Sowetan

MNISI’S LIFE OF BLING

Gareth Mnisi, the man who is alleged to have manipulated tenders in the City of Tshwane, lived a life of luxury, amassing wealth that a high court has found he has been dishonest about. Yesterday, the Tshwane CFO made a brief appearance at the...

MEASLY 15-YEAR PAYOUTS WAIT FOR

Denis Mutugue, 64, worked for the Aurora Gold Mine for 27 years, earning a salary of R1,718 until the company collapsed in 2011. Since then, he’s been waiting for his R10,993 severance package, which he hopes will significantly change his family’s...

WHY WERE HEIST DOCKETS AT HIS HOME?

When police raided Sgt Fannie Nkosi’s Pretoria home, they found cash-in-transit (CIT) and hijacking dockets that had been closed because there were no leads. According to national police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe, the dockets were illegally in...

EASTER MADNESS

In just three days of the 2026 Easter holidays, traffic officer arrested almost 1,000 drunk drivers on SA roads. According to Simon Zwane from the Road Traffic Management Corporation, the staggering 934 arrests made from Thursaday to Saturday were 263...

EFF TAKES OVER GAUTENG TREASURY

Julius Malema’s EFF has for the first time entered the provincial government - with Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi announcing Nkululeko Dunga as finance MEC. Dunga is the EFF’s first MEC since its inception, a move that could change the political...

PARAFFIN USERS TO NOW PAY DOUBLE

More than 500,000 households that rely on paraffin as a source of energy are set to bear the brunt of record high fuel increases announced yesterday. This after the price of paraffin more than doubled, rising by R11,67 per litre to R23,19. The...

SHOCK TAXI FARE HIKES ON THE CARDS

Taxi associations are preparing to hike their fares this week and pass the cost of fuel increases on to consumers already hard-pressed by the high cost of living. Bus operators have also warned that they would be looking to government subsidies to...

SHIELD CITIZENS FROM FUEL HIKES

President Cyril Ramaphosa has directed finance minister Enoch Godongwana and a cabinet task team to find ways to cushion South Africans from the looming fuel hike that kicks in from the beginning of April. Ramaphosa told delegates at the ANC Limpopo...

ANC ELECTIONS FACE COURT DILEMMA

The ANC in the Eastern Cape will proceed with its high-stakes provincial elective conference this weekend despite a high court interdict and threats of contempt of court proceedings. The party confirmed late yesterday that it would go ahead with the...

DISORDER STATE OF

The country’s security cluster has been plunged further into crisis after national police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola was summoned to appear in court next month over the R360m health tender awarded to Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala. Experts say this...

CHARGE FRESH BID SODI’S TO ENABLERS

● City says labour court judgment enables the matter to be properly addressed after initial process found group guilty on just one charge

President Cyril Ramaphosa participating

in the final sendoff of the remains of 63 Khoi and San people during a ceremony held at Steinkopf, Northern Cape, yesterday.

FUELS LOOMING BULK BUYING HIKE

With a week to go before the expected record fuel price hike, demand for diesel has surged in parts of Gauteng with reported bulk buying and stock-piling in some areas. Motorists are bracing for steep increases in April, with projections of up to...

SABC presenter Vusiwe Ngcobo helps coach Hugo Broos with fresh air during the Bafana Bafana squad announcement at SABC Studios in Johannesburg yesterday.

Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos has defended his inclusion of Orlando Pirates skipper Nkosinathi Sibisi in his final squad to face Panama, suggesting the criticism the 30-year-old defender has been subjected to of late was unfair. Bafana will face...

METROS CUTS POWER TO 36 INDEBTED SCHOOLS

At least 36 schools in Gauteng have had their electricity disconnected due to nonpayment, while more than hundred others have been served with letters to cut them off. Ekurhuleni metro municipality has sent notices to disconnect electricity to 138...

COPS VANISH, STATION STRIPPED

Residents of a North West township have to travel to town to report incidents of crime or certify documents because their police station has ceased to operate. The satellite station in Boikhutsong, outside Lichtenburg, first abandoned by police, is...

‘HIRED TO DO A CLEAN JOB’

Target shooting, military-style training and trips to overseas shooting training competitions for elite police. This is how Matipandile Sotheni, 42, the man accused of murdering Marius van der Merwe, identified as Witness D at the Madlanga commission...

EX-SAPS TASK FORCE MEMBER ARRESTED

An alleged shooter of Witness D has been identified as a former member of the elite SAPS task force and his marksmanship is believed to have linked him to the murder. The suspect was arrested on Saturday by the task team investigating allegations that...

