The Amathole district municipality has approved a total operating budget of R1.8bn for the 2022/23 financial year, of which 43% is set aside for salaries.
A decision by the Mbhashe council to take its more than 50 councillors and some officials on a four-day policy workshop at ICC hotel in East London last month has ruffled feathers with opposition parties and the local business chamber questioning the move.
A contingent of heavily armed law enforcement officers accompanied six people facing multiple charges including cash-in-transit heists and the killing of a police officer who appeared in the Tsolo magistrate's court on Tuesday.
Law enforcement officials had their hands full early on Monday as an armed gang pounced on a cash van just hours after two people, including a municipal employee, were arrested for cash-in-transit heists.
Putuma When GroundUp visited Putuma Junior Secondary School in the Mbhashe municipality in 2013, there were 110 pupils in grade 9. The then deputy principal, Zukile Gana said 24 teachers and 1,175 pupils were enrolled. Some of the pupils were sitting on concrete building blocks. When we visited in April, deputy principal Thabisa Kalipa told GroundUp the children no longer sat on blocks.