Publisher

President Cyril Ramaphosa has described his Presidential Imbizo in the North West province as a success after holding a fruitful session with community members.

The imbizo was held recently in Mmabatho Stadium in the Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality  where scores of residents had gathered.

While there is no single remedy to rid the country of its challenges, South Africa remains a good place to inject investment.

“South Africa is open for business on many different fronts; we have very good infrastructure, a good financial system and good human capital and talent pool to draw from,” notes Group Senior Executive for Strategic Trade at Aspen Pharmacare, Dr Stavros Nicolaou.

Nicolaou’s comments were in relation to the fourth edition of the South African Investment Conference (SAIC), which was on 24 March at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg.

Applications are open for the South African Fulbright Foreign Student Scholarship Programme.

The scholarship funds postgraduate study at a United States (US) uni­versity in any subject, excluding an MBA or studies that require contact with patients.

The (US) government and South Africa’s National Research Foundation fund the scholarship, which covers two years’ tuition fees and living expenses in the US.

Frank Whitaker, the Minister Counsellor for Public Affairs at the US Embassy in Pretoria, says the programme has benefit­ted more than 2 100 South Africans.

Pupils from Johan­nesburg schools are being given the chance to enter the excit­ing world of engineering through the Next Engi­neers programme.

The initiative is being led by the General Electric (GE) in partnership with the Gauteng Department of Education, human development organisa­tion FHI360 and Pr otec, a non-profit organisation involved in science, tech­nology, engineering, and maths education.

The programme was laun­ched recently and the first batch of pupils who will participate in the program­me have been already been identified.

Five young people from an Eastern Cape rural town are breeding success after putting their Social Relief of Distress (SRD) Grant to good use.

The cousins from No­bumba Village in Peddie used their monthly R350 SRD grant to start the Bayeni Poultry Cooper­ative, which sells broiler chickens to surrounding villages and the town of Makhanda.

Bayeni chairperson Phumlisa Ngabase (26) explains that when the cousins lost their jobs because of the COVID-19, they had to find a way to put food on the table in the long-term.

Human Rights Month com­memorations will contribute to social cohesion and nation building through a series of dialogues and events planned for the duration of March. 

Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mtheth­wa recently launched Human Rights Month in Tshwane.

Girls as young as nine may be vacci­nated against the human papillomavi­rus (HPV). The vir us can lead to cervical cancer – the leading cause of cancer-relat­ed deaths.

To protect girls, an annual HPV vaccina­tion programme was first rolled out in 2014, as part of the Inte­grated School Health Programme. The pro­gramme, led by the departments of Health, Basic Education, and Social Development provides the vaccine free of charge to lear­ners in Grade 5 who are over the age of nine.

The Department of Health has an­nounced changes to the vaccination programme as part of ongoing efforts to increase uptake of the Coro­navirus Disease (COVID-19) vaccine in South Africa.

The changes, which have been guided by scientific evidence, include reducing the time interval between the first and second doses of the Pfizer vaccine from 42 days to 21 days.

From the Union Buildings

Recently, Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana presented a Budget that supports and reinforces the programme of action I announced in the State of the Nation Address (SONA) to grow the economy and create jobs.

The Budget provides details on how government plans to raise money and where it is going to spend that money to improve the lives of South Africans.