March 08, 2024.

For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Halima Frost.

Making headlines:

Gordhan to retire after elections

ActionSA Limpopo chairperson jumps ship to MK Party

And, El Niño scorches Southern Africa with driest February on record

Gordhan to retire after elections

Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, will retire after this year's general elections on May 29.

Gordhan oversees State entities including struggling power utility Eskom and logistics firm Transnet, whose poor performances have dragged down economic growth in Africa's most industrialised economy.

An anti-apartheid veteran, he has been in politics since the beginning of South Africa's democracy and previously served as finance minister.

The Democratic Alliance says he leaves behind a trail of destruction in the State-owned enterprises sector.

Recently, Gordhan has faced criticism for not disclosing the sale agreements related to the South African Airways/Takatso deal.

ActionSA Limpopo chairperson jumps ship to MK Party

ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont said today that patronage politics has no place in ActionSA, as he announced the resignation of its Limpopo provincial chairperson Letsiri Phaahla and termination of his party membership.

This after the party learnt about Phaahla joining the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, associated with former President Jacob Zuma.

Beaumont said ActionSA leadership had received communication from Phaahla yesterday on his intent to resign, citing resource-related challenges.

However, Beaumont said that it was later found out that Phaahla had been negotiating his membership with the MK Party for some time.

He alleged that Phaahla was offered considerable financial inducement to join MK, according to “credible sources”. Beaumont said Phaahla’s move was an indictment on himself.

El Niño scorches Southern Africa with driest February on record

A swathe of Southern Africa suffered the driest February in decades that wiped out crops, precipitated power shortages and threatened to send already high food prices surging further.

Last month, large parts of Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe had the least rainfall — or close to it — since records began in 1981, early data from the University of California Santa Barbara’s Climate Hazards Center show.

The center based its preliminary appraisal mainly on satellite-based rainfall estimates, with a final assessment due next week that will include more rainfall gauge observations.

The dry spell, blamed on the El Niño weather phenomenon, is the latest indicator of how severely Africa is being impacted by extreme weather events that scientists say are becoming increasingly frequent and severe because of climate change — even though it produces far less global-warming gases than developed regions.

El Niño is mainly a seasonal phenomenon that makes extreme weather and climate events more likely, according to the World Meteorological Organization. The current event is one of the five strongest ever recorded, and has contributed to drier and warmer conditions in parts of southern Africa. Temperatures were 4 °C to 5 °C higher than the February average.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

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