On Monday, South African non-profit organisations @OpenSecretsZA announced that they are under a sweeping gag order – a court had prevented them from publishing something and from disclosing anything – absolutely anything – about it
opensecrets.org.za/open-secrets-g… Open Secrets and their attorneys can’t say what it is that they can’t publish; they can’t say who brought the application for the gag order; they can’t say which court or judge issued the order; and they can’t say what the conditions of the order are.

[1/8] Electricity prices will rise by 18% this year even as Eskom plunges us into #Stage6loadshedding.

What’s going on? AmaBhungane’s @sajournalist explains why the crisis is likely to continue:

#Stage6loadshedding #Loadshedding [2/8] In December, Eskom ran out of money to buy diesel for the open cycle gas turbines which provide electricity when demand surges in the evenings.

Although it felt like a bad month – with only 46 hours where we DIDN’T have #loadshedding – it could have been a lot worse.

[Thread] The R280m Joburg ‘crime scene’: Okay, this is where things get interesting...

We know that the city of Joburg agreed to ‘gift’ 3ha of prime land to the Regiments Kgoro consortium, but who stood to benefit from the deal?

#Kgoro #CoJ #amaBhungane State capture kingpins Regiments Capital got 76.5%.

2% was given to Sipho Twala, businessman and brother-in-law of Parks Tau, the MMC of finance and economic development, and Joburg’s future mayor.

[Thread] A Twitter preview of @amaBhungane’s #Kgoro investigation:

In the middle of Sandton is a ‘crime scene’.

Stand on the rooftops of any of the big corporates – Alexander Forbes, EY, Werksmans – and you can see it: three hectares of prime land, hijacked from the city… In 2008 the City of Joburg agreed to sell the land above the Sandton Gautrain station to a politically-connected developer for R280m.

But the Regiments Kgoro Consortium, never paid the purchase price, the development never happened, and the project went into liquidation.

Our investigation into government's controversial emergency power tender, to plug the hole in Eskom’s electricity supply, has exposed several red flags linked to the tender process and to the preferred bidder #KarpowershipSA - a subsidiary of the Turkish Karadeniz Group. Among the issues exposed by @amaBhungane include allegations 'that nonsensical rules of the emergency power programme would force bidders to burn fossil fuels and result in consumers paying more than they need to for electricity' amabhungane.org/stories/210514…