English – Page 154 – MIL Africa Engine

September 15, 2026

Have South Africans always been hostile to migrants? Historians map a chequered history

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Zoe Groves, Lecturer in Modern Global, Colonial and Postcolonial History, University of Leicester

Anti-immigrant violence began to sweep across South Africa once again in March 2026. Over the following months an estimated 56,000 Malawians and 115,000 Zimbabweans were forced to flee their homes. At least 11 foreign nationals were killed.

It took the country’s President Cyril Ramaphosa some months to condemn the violence.

The anti-migrant mass protests have been led by groups including March and March and Operation Dudula. The anti-immigrant groups blamed undocumented African migrants for crime, unemployment and inadequate public services, and set “deadlines” for them to leave the country. The slogan abahambe (“they must leave” in isiZulu) was repeated during burglaries and sexual assaults.

In response, governments in Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi paid for tens of thousands of their citizens to return home, and asked the International Criminal Court to intervene.

The South African government under an African National Congress led coalition deported 19,000 migrants in just a few months. It also effectively condoned the violence, publicly shaking hands with protest leaders.

Commentators such as Nesrine Malik and William Shoki have framed the violence as supplanting the post-1994 “rainbow nation” consensus. This was a phrase coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to invoke a sense of unity in South Africa’s diverse population after nearly five decades under the segregationist policies of apartheid.

For his part, Ramaphosa has insisted that “quite a bit of the violence” was “being propelled from outside South Africa”. He did not provide evidence.

We are historians of southern African migration. Our research shows that today’s anti-immigrant activists, and the politicians who embrace them, have tapped into sentiments more than a century deep. Since the emergence of the African National Congress in 1912, nationalists and pro-democracy advocates have often harboured antipathy towards foreign migrants. They saw them primarily as competitors who undermined Black South Africans’ ability to get decent jobs with decent wages.

Still, the 20th century also presented pivotal moments when Black immigrants and South African activists successfully joined forces to resist racial and economic oppression. Those moments seem long forgotten today.

In this article we look back at that history to show how today’s anti-immigrant violence is not an aberration in South African history. But it’s also not the country’s only possible path.

Roots of the ‘rainbow nation’

South Africa’s population encompasses the descendants of British and Dutch colonisers, Asian workers, and the indigenous African population as well as Africans with origins outside South Africa’s present-day borders.

This diversity reflects the country’s history of slavery, colonialism and white settlement by the British and the Dutch. It also reflects labour recruitment programmes dating back to the mid-19th century:

Indian indentured labourers brought to work on sugar plantations from the 1860s
Chinese workers recruited to work on the gold mines during the early 20th century
migrant workers from across southern Africa, particularly Malawi and Mozambique, recruited by mining companies. Others made their own way to farms and urban jobs from the late 19th century onwards.

Freedom struggles and immigration politics

The African National Congress was formed in 1912 when South Africa was still under British colonial rule to defend the voting rights and land claims of Black South Africans. It advocated for full equality in an increasingly oppressive society.

Mining and farming industries used migrant labour to keep Africans’ wages low. As a result, some of the founders of the African National Congress called for the deportation of Indian, Chinese and African immigrant workers. Anti-immigrant demands came from across the early ANC’s political spectrum – from moderates to communists.

Henry Selby Msimang, a moderate member of the ANC executive, complained in the mid-1920s that South Africa had become a

dumping ground for the unskilled workers of the African continent.

He called for the restriction of Mozambican immigrants, and advocated for a South African “race consciousness” that explicitly excluded Malawians.

In December 1926 a large anti-Malawian riot in Johannesburg killed six and injured 25. A petition promoted by Msimang and the ANC’s pro-communist general secretary, Eddie Khaile, subsequently demanded the deportation of all Malawians and Zimbabweans from South Africa.

But there were also pro-migrant voices in the ANC. They included two former ANC general secretaries, Sol Plaatje and Richard Victor Selope Thema, and a leading ANC lawyer, Richard Msimang. Msimang denounced Khaile for retreating “behind the barbed wires of racialism and provincialism”.

Shop-floor solidarity

For their part, Black labour migrants in South Africa fought for economic justice alongside Black South Africans. The most important example was Clements Kadalie, the Malawian leader of the first major Black trade union in southern Africa, the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa (ICU).