LUXURY SPLURGE ON CAT’S MONEY?

Days after receiving a “loan” from Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala, suspended police organised crime boss Maj-Gen Richard Shibiri went to Sandton, where he splurged on designer sneakers and sandals. This was revealed at the Madlanga commission yesterday, where...

Safa official blasts McKenzie for Fifa threat after meeting brawl

South African Football Association national executive member Gladwyn White has called out sports minister Gayton McKenzie after his threat to involve CAF and Fifa in long-standing internal squabbles at SA’s national body. Following a near-violent NEC...

FIRST ZONDO BIG CLAIMS SCALP

Vincent Smith’s conviction and sentencing have been widely welcomed by civil society, saying they hope this will open doors for other Bosasa accused to be successfully prosecuted. Smith is the first high-profile political figure to be convicted over...

David Miller congratulates Kagiso Rabada after taking the wicket of New Zealand's Tim Seifert in an ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2026 semifinal Kolkata, India, yesterday. NZ went on to beat SA by nine wickets.

The Proteas suffered an ugly capitulation in the ICC T20 World Cup semifinal that was reminiscent of meltdowns of the past. SA were out-thought and outplayed by New Zealand, who restricted them to 169/8 at Eden Gardens in Kolkata yesterday and reached...

HOW BUILDING TRAGEDY CONTRACTOR FLOUTED LAWS

The company behind the collapsed Joburg building that killed at least nine workers on Monday was not registered with the SA construction regulatory body, and municipal officials cannot find its owners. The National Home Builders Registration Council...

Rescue workers remove a body from the rubble where six other people died after a building under construction collapsed in Ormonde, Johannesburg, yesterday.

Six people were killed when an office block under construction in Ormonde, south of Johannesburg, collapsed yesterday afternoon. Two others were reportedly trapped under the rubble, while three could not be accounted for. The incident occurred at...

100 DETAINEES ON THE RUN

● Broken police holding cells, outdated CCTV technology and corrupt officers are contributing factors to high escapes at police stations ● Expert warns that the escapees are worsening the country’s crime burden while SAPS is unstable as 220 officers...

HEADS ON THE BLOCK

Always one to shoot straight from the hip, Kaizer Chiefs co-coach Cedric Kaze sees the Soweto derby as a perfect chance to be in the Amakhosi faithful’s good books. Heading into this fixture, Amakhosi – who lost 1-2 to Stellenbosch at the same venue...

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana delivering his 2026 budget speech in Cape Town yesterday.

The national government plans to toughen up its management of provincial governments and municipalities and the finance minister plans to visit Gauteng leaders to address water problems affecting the province. Finance minister Enoch Godongwana told a...

PLAYING CAT MOUSE AND

Political fixer and self-described “crime intelligence agent” Brown Mogotsi has told parliament that while he initially investigated alleged criminal mastermind Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala, he eventually turned to him for assistance with other...

A Tembisa resident stokes the fires at a road barricade during the community protest over lack of water and electricity in the area.

Residents in Tembisa yesterday blocked several roads with burning tyres and rubble, allowing only police vehicles and ambulances to pass. The protest, which included elderly residents, young people, and school-going children, was directed at what...

ZAMA-ZAMA FEAR STILL STALKS SPORONG

Sibongile*, a resident of the Sporong informal settlement on the West Rand, has not slept in her home for nearly a month. She is so fearful that every night she takes her three children to go and sleep with friends whose homes are closer to the mobile...

MUGABE SONS’ SHOOTING DRAMA

A Hyde Park security guard has revealed that the shooting at the home of the late Robert Mugabe’s sons that left a gardener badly wounded was not the first time gunshots were heard from the sprawling mansion. According to the man who asked to remain...

Cat is no friend of mine — Sibiya

THE ALFRED Duma local municipality in KZN has suspended a senior official for allegedly raping an intern who was assigned to his department. According to allegations, the manager, 46, in the department of administration and records had insisted on...

Farewell, human rights champion

Washington — Charismatic US civil rights leader Rev Jesse Jackson, an eloquent Baptist minister raised in the segregated south who became a close associate of Martin Luther King Jr and twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, has died, his...

Dikeledi Mphela and fellow suspects Goitsione Machidi and McClaren Mushwana in the Pretoria magistrate’s court for the murder of e-hailing driver, Isaac Satlat.

