This week's most bookmarked articles featured the latest investigative reporting about South Africa's vaccine procurement, the interim report on unfair discrimination among medical aids, and how to claim UIF for your domestic worker if you've never made payments.
1. LIVE: All the latest news about coronavirus in South Africa and the world
Follow our live updates to get rolling coverage of Covid-19 news, including the latest statistics, science and lockdown regulations.
Pre-eminent scientists unpacked, during a two-hour briefing, how newly discovered variants of the SARS-Cov-2 virus – which causes Covid-19 – impact our understanding of the virus. The new variant is up to 50% more transmissible because the mutated variants of the virus have changed in ways that make it easier to infect humans.
A recording of a phone call between a Pfizer employee and a businessman on 29 December 2020 reveals how Pfizer attempted to contact SA health officials "for months and months".
4. My domestic worker wants to claim UIF but I have never made a payment. What do I do?
It is possible to register your domestic worker and pay arrears to the UIF for the years that you have not paid over the UIF contributions and deductions. But as non-payment is an offence, the UIF will levy a 10% penalty on these back contributions. Find out more.
5. New rules for SA restaurants mean staff must get bonuses, weekly payments to wash clothes
From this week, restaurants and fast-food outlets face new rules for employee remuneration, including a new requirement to pay a December bonus and a range of new levies.
A panel has released a 330-page investigation report, after the Pretoria High Court struck down a GEMS urgent bid to interdict it from doing so. The panel found outcomes of fraud, waste and abuse investigations conducted by Discovery, GEMS and Medscheme between 2012 and 2019, "amount to unfair racial discrimination against black practitioners."
7. The big picture: How SA fumbled securing crucial Covid-19 vaccines
The national Department of Health has failed to ensure it engaged early and timeously with vaccine makers resulting in a delayed arrival of vaccines in the country, an analysis of key events show.
8. Regulatory approval for AstraZeneca vaccine could be delayed by more than 30 days
Government officials have yet to file an application for a key approval needed for the emergency use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, a delay that could see the importation and distribution of the vaccine set back by more than a month.
9. TAKE A LOOK | You can build a home using mobile pods for R100,000 per room
Pods that can be used as part of office, retail and housing solutions, are being produced in Pretoria.
10. EXCLUSIVE | It's who you know - ex-cops score big in Crime Intelligence PPE scandal
The dubious Covid-19 personal protective equipment (PPE) procurement scandal – the bedrock of a leadership purge in the police’s Crime Intelligence (CI) Division – saw more than R1.1 million channelled from a shadowy police slush fund to companies controlled by former cops.