The ICU won wage increases in Cape Town and Bloemfontein, defeated segregationist plans in Johannesburg and Durban, and enjoyed several legal victories. These included overturning deportation orders against Kadalie, among other measures.

Defending the mobility of all workers, the union recognised that any system of free movement had to be underpinned by minimum wages; pay was undercut by bosses, not immigrants.

Some within the ICU decried immigration from countries outside the British Empire, such as Mozambique. But in defending the free movement of workers throughout British colonial possessions, the union offered an expansive solidarity that challenged narrower ideas of South African nationalism.

This spirit carried into the second world war years. High demand for workers combined with labour leaders’ broader imaginations to bring a string of victories for Black workers. In August 1946 mine workers in the Witwatersrand went on strike under the banner of the African Mine Workers’ Union. As many as 100,000 were involved.

The union had deliberately recruited members originating from Malawi, Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Mozambique and Angola, as well as South Africa. James Jacob Majoro, a clerk and ANC member from Lesotho, served as secretary of the union. He told workers to fight for money, rather than in “tribal” disputes. The union’s president John Beaver Marks, also an ANC leader, criticised Mozambicans for being “cowards”, however.

Things changed after the second world war.

Under high apartheid, which was introduced in 1948 after an all white election in which the National Party took power, the government brutally cracked down on the African Mine Workers’ Union, the ANC and the Communist Party of South Africa.

Activists were forced underground and abroad. Exiled leaders worked across the continent. African nationalists widely boycotted South Africa.

One of Julius Nyerere’s first acts as prime minister of newly independent Tanzania in 1964 was to end the recruitment of Tanzanian workers for the Johannesburg mines.

The ANC, in turn, supported global anti-colonial campaigns. It led a local “potato boycott” against the “slave labour” of Malawians and Zimbabweans on South African potato farms.

Yet the ANC – like other African liberation movements – came to define its interests nationally.

In the 1980s collaboration between Black migrants and South Africans once again flourished. This was as the apartheid government’s iron grip weakened and the withdrawal of workers from Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique gave trade unions in South Africa more bargaining power.

The rise of the ANC-allied National Union of Mineworkers – a key force in the anti-apartheid struggle – was underpinned by solidarity between workers from Lesotho and South Africa. Men like Lira Setona, a charismatic winch-driver from Lesotho, were key to the union’s workplace organising. And the union’s general secretary, Ramaphosa, worked closely with worker-leaders from Lesotho to secure the union’s successes. Ramaphosa became South African president in 2018, and has shown little sympathy for immigrants since.

Democracy and xenophobia

The ANC’s electoral victory in 1994 unleashed a little-discussed wave of anti-migrant policies. In its first year in power, the ANC used apartheid-era laws to deport a record 157,084 people. Most were refugees from Mozambique’s bloody civil war.

Visions of the “rainbow nation” have seldom included those branded as “foreign Africans” – the victims of recent violence.

Yet there is also a parallel history: thousands of South African freedom fighters across more than a century have also improved their own lives through solidarity rather than through xenophobia.

– Have South Africans always been hostile to migrants? Historians map a chequered history
– https://theconversation.com/have-south-africans-always-been-hostile-to-migrants-historians-map-a-chequered-history-290717

September 15, 2026

Social workers who protect children in South Africa carry a burden of trauma – better preparation could help

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Marinei Herselman, Lecturer, University of Fort Hare

When a child is raped, abandoned or removed from a violent home in South Africa, a child protection social worker is assigned to the wellbeing of that child. They listen to the details, assess the danger, make urgent decisions. Once the child has been placed somewhere safe, the social worker moves on to the next case.

I am a social work researcher and educator, and have worked in the field of trauma for more than three decades. Protecting children has been at the centre of that work. Over time a question has kept surfacing: who protects the people doing the protecting?

In a recent study in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, I interviewed frontline child protection social workers and supervisors, and then piloted a care programme with them. This experience suggested a troubling answer: many social workers are carrying trauma silently, in a system that offers them almost nothing to hold it.

South Africa has roughly 44,500 registered social workers for a population of about 63 million, and the Eastern Cape’s ratio is much the same, with just over 5,100 social workers for some 7.2 million people.

The scale of what child protection social workers face is difficult to overstate. In 2024-25, the South African Police Service
recorded 22,055 sexual offences against children. In the same year the Department of Social Development logged 26,852 cases of child abuse and neglect, nearly 10,000 of them involving sexual abuse.