A Limpopo man, who is from the same neighbourhood as the woman arrested for her alleged role in the murder of an e-hailing driver, said he didn’t expect to see Dikeledi Mphela trending on social media, much less linked to the murder of Isaac Satlat,...

FOOLS GOLD?

*Zoleka, a single mother, dug up two buckets of soil believed to have traces of gold and managed to made enough money to buy her kids food and nappies. She was among dozens of residents of Gugulethu section in Payneville, Springs, on the East Rand,...

FLUSH ARMY OUT TO ZAMA-ZAMAS

President Cyril Ramaphosa has resolved to deploy soldiers to communities under siege from illegal mining activities in Gauteng and gangsters in the Western Cape. Ramaphosa made the announcement during his state of the nation address (Sona) before the...

Police members rehearse

as they prepare for the 2026 state of the nation address by President Cyril Ramaphosa in Cape Town this evening.

DRY OF BELOVED DARKNESS CITY

Days without a reliable water supply, the reliance on tankers for the precious liquid, hundreds of rand spent on petrol and diesel for generators, and mounting business losses have become part of daily life for some Johannesburg residents. Service...

EMPTY SCHOOL PROMISES IN RUINS FOR

Ceilings collapsing during lessons, more than 100 pupils squeezed into a single classroom and lessons taking place on a veranda or under a tree. This is the dire state of affairs at Mpfariseni Secondary School in Thohoyandou — one of 1,800 Limpopo...

GIRLFRIEND ALLOWANCE OR COOL DRINK?

Six months after Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala secured a R350m SAPS tender, he allegedly sent R38,000 to his “girlfriend”, who is tasked with overseeing the implementation of the same tender he had just scored. A month later, in February, he charmed her with...

STEENHUISEN EXIT SPARKS CONTEST

The announcement by DA leader John Steenhuisen that he would not seek re-election has sparked a leadership race to succeed him that could see Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis competing against Gauteng provincial leader Solly Msimanga. The two...

RESIDENTS STATE FAILURES BRIDGE

● Told by municipality that there’s no money, Vaal community helped by a businessman, construct pedestrian crossing over a dangerous stream ● A group of pensioners tired of sewage stench, take matters into their hands to fix their sewerage system...

AT LOGGERHEADS

The fight in the police top brass took a dramatic turn at the weekend with a public fallout between KZN police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and provincial Hawks head Maj-Gen Lesetja Senona. The drama between Mkhwanazi and Senona escalated...

MADLANGA STINGS

The head of the Hawks in KwaZulu-Natal suspects that the theft of 541kg of cocaine with an estimated street value of R200m from a Hawks storage facility was an inside job, saying he suspects they were “sold out” by an insider. Maj-Gen Lesetja Senona...

EXPOSED

The Madlanga Commission has used WhatsApp chats to demonstrate that KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Maj-Gen Lesetja Senona still maintained a questionable relationship with alleged drug cartel member Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala. This was despite learning that...

HOW TURNED GUN FATAL TEST

A woman charged with the murder of a five-year-old boy was allegedly testing the gun inside her yard when a shot went off and a bullet struck the child. This is according to neighbours who rushed to the scene where little Obakeng Minyuku lay bleeding...

TESTIMONY WIILL THIIS MCHUNU? SIINK

Suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu allegedly interfered with investigations into the cases of ward councillors, coerced a witness to lie to the Madlanga commission and tried to implicate the crime intelligence boss in the killing of Sindiso...

INSIDE SCHOOL INVADED BY ZAMA-ZAMAS

Residents of a mining village near Carletonville, west of Johannesburg, are pleading for government’s intervention to rid their area of illegal miners who seized an abandoned school seven years ago and turned it into no-go zone. Locals in the village...

A DISORDER WEEK OF

A vehicle transporting school children bursting into flames; a bakkie crashing into a bus ferrying 109 pupils; 60 vehicles impounded; and the driver behind the deadly scholar transport crash in the Vaal charged with 14 murders. These are the troubling...

New ticketing system hiccups

Spectators who attended Tuesday’s league fixture between Kaizer Chiefs and Golden Arrows at FNB Stadium couldn’t hide their frustration at the venue’s new ticketing system, with many calling for it to be scrapped as they fear the delays it caused could...

ZAMA-ZAMA 600 FLEE HOMES TERROR,

Violence and extortion by zama-zamas forced more than 400 families to flee the Sporong informal settlement in Randfontein to a community hall, where they now live under cramped and unhygienic conditions. Thirteen days ago, more than 600 people left...

