela.

This after President Cyril Ramaphosa withdrew her delegating powers and granted it to Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu.

This led to Vukela's court bid to interdict his pending disciplinary inquiry to be struck off the roll in the High Court in Pretoria.

Vukela was suspended after a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers implicated him in allegations of fraudulent contract management and irregular payments in the planning of state funerals for Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Dr Zola Skweyiya and ambassador Billy Modise.

 

Wits pauses Covid-19 vaccine trial

The University of the Witwatersrand has announced that it will pause its coronavirus vaccine trial owing to a medical event involving a volunteer in the UK.

The trial will be paused as part of standard regulatory procedure for the safety of participants.

The details of the medical event that the participant in the UK experienced may not be divulged as this contravenes patient confidentiality.

Wits announced South Africa and Africa’s first Covid-19 vaccine trial, the so-called ‘Oxford trial’, in June.

 

Medupi conveyor belt failure raises risk of load-shedding

State-owned power utility Eskom has warned of an increased risk of load-shedding following the failure of a conveyor belt feeding coal into the Medupi generation units on Wednesday.

This means the four generation units in service are not able to take in the requisite amount of coal to generate electricity, putting further strain on Eskom’s power supply.

While the utility's teams are working around the clock to repair the conveyor belt, which is expected to take the better part of the day, any further breakdown elsewhere in the generation fleet, would necessitate the implementation of Stage 2 load-shedding at short notice.  

 

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

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