Land deal: 2nd head rolls, and other brief reports
* A second Mpumalanga Land Claims Commission (LCC) official, project manager, Linda Mbatha, has been suspended as part of the forensic investigation into a dodgy R72m land restitution scheme in the Badplaas valley. Mbatha\'s suspension follows that of his boss, regional LCC commissioner Nceba Nqana, after indications that the sales price of several farms was systematically inflated by local land speculators. News24
* Zimbabwe police have stopped evicting black farmers settled on formerly white-owned land after a court ordered the government to clarify the farmers status, according to the state-owned Sunday Mail newspaper. Business Day * Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete has produced documents to allay suspicion around her alleged use of travel vouchers for personal trips. Mbete instructed her personal assistant, Ina Wium, and senior legal adviser, Advocate Zuraya Adhikarie, to show the Sunday Times invoices and payment instructions in response to a report it published implicating Mbete in the parliamentary travel scam. Sunday Times * The former senior public prosecutor of Pietermaritzburg Magistrates Court has been convicted of fraud and corruption and sentenced in Durban Regional Court. Stanley Ngubane was sentenced to five years\' imprisonment three years of which were suspended for five years on condition he was not convicted of corruption during the suspension, said Clifford Marion, chief investigating officer of the KwaZulu-Natal Scorpions. News24 * The Road Accident Fund has reinstated its CE, Humphrey Kgomongwe, after discovering it would be too expensive to tackle him on charges of incompetence. The fund, officially accepted a self-imposed suspension from Kgomongwe on May 28 during an investigation against him for poor performance and an unauthorised private overseas trip. Sunday Times * The pharmaceutical firm Merck faces a new class-action lawsuit in Canada, filed on behalf of two people who suffered heart attacks after taking the company\'s pain medication Vioxx, which was taken off the market worldwide because of such risks, plaintiffs\' lawyers said. Business Report * The crimen injuria case against Laura Mpahlwa, councillor and 75-year-old mother of Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa, has been postponed in the Mthatha Magistrates Court in the Eastern Cape to October 28. Mpahlwa, and her co-acccused, Nomthetho Mkhizwana, were accused of verbally abusing Kholekile Mhlaba. The Herald