For practitioners in the Eastern Cape, abuse, coerced pregnancy, abandonment and infant death are not separate problems. They are the same families and the same case files, one crisis leading into the next, and the law says they must deal with all of it.

I call what happens to these workers “the sound of silence”. It is the slow disconnection from the children and families they serve, from colleagues, and eventually from themselves, that sets in when trauma is absorbed day after day and never processed. I have kept in touch with child protection social workers in the Eastern Cape since my doctoral research in 2018. Over the years the same message has kept reaching me from supervisors and frontline workers: a steady wearing down. The study I describe here was my attempt to test what I had been hearing.

Drawing on what social workers told me in the interviews and workshops, I believe preparation must begin in the classroom, not on placement: students need to understand trauma and recognise it in themselves. Supervision must be treated as a trained skill, not an administrative check, and employers must create regular space for workers to debrief and reconnect.

If social work is to protect children, it must also protect the people who do that work.

What social workers said

My study had two phases. In the first, I drew on in-depth interviews with 16 child protection social workers and supervisors across four Eastern Cape municipalities, exploring how the daily realities of implementing the Children’s Act shaped their emotional wellbeing.

In the second, I worked with 22 practitioners from child protection, substance abuse, family counselling and related services to co-design and pilot a two-day trauma-informed care workshop. Trauma-informed care is an approach to running services in which everyone assumes that the people they work with may have been affected by trauma, and organises practice so as not to make that worse.

Trauma can include abuse, neglect, violence at home, a parent struggling with addiction, mental illness or prison, or parents separating.

The workshop covered the neurobiology of trauma – the way trauma can physically change a child’s brain and have lasting effects on physical health. The body holds fear that the mind cannot put into words, and social workers who listen to trauma every day carry it in their bodies too.

Workshop participants also built simple “shoebox toolboxes” – low-cost therapy kits they could recreate for home visits with children. Using crayons, magazines and glue, a child decorates the outside of the box to show how they appear to the world, and fills the inside with what they really carry. When the social workers made boxes about themselves, the inside told the same story: exhaustion, feeling unseen, and a need for more training and real reflective supervision.

Two themes came up again and again.

The first was chronic resource scarcity – like lack of transport or office supplies to do the work.

Caseloads of over 160 were reported. South African policy uses 60 cases per social worker as the benchmark.

The second theme was the near-absence of meaningful supervision – the structured, reflective support that should help social workers process what they see.

Burnout spills into private life. “I am not coping,” one worker told me. “It is affecting everything and especially my marriage.”

How training can help

Secondary trauma is the distress that builds up in people who repeatedly hear and witness other people’s trauma, producing symptoms much like those of the trauma survivors themselves. South Africa’s version is intensified by inequality and underfunding.

The implication of my findings is that trauma-informed care ought to be woven into social work education, so students enter the field with a language for trauma and the reflective capacity to sustain themselves.

The four-year social work degree must cover everything from casework to community development to law, so at present, trauma is touched on rather than taught in depth.

Outcomes from the research workshop showed what’s possible. Two shifts stood out in the feedback from the participants.

First, they began reinterpreting “difficult” client behaviour – mistrust, withdrawal, apparent resistance – as survival responses to adversity rather than defiance. Understanding behaviour produces better decisions and is also less draining for the social worker.

Second, the training gave them permission to name their own trauma. One participant said:

It’s as if I don’t feel so alone anymore.

Another, who had left the profession, admitted:

It broke me.

Trauma-informed supervision should be treated as a formal professional competency, not something assumed to arrive with seniority. And employers – government and NGOs – should build routine spaces for debriefing and peer support.

Supervision protects those already in practice; education prepares those who are coming. Neither is sufficient on its own.

– Social workers who protect children in South Africa carry a burden of trauma – better preparation could help
– https://theconversation.com/social-workers-who-protect-children-in-south-africa-carry-a-burden-of-trauma-better-preparation-could-help-290369

September 15, 2026

HRC63 Sessions: Qatar Emphasizes Role of Education in Advancing Human Rights

Source: Government of Qatar

HRC63 Sessions: Qatar Emphasizes Role of Education in Advancing Human Rights

Geneva, September 15, 2026

The State of Qatar has emphasized education and training as key pillars in promoting and protecting human rights, saying the approach is particularly important amid today’s global challenges.

