September 26, 2014.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Schalk Burger.
Making headlines:

Parliament's portfolio committee on water and sanitation says infrastructure vandalism is concerning.

Boko Haram’s 'leader', who has allegedly been killed repeatedly, continues to threaten Nigeria.

Seifsa says Government would be ‘ill-advised’ to introduce carbon tax.

Parliament's portfolio committee on water and sanitation said the continuing vandalism and theft of water infrastructure in South Africa was concerning.

Chairperson Mlungisi Johnson said in a statement that the theft of cables at Palmiet pump station was highlighted as a main contributor towards the water shortages experienced within the Gauteng province this week.

Vandalism and theft of water supply infrastructure had reached a crisis level within the country and urgent action needed to be taken. This was because it denied people their basic right of access to quality water as well as putting pressure on budgets, as infrastructure had to be replaced and maintained.

The committee believed the problem was a societal one that required a collaborative effort by everyone in order to deal effectively with the problem.

Nigeria's Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, or a man claiming to be him, has been killed at least three times so far, according to the military, yet each time he apparently returns in the group's numerous jihadist videos.

Dead or alive, he appears to be fuelling violence which rights groups say is killing more people than at any time during Boko Haram's five-year-old reign of terror in the north of the state of 175-million people.

Officials say Shekau may be a name adopted by leaders of various wings of Boko Haram, raising the possibility the death of one may make others more amenable to negotiating an end to the fighting and release of 200 schoolgirls whose kidnap in April caused an international outcry.

The Islamist insurgents have killed thousands of people, many of them civilians, since launching an uprising in 2009, and abducted hundreds of children in a tactic reminiscent of Ugandan rebel Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army in central Africa.

Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa CEO Kaizer Nyatsumba said this week that, at a time when government should be doing “everything possible” to stimulate the South African economy, it would be “terribly ill-advised” to burden the economy further by introducing a carbon tax.

Commenting on a joint statement by the departments of Environmental Affairs and Trade and Industry that they were finalising an approach to carbon tax, Nyatsumba said the State appeared more concerned about “squeezing” the economy to generate more tax income than it was about its underperformance and the growing “army” of the unemployed.

He stated that it was inevitable that the introduction of a carbon tax would further stifle the economy and render South Africa even less internationally competitive.

Nyatsumba suggested that South Africa, whose economic outlook had recently been downgraded by ratings agencies and the World Economic Forum, needed to follow the example set by Australia earlier this year, when it repealed its carbon taxes.

Also making headlines:

Poor global coordination has bogged down Canada's efforts to deliver its Ebola vaccine to Africa, six weeks after Ottawa offered to make a donation to help fight the deadly outbreak.

President Jacob Zuma has signed the Legal Practice Bill into law after many years of discussions, negotiations and concessions.

Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene expressed confidence on Thursday in the new South African Revenue Service commissioner chosen by President Jacob Zuma.

And, the US, frustrated with slow progress in South Sudan's peace process, is ready to expand sanctions against political and military figures unless warring parties end the violence quickly.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.