E-mail with unreliable statistics
Noting that some journalists are still being misled by a false e-mail, despite reports in the City Press and the Star explaining its origins, GCIS would like to clarify the matter.
Noting that some journalists are still being misled by a false e-mail, despite reports in the City Press and the Star explaining its origins, GCIS would like to clarify the matter.
The Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) will be holding media briefings for Ministers from 7 to 11 February 2000 at the Tuynhuis Goodhope Auditorium, Cape Town. While GCIS, as it did in June 1999, takes responsibility only for briefings by the executive arm of government, other organs of government and political parties represented in Parliament are welcome to use the opportunity, where there are vacant slots, to brief the media.
History will be made in Tombo, near Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape, when the first one-stop government service centre is launched on Thursday, 9 December 1999.
The intersectoral initiative, supported by President Thabo Mbeki, will bring integrated services of the government to the Kei District where communities need them most.
In November last year, Cabinet announced its preferred suppliers for the procurement of defence equipment for the SANDF.
The InterMinisterial Committee on Disaster Management, chaired by the Minister for Provincial and Local Government, met today to review progress in achieving readiness with regard to the Y2K phenomenon. As the remediation projects approach completion the focus is falling on the review of contingency plans and the testing of their suitability for Y2K.
The Inter-Ministerial Committee is pleased to announce that arrangements are in place for the inauguration of the new President of South Africa on 16 June 1999.
It is expected that numerous Heads of State will be attending this special event in our history. The formal inauguration ceremony will take place in the Amphitheatre of the Union Buildings on the morning of 16 June 1999.
In response to media queries, the GCIS wishes to clarify the main issues pertaining to its recent campaign.
1. What was the outcome of the meeting between opposition parties and Cabinet on 31 March 1999?
Background
It is normal practice in most democracies that, during an election period, particular attention is paid to ensuring that government communication structures and officers do not act in a way that advantages or disadvantages participants in the electoral contest.
Government Communications (GCIS) rejects in the strongest terms the allegation by some parties that the insert in newspapers about the implementation of government programmes constitutes ANC propaganda.
Today will be recorded in history as the day on which the former South African Communication Service (SACS) - the information machine of the former apartheid government - was buried. In its wake, a new Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) will be born when Dr Essop Pahad, Deputy Minister in the Office of the Deputy President, rises in Parliament for the Communications Budget Vote.