Addressing a high-level panel marking the 15th anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training, Qatar said current global challenges required solutions rooted in human rights and respect for human dignity.

The statement was delivered by Second Secretary at Qatar’s Permanent Mission to the UN Office in Geneva Abdulaziz Al Mansoori during the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Qatar said it had placed significant emphasis on human rights education and training through awareness initiatives and by incorporating human rights principles into school curricula and formal and informal training programs.

It also highlighted the establishment of specialized human rights departments within several government agencies.

The Qatari delegation pointed to the role of the UN Training and Documentation Centre for South-West Asia and the Arab Region, based in Doha, in providing training, building capacity and promoting international human rights standards across the region.

Al Mansoori also called for national, cultural and religious particularities to be considered when promoting human rights education.

The diversity of cultures and societies should be viewed as an opportunity to exchange good practices and strengthen human rights principles, rather than imposing concepts or practices that lack broad agreement, he said.

Such an approach, Qatar argued, would provide a stronger basis for upholding the universality of human rights.

September 15, 2026

CGE calls for urgent safety measures for women

Source: Government of South Africa

CGE calls for urgent safety measures for women

The Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) has called for urgent safety measures in areas where the bodies of seven women have been discovered in Gauteng, over the past two months.

This comes after latest discoveries were made on Tuesday (15 September, 2026) when police found the body of a woman in a river in Gauteng. The body was partially decomposed, and the victim was partially naked.

Earlier on Tuesday, police found another woman’s body on the side of a road in KwaThema, Springs. The woman was found fully naked and in an advanced state of decomposition.

The two discoveries bring to seven the number of women whose bodies have been found in and around Kempton Park, Olifantsfontein and along the R21 highway over the past two months.

Among the victims is runner Elizabeth Moselakgomo, whose body was identified on Monday.

In a statement, the CGE said the State has a responsibility to create conditions in which women could participate equally and freely in public life, including being able to move through public spaces without fear of violence.

“A society in which women have to avoid certain roads, stop exercising outdoors, change their working hours, travel only in groups, or constantly share their location to feel safe, is not a society in which women enjoy substantive equality,” CGE spokesperson Javu Baloyi said.

He said women should be able to run, walk to work, use public transport, return home, visit friends and participate in community life without having to assess whether an ordinary activity could place their lives at risk.

The Commission said the deaths highlighted the extent to which women in South Africa continued to face environments where their ordinary freedom of movement can become a matter of life and death.

The CGE stressed that women should not have to be killed before an area receives heightened attention from authorities.

It called for the affected locations in Kempton Park to undergo an urgent safety audit involving the South African Police Service (SAPS), the municipality, transport authorities and community safety structures.

The audit should assess factors that may increase risks to women and other members of the public, including street lighting, surveillance, pedestrian routes, public transport points, vacant or poorly monitored spaces, police visibility and access to emergency assistance.

“This should include consideration of lighting, surveillance, pedestrian routes, public transport points, vacant or poorly monitored spaces, police visibility and the accessibility of emergency assistance,” Baloyi said.

The Commission also called on residents of Kempton Park to work with police and provide any information that could assist investigators in identifying those responsible for the killings.

The CGE extended its condolences to the families of the women who have died and urged authorities to strengthen preventative measures alongside efforts to investigate and prosecute those responsible.

The Commission said ensuring women’s constitutional right to equality required safer public spaces and conditions that allowed women to exercise their freedom of movement without fear.

GBV demands a societal response

Meanwhile, the Department of Social Development – at both national and provincial level, have condemned the “callous, cowardly and utterly reprehensible” acts of violence against women.

The department said Gender-based violence is not a women’s issue, but a societal issue that demands a societal response.

“The loss of seven lives – mothers, daughters, sisters and members of our communities – is not merely a tragedy. It is an emergency. It is an emergency that demands the full force of government, civil society and every person in our communities to stand up, speak out and act,” the department said.

Social Development Minister Dina Pule and Gauteng MEC for Social Development, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko, will this afternoon visit the residence of Moselakgomo to provide psychosocial support to the bereaved families, and ensure that the healing and care they need is available and accessible.

