For Creamer Media's Polity, I'm Sabrina Jardin.

Making headlines: DA touts Bill to curb Ministerial perks, Ekurhuleni council to elect new mayor and, South Africa needs to expand 5% consistently to cut unemployment 

DA touts Bill to curb Ministerial perks

The Democratic Alliance introduced its Private Member’s Bill today, designed to stop what it calls President Cyril Ramaphosa's “dictatorial powers over the Ministerial Handbook”.

DA Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration Dr Leon Schreiber argues that, currently, there appears to be no legal framework to govern the Ministerial Handbook, which was recently thrown into controversy.

Schreiber says the lack of legal framework allowed Ramaphosa to expand the size of ministerial offices and exempt Ministers and Deputy Ministers from paying for water and electricity in April this year.

He added that as with all other presidential actions that cost taxpayers money, decisions about additional benefits must be made in a rational and transparent manner.

Ekurhuleni council to elect new mayor

Ekurhuleni councillors are expected to elect a new mayor today.

The Democratic Alliance's Tania Campbell was removed as mayor in a motion of no confidence last week.

The ANC claimed she had failed to provide proper service delivery to the city's residents, but the DA denied this, and its coalition council partners all came out in support of her.

Campbell will again be presented as the DA's mayoral candidate as the party said it believed she was best placed to continue the job she was forcefully removed from by the ANC.

South Africa needs to expand 5% consistently to cut unemployment 

Central bank Deputy Governor Rashad Cassim says South Africa’s economy needs to expand consistently at 5% for years to create jobs and lower an unemployment rate that’s among the world’s highest.

For an economy that expanded at an average rate of 1% in the past decade and is being buffeted by rolling electricity outages, labour unrest and transport bottlenecks, accelerating growth to 5% may be a challenge.

Cassim said going from a 1% economy to 3% isn’t “rocket science” for South Africa.

He said to get unemployment down, “we really need systematic 5% growth every year and that’s a different debate.”

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

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