CATASTROPHE

The body of 45-year-old Esther Mathenjwa, who was swept away in a stream on Wednesday night, has been recovered by community members in Msholozi village outside Mbombela in Mpumalanga. Mathenjwa was returning home at about 9pm when she was overpowered...

HEROES BEHIND MATRIC SUCCESS

Lerato Ramabodu is on cloud nine after nailing another 100% pass rate in physical science for his matric class of 2025. This is a feat he has achieved since 2017 when he started teaching the subject. Ramabodu, 31, was born in Phomolong near Hennenman...

FAMILIES PUSHED TO THE BRINK

CYRIL FLIES INTO SERVICE DELIVERY MESS

ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa yesterday questioned his team on whether the homes he was made to visit during his door-to-door in Rustenburg were not told what to say to him prior to his arrival. Although he said it in jest, Ramaphosa – confronted with...

‘Don’t worry, US will not invade SA’

President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has a tense relationship with US president Donald Trump over the claims of a “white genocide” in SA, says he’s not worried about any possible invasion by the US. This comes after the US conducted a military strike...

RAMAPHOSA UNSCATHED EMERGES

President Cyril Ramaphosa used the closing session of the ANC’s national general council (NGC) to defend the party’s decision to continue the government of national unity (GNU), warning that elements within the coalition were attempting to dilute the...

SANDLANA'S 3 IDs LEAP OF FAITH

Mike Sandlana, the leader of a faction of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC) – whose nationality is also a subject of police investigation – has three dubious IDs, one registered on a date that does not exist. These revelations were...

DUMPSITE ALEX’S CARS, BODIES FOR

Bodies, an abandoned Ferrari, and a money safe left behind by criminals. These are some of the peculiar discoveries previously made at the notorious rubbish dumping site in Alexandra, where a vehicle linked to Witness D’s killing was found this...

HOW LAWYER SCAMMED HOMEBUYERS

A disbarred lawyer who is accused of scamming prospective home buyers of their hard-earned money is now facing five more charges related to fraud and is said to be a person of interest in at least 20 other cases. Emoldah Manamela, a former...

IN THE KNOW, ON THE MOVE

The South African men’s team, the Blitzbok, celebrate winning the men’s final of the HSBC SVNS Cape Town at DHL Stadium yesterday. SA narrowly beat Argentina 21-19 in the final.

President Ramaphosa Rand Water commended

President Ramaphosa commended Rand Water for its "excellent, proficient, and effective work," and congratulated the team for creating 871 jobs and training 2,000 community members in construction and other skills #TellingTheRandWaterGreatStories

HOW MKHWANAZI GAVE CAT FREE PASS

Suspended Ekurhuleni metro police department (EMPD) deputy chief Brig Julius Mkhwanazi has admitted to the Madlanga commission he entered into an agreement with attempted murder accused and tenderpreneur Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala without any...

Suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu, chats with his legal team led by Adv Tembeka Ngcukaitobi at the Madlanga commission in Pretoria.

Suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu started his testimony at the Madlanga commission yesterday by saying he has never been accused of corruption until July 6. On that Sunday morning, Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, in a media briefieng, told the nation...

TWO FAMILIES’ DREAMS SHATTERED

Plans were afoot for slain Const Maselelo Montja to conclude lobola negotiations on December 6, where there would be celebration and joy. His family and that of his partner had planned that after negotiations were finalised, there would be a huge...

CYRIL CALLS TRUMP BLUFF ON G20

“We must make it clear that South Africa is one of the founding members of the G20, and South Africa is therefore a member of the G20 in its own name and right. We will continue to participate as a full, active and constructive member of the...

ADMITS, DENIES, FORGETS

“No, no, no. I can’t remember. If that’s what you say. I don’t agree.” These words of denial, disagreement and claims of amnesia themed tenderpreneur and attempted murder accused Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala’s testimony at the ad hoc committee probing...

CAT LOOK DRAGGED WHAT THE IN

Tenderpreneur and attempted murder accused Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala has accused Bheki Cele of lying and claimed he had given the former police minister R500,000 in cash. Matlala told the parliamentary ad hoc committee sitting at Kgosi Mampuru II...

FIGHT VICTIM’S IN FLOODWATERS 15-HOUR

One of the divers who rescued a woman after she spent more than 12 hours clinging to a branch of a tree in an overflowing Free State river says she was barely hanging on, with her entire body submerged and only her face above the water. Phuthaditjhaba...