Department also confirmed that it is an active member of the Rapid Response Team convened to coordinate government’s urgent response to the murders. The team includes SAPS, the City of Ekurhuleni and Community Safety Department, and is focused on ensuring a swift, coordinated and victim-centred government response. – SAnews.gov.za

GabiK
Tue, 09/15/2026 – 15:21

September 15, 2026

Somalia: Holding the line in Baidoa: Major Fikadu’s fight for Somalia’s stability

Source: APO

Major Fikadu Jifar Siyum is a seasoned military officer serving with the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM). He joined the Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) to defend his country from external aggression, a commitment that he now carries beyond his country’s borders.

With over two decades of dedicated service, he now holds a dual role in the mission as Quick Reaction Force (QRF) commander and Checkpoint commander for AUSSOM Sector 3 troops in Baidoa, South West State. His work is vital in supporting peace efforts and stability in the region.

Maj. Fikadu leads his QRF team while managing one of the busiest main checkpoints, securing the AUSSOM camp and Baidoa’s main airport. The work is constant and demanding – manning a security checkpoint that carefully screens vehicles, people, and luggage. Through this process, he helps ensure the safety of passengers, African Union troops and United Nations staff. His role also involves monitoring movements, conducting patrols, and responding swiftly to emerging threats.

“One of my main duties is to control the checkpoint to ensure security,” Maj. Fikadu explained. “We also conduct patrols and undertake quick missions when needed.”

But maintaining peace and security in this mission is not an individual effort. Major Fikadu works closely with the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) Explosive Detection Dog (EDD) unit in checking vehicles and screening luggage to enhance the Protection of Civilians and create a conducive, safe and secure environment for Humanitarian Assistance in the South West State.

He leads the regular collaboration with the Somali Security Forces (SSF), including the military and police, through joint engagements. These partnerships are essential for operational success and building trust.

“I am happy to ensure that peace continues to be realised. We have achieved that for the community. Our desire for a peaceful and stable Somalia is what motivates me,” he said.

His time on the mission has also reshaped how he views Somalia and its future. Beyond the challenges, he sees immense potential.

“Somalis have abundant resources and a rich culture. If they can achieve peace, they will progress. The main lesson is that with peace, the potential for this country is massive,” Maj. Fikadu added.

That belief is reinforced by the tangible impact his work has had. From providing security escorts for government officials to enabling safer movement across regions, his unit plays a key role in maintaining stability. They also support vulnerable members of the community and foster positive relationships with residents.

“We have established good community relations. The community appreciates our presence,” Maj. Fikadu said.

One of the most persistent challenges comes at the checkpoint itself, where enforcing security protocols can meet resistance.

“Many people, both civilians and even some security officers, refuse to comply with inspection rules,” he explained. “We have to remain patient, explain the importance, and still ensure safety.”

Environmental conditions add to another layer of difficulty. Seasonal flooding, particularly during El Niño rains, can disrupt operations and strain resources. Despite this, Maj. Fikadu emphasises resilience.

“We must constantly monitor and motivate the troops to operate in such harsh conditions. We must persevere and endure,” he said.

For Maj. Fikadu, the mission is not only about enforcing peace and order, but also about maintaining it through persistence and patience.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM).

Media files

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September 15, 2026

The air support behind Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Source: APO

On-the-ground presence is the essence of an effective health emergency response. Equally vital is the ability to deploy frontline teams, medicines and essential supplies to the communities that need them most. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ebola response, the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) is providing that critical link, delivering responders and lifesaving cargo to the frontlines of the response.

Since the declaration of the outbreak, response efforts have been intensified and scaled up, including air operations, to meet the demands of the response. Bunia, the capital of Ituri Province, which previously operated three flights per week, is now connected to the capital Kinshasa by five regular weekly rotations. In addition, dedicated Ebola response flights serve several affected areas, including Beni, Isiro, Buta and Kisangani towns, in addition to special flights to meet operational needs.

Every day, UNHAS teams adapt to meet the needs as the response operations have expanded. At the same time health measures have been strengthened to ensure safety. “Our work does not begin at take-off. From four o’clock in the morning, we check safety, fuel and aircraft disinfection. Passengers go through several checkpoints before boarding,” Says Daniel Honne Guissil, Ebola operations coordinator in Bunia.

To meet the growing demand, the team has been reinforced, increasing from three station managers to eight staff members, while the number of handlers rose from 14 to 30. Pilots, co-pilots, flight attendants, logisticians, handlers, airfield operations staff and ground personnel all ensure a vital mission: connecting affected areas, transporting response teams, delivering medical supplies and maintaining the logistical flow essential for a rapid and effective response.

