The DA will help fund the by-elections campaigns of rebel councillors who turned on the ANC in Tlokwe to oust the governing party’s mayor this week, City Press has learnt.

For more http://www.citypress.co.za

Johannesburg – Former president Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela, faces another tough battle against his family, who have called for an audit into the Mvezo Development Trust which he chairs.

The multimillion-rand trust, which is meant to benefit the Mandela family and rural people, generates money from international donors and is a shareholder in a R2bn media empowerment deal.

However the trust’s beneficiaries have accused Mandla of using it as his own personal bank account, reported the Sunday Times.

Details of the trust are so closely guarded that none of the trustees, apart from Mandla, know about its finances. Even documents lodged at the Competition Commission by the consortium Sekunjalo Independent Media, which is poised to buy out Independent News and Media, do not disclose the trust’s interests or its members.

Instead the documents describe Mandla as the “main trustee”.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a former trustee said: “He (Mandla) is an intimidating man… and no one in this community – apart from him – knows how much is in the trust’s account, where the money comes from and how it is being spent. No one has the courage to oppose or question his decisions.”

For more http://www.news24.com

A letter written by Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi to the Speaker of Parliament, Max Sisulu, suggests he may have lied about the Top Secret classification of his department’s Nkandlagate report.

City Press has obtained a copy of the letter to Sisulu, dated June 19, in which Nxesi states the Nkandla report was classified by a task team investigating the R20 million spent on President Jacob Zuma’s private residence.

In the letter, Nxesi tells Sisulu that the report could not be given to the Auditor-General or the Special Investigating Unit until it was declassified by “the authors”.

But Nxesi has since changed his tune after

State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele distanced himself from the report’s classification. Nxesi now admits it was he who classified the report top secret.

» Get 

CAPE TOWN – Child rights group Molo Songololo at the weekend said it is perturbed by the high levels of crimes committed against children in the Western Cape. The organisation believes young girls, in particular, are vulnerable to abuse and sexual assault. It said the most recent incident in which two young girls were raped in George once again highlights the scourge. Last week the 11 and 14-year-old were lured away from their homes to a bush where a man allegedly sexually assaulted them. Molo Songololo’s Patrick Solomons said crimes like these are of grave concern. “Girls from age of 10 upwards are pretty vulnerable. It is often people that they know who are the perpetrators and who commit sexual offences against them. This is a big challenge within the community.”  For more http://www.ewn.co.za