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Deputy Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Bernice Swarts, has called on households, businesses and institutions to support responsible e-waste management by ensuring that unwanted electronic equipment is taken to recognised collection and recycling facilities.

“Small electronic items may appear insignificant when discarded individually, but collectively they contribute to a rapidly growing waste stream. This year’s message, ‘Don’t bin it, bring it’, reminds us that electronic products should be returned to appropriate collection and recycling channels rather than thrown away with ordinary waste,” the Deputy Minister said on Wednesday.

Swarts made these remarks as South Africa joins the global community in commemorating International E-Waste Day, observed annually on 14 October to raise awareness on the growing challenge of electrical and electronic waste and the importance of responsible collection, recovery and recycling.

This year’s International E-Waste Day is commemorated under the theme “Fast Tech | Don’t bin it, bring it!”, placing the spotlight on small, inexpensive electronic products such as earphones, charging cables, adapters, electronic toys, mini fans and other everyday gadgets that are often discarded with general household waste instead of being recycled.

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment has encouraged all South Africans to recognise e-waste, return unwanted electronic products to appropriate collection points and support responsible recycling practices.

In South Africa, electronic waste remains a growing environmental challenge. The country generates more than 360 000 tonnes of e-waste annually, while only about 10% is estimated to be properly recycled. 

Improperly discarded electronic equipment can contain hazardous substances such as lead, mercury and cadmium, which may contaminate soil and water and pose risks to human health and the environment.

Through the implementation of the Extended Producer Responsibility Regulations, the department, together with producers of electrical and electronic equipment and Producer Responsibility Organisations, has rolled out an e-waste collection and recycling programme across all nine provinces, with particular focus on rural and peri-urban communities. 

The programme requires Producer Responsibility Organisations to work with municipalities, existing collectors, waste reclaimers and micro, small and medium enterprises to establish accessible collection points and strengthen the collection, recycling and recovery of electronic waste.

The Extended Producer Responsibility system also seeks to create sustainable economic opportunities for local enterprises and provides for support to young people, women and persons with disabilities participating in the waste economy. 

“Many of these interventions have targeted rural municipalities where access to specialised e-waste collection and recycling infrastructure remains limited. The programme aims to establish long-term recycling habits, improve awareness and create locally accessible collection systems.

“The department further reminds South Africans that the disposal of e-waste to landfill has been prohibited since August 2021, creating an important opportunity to divert electronic waste towards recycling and recovery operations,” the department said.

The Department continues to work with Producer Responsibility Organisations, municipalities and other partners to strengthen permanent e-waste collection infrastructure, public awareness programmes, local business participation and links to licensed recycling facilities.

“South Africa’s transition towards a circular economy will require greater recovery of valuable resources from waste, increased recycling, stronger public-private partnerships and greater participation by local enterprises and informal waste reclaimers,” the department added. –SAnews.gov.za

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Stronger public-private partnerships and blended finance are key to addressing South Africa’s infrastructure financing shortfall, says Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelane.

Simelane made the call during the Dialogue on Municipal Infrastructure Sustainable Inclusive Communities, co-hosted by the University of South Africa’s Graduate School of Business Leadership and the Department of Human Settlements in Midrand on Tuesday.

Convened under the theme: “Building Blocks of Democracy: The Human Settlements Journey towards Inclusive Integrated Living”, the dialogue sought to outline pathways from housing delivery to inclusive integrated living; explore how municipal infrastructure integration sustains settlements, and chart the next chapter of resilient and spatially just communities.

Simelane said South Africa is faced with a huge infrastructure financing shortfall, which is estimated at approximately R4 trillion.

She said strategic partnerships with commercial banks, including development finance institutions, pension funds, institutional investors and the private sector can help to mobilise additional investment and maximise the impact of limited public resources.

“The scale of South Africa’s housing demand and infrastructure requires us to move beyond traditional approaches to financing. The reality is that the State alone cannot afford the investment required. The solution lies in private sector partnerships and blended finance.” 

The Minister said sustainable housing delivery depends on the coordinated planning and provision of land, housing and bulk infrastructure, including water and sanitation services.

She warned that a housing project without adequate infrastructure is at risk of failing, while homes built far from employment opportunities and public transport can increase spatial inequality and households’ cost of living.

“We must move away from fragmented planning and ensure that our human settlements are integrated and situated closer to economic opportunities, transportation facilities, and social amenities,” the Minister said.

Simelane reiterated her call for provincial housing plans, including municipal integrated development plans, spatial development frameworks and infrastructure budgets to be aligned before construction begins.

She said a project should have a credible implementation pathway covering land acquisition, planning approvals, infrastructure connections, occupation and appropriate tenure arrangements.

“The institutions responsible for operating and maintaining each asset must be identified from the outset.”

