March 12, 2014
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Natalie Greve.
Making headlines:

The ANC submits its provincial candidate lists to the Independent Electoral Commission.
Deputy President of South Africa Kgalema Motlanthe says his goodbyes to Parliament.
And, outgoing National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel says MPs should value the Constitution.

The African National Congress (or ANC) submitted its list of candidates for provincial legislatures and Parliament to the Electoral Commission of South Africa on Tuesday, secretary general Gwede Mantashe said.

All 19 lists, nine for provincial legislature, nine for province to national and one National Assembly list were submitted before the Wednesday deadline, he told reporters in Centurion, south of Pretoria.

The National Assembly consists of 400 members. Half the members are elected from the national list and the remaining 200 from the nine provincial to national lists.

A visibly emotional Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe bid farewell to MPs in the National Assembly on Tuesday. Motlanthe wiped tears from his face with a white handkerchief at the end of his farewell speech, which saw MPs giving the deputy president a standing ovation.

Motlanthe reflected on his rise to the presidency, which preceded an uncertain period in post-democratic South Africa.

He was promoted to president of the country in 2008, just months after being appointed minister without portfolio in the presidency.

Motlanthe will be retiring from government and Parliament this year after serving as deputy president of the country from 2009.
 

MPs should take their oath to the Constitution more seriously, National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel said in his "swan song" in the National Assembly on Tuesday.

Manuel will be retiring from government and Parliament this year, after he declined nomination for the African National Congress's national election list. Manuel singled out the adoption of the Constitution in 1996 – the same year he became finance minister – as the highlight of his 20-year tenure in government.

He said the preamble to the Constitution should be a reminder to MPs to raise the living standards of South Africans.

Manuel is one of the longest serving Cabinet ministers in post-apartheid South Africa, and reflected on the moment he was sworn in as an MP.

Also making headlines:

Eskom mulls the restart of some suspended savings schemes in the wake of load shedding.

The South African economy has grown by an average of 3.2% a year from 1994 to 2012, while the number of people employed increased by about 5.6-million, or 60%, between 1994 and 2013, President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday at the release of the Presidency’s 20-year review.

And, a friend of South African track star Oscar Pistorius says he had a row with a policeman who picked up his gun after pulling him over for speeding.
 

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.