“The contribution of UNHAS is invaluable. More than logistical support, it is a pillar of the response, linking almost all affected provinces,” notes Dr Steve Ahuka, Incident Manager of the Presidential Task Force on the Ebola response. For him, every pilot, handler or baggage operator is a frontline responder, just like doctors, epidemiologists or hygienists working in Ebola treatment centres.

“UNHAS supports the response across multiple hotspots from Bunia. Without this support, interventions would be delayed and ultimately ineffective,” he adds.

Most personnel, equipment and medicines destined for Ituri depart from the capital Kinshasa, located about 1800 kilometres by air from Bunia and nearly 3000 kilometres by road. By air, the journey takes just two-and-a half hours. Reaching Bunia by other means takes weeks: four days by road to Kisangani then by river to Kinshasa that can take between 10 and 20 days.

Humanitarian flights are the fastest and safest way to deploy responders and equipment needed for case detection and patient care. “Without UNHAS, this response would not have been possible. It is truly a critical partner,” says Dr Thierno Balde, WHO Incident Manager for the Ebola response, pointing out that Ituri, the epicenter of the outbreak, is the starting point for operations to North Kivu, Tshopo, Haut-Uélé and Bas-Uélé provinces. “When the first cases were reported in Kisangani, the very next day, UNHAS mobilized a special flight, enabling us to support the response in Tshopo. That is an important example of its value.”

As of 9 September, 2026, in Ituri Province, UNHAS had carried out 876 flights, transported 6918 passengers and delivered over 100 tonnes of cargo. Behind these numbers lies the expertise, resilience and commitment of an entire team maintaining a vital air bridge between coordination centres, affected health zones and Ebola treatment facilities.

“Without the UNHAS air bridge no progress would have been possible to date. From the earliest hours of the response, they have stood with us alongside affected communities,” says Dr Anne Ancia, Acting WHO Representative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “The heroes of this response are not only doctors and community mobilizers. UNHAS personnel are also our heroes.”

At the Bunia base, infection prevention measures are strict: aircraft and baggage disinfection, use of personal protective equipment, and quarantine for contacts. The risk of infection is real, but the ground and air teams remain determined. “We are not direct health workers, but without us there would be no medicines or medical staff on the ground. We are proud to be part of the chain that saves lives,” says Guissil.

For the teams, each take-off is a battle won against time and against Ebola. “We’re still saving lives, of course,” Guissil says.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of WHO Regional Office for Africa.

Media files

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September 15, 2026

Green hydrogen a key cog in SA’s industrialisation

Source: Government of South Africa

Green hydrogen a key cog in SA’s industrialisation

Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau says government views green hydrogen as part of a broader industrialisation agenda.

Tau was speaking at the Africa Green Hydrogen Summit currently taking place in Cape Town, Western Cape.

According to Tau, hydrogen is one of the tools together with sustainable aviation fuel, green chemicals and green shipping fuels, advanced manufacturing and new export industries, that will catalyse South Africa’s reindustrialisation.

“These are the opportunities that matter. These are the industries that will determine South Africa’s competitiveness in the decades ahead. Our ambition is clear. We must export more value and less raw potential. We must move up the value chain. We must become producers, not merely providers of resources,” Tau said on Tuesday.

He added that through the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET-IP) programme management office at the Industrial Development Corporation, government has identified 24 strategic integrated projects, several already through pre-feasibility, backed by 40 million euros from Germany’s Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) Development Bank.

“In August, Climate Fund Managers closed the first R3 billion of the South Africa Green Hydrogen Fund, anchored by the European Commission through the Global Gateway commitment secured with the European Union at last year’s G20.

“That same Global Gateway has put a further R628 million in grants on the table directly. R490 million to leverage hydrogen infrastructure investment, projected to mobilise R10 billion more, and R138 million to help Transnet green its own operations,” the Minister explained.

He further pointed out that South Africa’s industrial transition pathways point to tens of thousands of additional jobs and billions of rand in economic activity over the years ahead.

“I have continuously stressed the need for us to work as a region to build this prosperity. Through platforms such as the Africa Green Hydrogen Alliance, we are strengthening cooperation across the continent, because no single African country will build this economy alone, but together we can build a scale that makes Africa’s offer to the world impossible to ignore,” he said.

