Daily news update: NDZ messes up again, fuel price woes, Norma forgives Malusi

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April fuel price increases: A wallop awaits at the pumps

Government has announced the official fuel price increases for April and consumers are in for a price shock.

As of next Wednesday, 7 April 2021, all grades of petrol, diesel, paraffin and gas will be increasing.

This as data from Statistics SA this week showed that more than half a million full-time jobs were lost during last year, while gross earnings also declined.

Reserve Bank seizes over R19 million of Gupta’s Sahara cash

The South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) has seized R19,669,000 from the Gupta brothers’ Sahara Computers, which closed down in 2018 at the height of state capture and corruption allegations against the controversial family.

File picture: Gupta brothers, Ajay and Atul.

The forfeiture was gazetted by Sarb deputy governor Kuben Naidoo on Wednesday and the funds were to be deposited directly into the National Revenue Fund.

Sahara Computers and two of its sister companies in the IT sector, Annex Distribution and Sahara Systems, closed down in 2018.

Boucher gives Proteas bowlers licence to thrill against Pakistan

Proteas head coach Mark Boucher wants his bowlers to run in hard and show aggression against Pakistan when the first of three ODIs is played in Centurion on Friday.

And he specifically wants his bowlers to take charge of the match in the crucial middle period of the innings, between overs 11 and 40.

While he expects the pitch to be a bit slower than usual, due to it already being April and quite autumnal, Boucher still believed conditions would be good.

Easter alcohol transport: Did NDZ ban booze movement? No, but yes…

Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is once again at the centre of a lockdown storm.

This time relating to the transport of alcohol for personal consumption over the Easter weekend.

Earlier on Thursday while addressing the media, Dlamini-Zuma said citizens could not transport alcohol during the days off-site sales are banned under new lockdown regulations.

On Thursday afternoon, an about U-turn was made. Or not, according to her spokesperson, Lungi Mtshali.

Did she or did she not say what she did or did not say? Watch the address and decide for yourself.

Daily Covid-19 update: 1,294 cases, Pfizer vaccine ‘effective’ against SA strain

South Africa added 1,294 new cases to the Covid-19 tally in the last 24 hours, Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has announced.

In a statement on Thursday evening, he said that an additional 32,725 tests had been done and the recovery rate remained at 95%.

Almost 10 million South Africans have now been tested for the coronavirus. Just over a year ago, on the evening of 31 March 2020, South Africa had recorded an additional 46 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the national total to 1,353. The total number of tests on this day stood at 41,072.

Kekana: ‘We have a mandate to carry out’

Hlompho Kekana, who has been sidelined for most of the season, could get himself some rare game time as Downs have already sealed qualification to the quarterfinals with 180 minutes of football to spare. Sundowns are in Sudan to take on Al-Hilal Omdurman on Friday evening as they look to maintain a 100% record in this season’s Caf Champions League group phase.

Hlompho Kekana has seen his game time at Sundowns diminish this season. Picture: Gavin Barker/BackpagePix.

The skipper says the mission is clear, and that is to extend their unbeaten run to 26 games in all competition as they aim to get maximum points in Group B. Given this, you can expect a strong Downs side as the Sudanese have shown what they are capable of when they beat Bafana Bafana last week.

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