During its Budget Vote in May, the Department of Human Settlements set a target of 25 186 serviced sites during the 2026/27 financial year, a priority Simelane said illustrates the relationship between land readiness, infrastructure, and housing delivery in expanding housing opportunities.

Simelane said a site becomes useful to a household when the services needed are in place and can be sustained.

“Serviced land also creates room for different forms of housing delivery, including opportunities for qualifying households to build incrementally. Its value depends on sound planning, suitable location and functioning municipal systems,” Simelane said.

Strengthening municipalities

Simelane underscored the importance of municipal capacity to accelerate delivery, citing shortages of engineers, planners, financial managers and project managers, as well as unstable leadership and weak procurement processes, as factors that could undermine progress.

She called for targeted technical support to address specific municipal constraints and build lasting institutional capacity.

Accountability, she said, must extend beyond tracking expenditure to measuring whether infrastructure is functioning, households are connected and completed housing developments are occupied.

The Minister said maintenance must also be prioritised to prevent service interruptions and costly repairs.

“When maintenance is deferred, households pay through service interruptions, damaged property and additional expenses. Businesses lose operating time. The municipality then faces repairs that are more costly than the maintenance it postponed.” 

The Minister also highlighted National Treasury’s Metro Trading Services Reform as an opportunity to strengthen the operational and financial performance of municipal water, sanitation, electricity and refuse removal services.

She said improvements in these services should support new housing developments and informal settlement upgrading, while ensuring the sustainability of existing communities. – SAnews.gov.za

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The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has welcomed the smooth start to the 2026 National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations, with no major irregularities reported on the first day.

The examinations commenced across the country on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, with candidates in all nine provinces sitting for Computer Applications Technology (CAT) Paper 1 Practical and various language papers. 

The department attributed the positive start to extensive preparations by national and provincial education departments to safeguard the integrity and credibility of the examinations. 

With the first day concluded without major reported disruptions, the department said it remained encouraged by initial reports from provinces and would continue monitoring the administration of the examinations to ensure that candidates complete the cycle under fair, secure and conducive conditions.

Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has extended her best wishes to the Class of 2026, urging candidates to approach their examinations with confidence, discipline and perseverance. 

“The commencement of the 2026 National Senior Certificate examinations is an important moment for our learners and the basic education sector. Every examination represents an opportunity for learners to demonstrate the knowledge and skills they have acquired over the years. 

“We encourage the Class of 2026 to approach each paper with confidence, remain focused and give their very best. As a nation, we have a collective responsibility to support our learners as they take this important step towards their futures,” Gwarube said.

Examinations continue 

Today candidates will write Information Technology Paper 1 Practical, alongside several language papers. 

These include Arabic, French, Italian, Mandarin, Modern Greek, Serbian, Spanish and Latin Second Additional Language Paper 1, as well as Portuguese Home Language, First Additional Language and Second Additional Language Paper 1.

The department said provincial education departments, examination officials, school management teams and educators remain central to ensuring that examination protocols are consistently implemented and that any emerging challenges are addressed promptly.

It also called on parents, guardians and communities to continue providing learners with emotional and practical support throughout the examination period.

A stable and encouraging environment, the department said, is essential to enabling candidates to perform to the best of their abilities.

READ | Matriculants urged to prioritise mental health this NSC exam period

As the examinations progress, the DBE will continue working with provincial education departments to monitor implementation, safeguard examination integrity and ensure that candidates have every opportunity to complete their examinations successfully.

The department wished all candidates well and reiterated its commitment to ensuring a credible and successful 2026 NSC examination cycle. – SAnews.gov.za

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The South African Police Service (SAPS) in the Western Cape has urged the public to purchase medication only from registered providers.

This is after the discovery of illegal medication being sold in Nyanga, Western Cape.

“SAPS in the Western Cape warns the public against buying medication from street vendors, as it is illegally sold, possibly expired, and could be hazardous to their health and wellbeing. 

“On Monday, members of Operation Prosper conducted foot patrols when they found a 38-year-old man in possession of, and illegally selling medication out of boxes at Nyanga Junction Transportation Hub. Upon closer inspection, it was found that some of the medicine was past its expiration date, which in and of itself poses a huge health risk and can be fatal if consumed,” police said in a social media post.

The suspect was subsequently arrested and, according to police, “could not state from where he obtained the medication”.

“The public is strongly urged to refrain from purchasing medicine from unregistered individuals and premises and is instead encouraged to obtain medication from pharmacies and authorized suppliers which operate from within a controlled environment.

“The suspect will appear in the Athlone Magistrate’s Court for contravening the Medicines Act once charged,” the police noted. – SAnews.gov.za

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Higher Education and Training Minister Buti Manamela says South African universities must rethink teaching and assessment to prepare graduates for a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence (AI), while strengthening the country’s capacity to develop and govern its own technologies.