Tau revealed that through the Critical Infrastructure Programme Fund, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) is supporting Hive Hydrogen in developing South Africa’s lighthouse Green Hydrogen project, the Coega Green Ammonia Project.

“This will not only benefit the region but will also contribute to the broader economic landscape of South Africa. This funding announcement today is particularly significant as it practically puts in motion the Decarbonisation pillar of our Industrial Development Strategy.

“Hive Hydrogen concludes financial due diligence, unlocking R12.5 million of R25 million project development funding with a further funding application for R25 million to be submitted at financial close,” he said. – SAnews.gov.za

Edwin
Tue, 09/15/2026 – 14:47

September 15, 2026

NW Treasury intensifies support to Tswaing Municipality

Source: Government of South Africa

NW Treasury intensifies support to Tswaing Municipality

The North West Provincial Treasury has intensified its financial governance support to the Tswaing Local Municipality as part of ongoing interventions to strengthen the municipality’s financial position, compliance and capacity to deliver sustainable services to communities.

During the provincial government’s Thuntsha Lerole Accelerated Service Delivery Programme in Ga-Khunwana, Treasury held a technical working session with Tswaing Local Municipality officials and the Provincial Executive Representative.

The engagement assessed progress on key financial governance and compliance matters affecting the municipality, including the reconciliation of outstanding debt owed by organs of State, with a particular focus on Section 21 schools.

The session also reviewed the municipality’s progress in cleansing its financial data to improve the credibility and reliability of its financial information, compliance with Section 71 and Municipal Standard Chart of Accounts (mSCOA) reporting requirements, and measures to address unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

Officials further considered the municipality’s progress in responding to Section 216 enquiries as part of broader efforts to strengthen financial governance and restore compliance with applicable local government financial prescripts.

Head of Department Ndlela Kunene said Tswaing is among the municipalities affected by National Treasury’s intervention relating to the withholding of the July 2026 Local Government Equitable Share allocation.

READ | North West welcomes release of withheld equitable share funds

He said the intervention requires affected municipalities to address identified financial-management and compliance deficiencies and provide evidence of corrective action.

“Financial-governance intervention recognises that sustainable municipal service delivery depends not only on addressing immediate service-delivery challenges, but also on strengthening the financial and administrative systems that enable municipalities to plan, fund and maintain those services.

“The Provincial Treasury’s intervention complements these community-facing activities by addressing financial governance matters that affect the municipality’s institutional capacity to deliver and sustain services,” Kunene said.

Thuntsha Lerole is a provincial flagship programme aimed at accelerating the delivery of essential services, particularly in underserved and rural communities, through an integrated, responsive and people-centred approach rooted in the Batho Pele principles. – SAnews.gov.za

GabiK
Tue, 09/15/2026 – 14:22

September 15, 2026

National Wills Week launched in Mpumalanga

Source: Government of South Africa

National Wills Week launched in Mpumalanga

Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Mmamoloko Kubayi, has launched National Wills Week in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga.

National Wills Week is observed annually in September and the public with information on the importance of having a valid Will and assistance with drafting one.

The campaign also raises awareness of available legal services and promotes access to support from legal practitioners.

“Wills Week starts this week. That means that every person in South Africa is able to go to our offices and participating lawyers’ offices and companies to help them make their wills.

“Someone asked me why, if they only have an RDP house, do they have to have a will. It is very important because when you have passed on, some family members may come and remove your children from the house.

“Even as public servants…we must have wills. It will also help those of us who are in polygamous marriages. As a man, when you know that you have multiple wives, you must set out how they are taken care of when you have passed. So, everyone must have a will. So that when you’ve passed on, your children can benefit,” the minister noted.

She acknowledged that in some cultures, the topic of death is taboo.

“I know that in our cultures, talking about death is a difficult thing. But we have seen the problems that people face so it is time for us to speak about it. Protect the people that you love while you are still alive. Protect your children while you are alive,” Kubayi stated.

According to the department, the initiative forms part of government’s “broader efforts to improve access to justice, particularly for communities that may not ordinarily be able to access private legal assistance”.

“It also creates awareness of the role of the Master of the High Court in the administration of deceased estates.

“Service desks will be established at Master of the High Court offices across all provinces, with support from legal practitioners and private-practice attorneys.

“Members of the public will receive free assistance to draft Wills, helping to ensure that their estates are administered in accordance with their wishes after death,” the department said in a statement. – SAnews.gov.za

NeoB
Tue, 09/15/2026 – 13:52

September 15, 2026

President Ramaphosa announces first wave of green hydrogen projects

Source: Government of South Africa

President Ramaphosa announces first wave of green hydrogen projects

President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced the first wave of six priority green hydrogen projects under South Africa’s national green hydrogen programme, signalling a shift from project planning to implementation and investment.

Addressing the African Green Hydrogen Summit in Cape Town on Tuesday, President Ramaphosa said the six projects emerged from a rigorous assessment process aimed at standardising project bankability and strengthening investor confidence.

The President’s address was delivered on his behalf by Electricity and Energy Minister, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.

Leading the first wave was the Phelan Green Group electro-Sustainable Aviation Fuel project in Saldanha Bay, which has reached final investment decision after securing an off-take agreement and a $100 million equity commitment.

Construction is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2027, with the first exports of electro-Sustainable Aviation Fuel targeted for the first quarter of 2029.

“This is an important milestone. As the World Economic Forum noted earlier this year, “the real bottleneck in scaling clean hydrogen is demand, not technology”. Scaling therefore rests on securing long-term offtake agreements.

“This project gives practical meaning to the challenge we made at last year’s Summit: an investment decision has been taken, equity committed, major equipment ordered and a defined route to construction established. What follows is production and offtakers,” President Ramaphosa said.

As a managed priority portfolio, the President said the first wave concentrates project preparation, investment mobilisation and government coordination on credible projects with defined milestones.

The remaining five projects in the first wave span key areas of the green hydrogen value chain.

The Coega Green Ammonia Project in the Eastern Cape has completed early preparatory work but requires further commercial, technical and financing work before reaching final investment decision.

The Saldanha Hydrogen Direct Reduced Iron Project on the West Coast is at pre-feasibility stage and will link green hydrogen to lower-emissions iron and steel production.

The Prieska Power Reserve in the Northern Cape is a green ammonia project targeting the domestic market and is currently at development stage.

The Green e-Fuels Producers Green Methanol Corridor is at pre-feasibility stage and is targeting European demand, while the Green Hydrogen Solutions Project, focused primarily on South African demand, has completed front-end engineering design.

“By designating these as priorities, government and its partners now have a mechanism to help the remaining five projects reach final investment decision, construction and production. A second wave of projects will follow, bringing further credible projects into the portfolio,” President Ramaphosa said.

The President said Africa has an opportunity to become a major global hub for green hydrogen, supported by its abundant renewable energy and water resources and reserves of critical minerals.

However, he warned that the continent should not remain merely a supplier of renewable energy, minerals or hydrogen molecules.

“Africa must participate across the value chain as owner, manufacturer, technology partner, producer and market.”

He said the green hydrogen economy must contribute to Africa’s industrialisation through areas such as fertiliser production, green iron and steel, sustainable fuels, equipment, engineering and related services.

The President noted that the development of the green hydrogen economy will be aided by the African Continental Free Trade Area, which will open larger markets and enable seamless regional value chains.

“The green hydrogen economy must harness African talent and capacity for innovation while expanding local procurement, manufacturing, employment and skills transfer. It must sustainably support continental energy transition and decarbonisation. It must involve communities as stakeholders, not passive bystanders,” the President said.

The President also called on technology partners to establish manufacturing, training and research capacity on the continent, warning that Africa should not simply be seen as a market for imported equipment.

“African nations must step up practical cooperation on standards, certification, infrastructure corridors and project preparation, including through the Africa Green Hydrogen Alliance. While we continue to work with our BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and European partners to diversify financing, African development finance institutions must be at the forefront,” President Ramaphosa said.

African development finance institutions, he said, should increase project-preparation funding and provide financing instruments suited to the risks associated with first-of-a-kind projects.

He also called on prospective buyers to convert non-binding expressions of interest into credible, long-term offtake agreements capable of supporting project finance.

“Since last year’s Summit, we have moved from an undifferentiated pipeline to a managed priority portfolio. This demonstrates that with partner support, public and private financing and proper planning, African nations can move from a concept on paper to projects in development,” the President said. – SAnews.gov.za

GabiK
Tue, 09/15/2026 – 13:21