The Minister noted that generative AI can assist to improve research, translation, administration and teaching. However, he pointed out that can also pose risks, including reproducing bias, generating fabricated evidence, deepen dependence on proprietary systems and encourage students to mistake a fluent answer for an understood argument.

“If a machine can produce a plausible essay in seconds, our response cannot be limited to finding a better machine to detect it,” the Minister said.

Manamela was delivering a keynote address at a national webinar held on Tuesday under the title: “The Intellectual Directions of Higher Education in South Africa”.

The webinar was convened by Nelson Mandela University, the University of the Free State, Rosebank International and Higher Education Media Services.

Manamela called for universities to rethink assessment methods to determine whether students can frame a worthwhile question, test evidence, make ethical judgements, work with others, and apply knowledge to an unfamiliar problem.

He said the country must build African capacity in AI through research infrastructure, open resources, African-language technologies, and trustworthy data, rather than becoming permanently dependent on technological systems developed elsewhere.

“Digital transformation should not mean that our universities become permanent consumers of knowledge infrastructures designed elsewhere,” the Minister said.

Defining purpose

The Minister said the future of higher education requires an honest discussion about funding, access, institutional sustainability, and the purpose of universities.

While the National Student Financial Aid Scheme has expanded access to higher education, Manamela said its administrative weaknesses and the growing gap between financial commitments and available funding affect the sustainability of the entire system.

Manamela said student support and institutional funding cannot be treated as unrelated, warning that protecting access, while undermining the institutions that must educate students, will not secure meaningful access.

“If we protect institutional balance sheets by excluding capable young people, we have betrayed the public mission.

“The challenge is to build a settlement that is equitable, financially credible and administratively deliverable. That settlement also requires institutions to ask difficult questions about cost, differentiation and cooperation.

“South Africa does not need 26 copies of the same university, each competing to look like a particular international model. We need a connected system of distinct institutions, with different strengths and responsibilities, all committed to quality,” the Minister said.

While the ranking of institutions can provide useful information, Manamela said that cannot be the intellectual compass of the entire higher education system.

Advancing intellectual transformation

Manamela underscored the need to deepen intellectual transformation, saying that decolonisation is “neither a slogan for strategic plans nor a rejection of every idea originating elsewhere”.

“It is a disciplined interrogation of power in the production of knowledge: what has been treated as universal, what has been dismissed as local, who is permitted to theorise and who is expected only to supply experience. When African languages are absent from serious scholarship, we lose more than an opportunity to translate existing material,” Manamela said.

Multilingual teaching resources, scholarly vocabularies and digital tools can expand both access and intellectual possibility, he said.

“The same responsibility applies to climate, health, land, food, water and energy. The planetary crisis is not somewhere outside South Africa. It is present in our municipalities, farms, mines, coastlines and households.

“Universities should connect scientific, technical, social and indigenous knowledge to understand these challenges, while protecting the space to criticise prevailing economic and political arrangements.” 

The Minister also challenged universities to renew their public purpose by ensuring that their teaching and research moves beyond campus gates.

“A university located near communities experiencing water insecurity, unemployment, failing infrastructure or preventable disease should not be intellectually distant from those realities.”

The Minister further called for stronger partnerships between universities, technical and vocational education and training colleges, community colleges, employers, labour and civil society to strengthen pathways into work and support research and innovation. – SAnews.gov.za

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With the festive season approaching, the South African Police Service (SAPS) has launched its National Safer Festive Season campaign alongside the ongoing Operation Shanela to intensify crime-fighting efforts and strengthen police visibility.

The Safer Festive Season campaign was launched in Mpumalanga on Monday.

In the past week alone, Operation Shanela resulted in the arrest of 16 380 suspects for various offences. They included 2 165 wanted suspects linked to violent crimes who were traced and apprehended across several provinces.

As part of efforts to combat gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF), in line with the Presidential Four-Point Plan, 169 suspects were arrested for rape, 155 for murder and 140 for attempted murder.

Police also recovered and removed 164 illegal firearms from circulation, while a further 17 277 rounds of ammunition and 760 dangerous weapons were confiscated during the reporting period.

Intelligence-driven operations targeting drug manufacturing and distribution have also been intensified.

“Law enforcement agencies continue to intensify intelligence-driven operations aimed at dismantling organised criminal networks and disrupting the manufacture and distribution of illicit drugs across the country.

“During the reporting period, 3 373 suspects were arrested for possession of drugs, while a further 275 were arrested for dealing in drugs,” police said in a statement.

On 6 October 2026, police dealt a significant blow to drug manufacturing operations when they discovered a multi-million-rand mandrax laboratory in Hartbeespoort, North West.

A 39-year-old Zimbabwean national and three women were arrested.

Two days later, on 8 October 2026, law enforcement agencies uncovered another multi-million-rand drug laboratory on a farm in Krugersdorp, Gauteng.

Five South African nationals were arrested, and mandrax and ecstasy tablets were seized.

“In a separate intelligence-driven operation in Hout Bay, Western Cape, three suspects were arrested after police discovered 172 000 mandrax tablets, valued at approximately R10 million, concealed in a false compartment of a vehicle,” police said.

Meanwhile, SAPS, working closely with the Department of Home Affairs, arrested 1 647 undocumented foreign nationals.

A further 30 people were arrested in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng for offences including public violence, unlawful gatherings, obstruction and resisting arrest.

“Police will maintain heightened visibility in identified hotspot areas to prevent crime, enforce the law and maintain public order.

“These arrests and recoveries demonstrate SAPS’s continued commitment to disrupting criminal networks, tracing wanted suspects and removing illegal firearms and drugs from circulation through intelligence-led policing and coordinated law enforcement operations nationwide,” police said.

Other arrests included:

• Assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH) – 1 700;
• Common assault – 998;
• Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs – 661;
• Illegal dealing in liquor – 612;
• Possession of a dangerous weapon – 517;
• Malicious damage to property – 364;
• Contravention of the Firearms Control Act – 100;
• Illegal possession of firearms – 88;
• Illicit mining – 47;
• Possession of illegal cigarettes – 41; and
• Human trafficking – 14.

Key confiscations and recoveries included:

• 18 807 litres of liquor confiscated;
• 48 hijacked or stolen vehicles recovered; and
• Various types of drugs confiscated.

– SAnews.gov.za

 

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Government’s commitment to localisation, transformation and transitioning to new energy vehicles (NEVs) has taken centre stage at the opening session of the South African Auto Week in Durban.

In his opening address at the three-day event, Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic) Minister Parks Tau outlined government’s vision of moving the automotive sector towards a prosperous and sustainable future — one where transformation and competitiveness do not exist in tension. 

“An industry that draws on all of its people, and on a broad and capable supplier base, is a stronger industry. 

“It is more resilient to shocks, more responsive to its customers and more deeply rooted in the country that hosts it, and localisation is where transformation becomes real. 

“Every imported component that we learn to make here is an opportunity for a new supplier, a new investment and new jobs,” Tau said. 

South African Auto Week is a platform that facilitates high-level dialogue between industry leaders and government policymakers to shape regulatory frameworks, support local manufacturing and address sector challenges.

Tau told delegates that government is putting in place instruments to anchor the vision of transformation and localisation, and to ensure that emerging companies (owned by previously disadvantaged citizens) are not left behind in the transition to NEVs. 

“The transition to new energy vehicles is a chance to do things differently. Batteries, electric drive units, power electronics, thermal systems and charging equipment are new value chains. They are still being built. Black- and women-owned firms can enter them at the start, as owners and partners, rather than on the margins,” he said. 

He reasserted the significance of the current review of the Automotive Production and Development Programme 2 (APDP2). The programme is South Africa’s primary automotive industrial policy framework, launched on 1 July 2021, to succeed Phase 1 of the APDP, and guide the sector toward the South African Automotive Masterplan (SAAM 2035). 

“I have been clear that the programme must reward manufacturing in South Africa, not assembly alone, and must support component manufacturers.

“A 150% investment allowance now applies to qualifying investment in electric and hydrogen vehicle production.

“Through the Automotive Investment Scheme, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), the National Empowerment Fund (NEF) and our other development finance institutions, we will continue to support investment in the supplier base,” he said.

He admitted that there are challenges that continue to bedevil the sector. 

“Some component manufacturers, black-owned and otherwise, are under real pressure from imports, energy and logistics costs and weaker demand. Some have closed. We cannot speak about transformation without also speaking about keeping this base alive. 

“To this end, we are pursuing the Africa Automotive Pact through the Association for African Automotive Manufacturers (AAAM) and our partners in Egypt and Algeria. This mechanism will give life to the AfCFTA [African Continental Free Trade Area] and enhance our diversification agenda as we access new markets for growth,” Tau said.

In 2023, the South African automotive industry generated R270.8 billion in revenue from vehicle and component exports, representing a robust 19.1% growth compared to the previous year. Exports to African countries totalled 25 381 vehicles, signalling promising opportunities for further expansion under the AfCFTA. 

READ | Automotive stakeholders celebrate record exports

South African Auto Week is being held at the International Convention Centre in Durban, led by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa and the Automotive Business Council in conjunction with the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition. – SAnews.gov.za

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