August 15, 2025.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Lumkile Nkomfe.
Making headlines:
Ramaphosa opens National Convention, promises to keep dialogue costs lower than R740m
Cilliers Brink returns as DA’s candidate for Tshwane mayor
And, Trump administration weighing refugee cap of 40 000 with focus on white South Africans
President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the first sitting of the National Convention today, where he stated that owing to concerns around the budget of the National Dialogue, government will desist from hiring expensive hotels as venues, and instead encourage the use of schools, community halls and places of worship to keep costs down.
Ramaphosa was speaking in Pretoria, where he acknowledged that citizens do not want government to spend “too much money” on the conversations that will be held during the National Dialogue.
The budget of R740-million for the dialogue process is widely controversial and Ramaphosa stated that it can be done for much cheaper.
He thanked the University of South Africa which offered to host the first National Convention and provide associated goods and services free of charge.
He said dialogue is not a new phenomenon for South Africa, and he urged all South Africans to participate.
The Democratic Alliance on Friday announced as its candidate for Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink, ahead of the 2026 local government elections, as the party bemoaned budget deficits under the African National Congress and its coalition partners.
DA leader John Steenhuisen, speaking in Pretoria, stated that over the last decade, the City of Tshwane had gone from having a budget surplus of over R200-million to a budget deficit of more than R4-billion.
He said during Brink’s tenure as mayor, the city met the revenue targets in July, August and September of 2024.
Meanwhile, Brink accepted the party’s nomination and also placed blame on the ANC for various failures in the municipality.
Cilliers said over the next few months he wanted to engage with Tshwane residents, businesses, churches and civil society organisations for feedback on changes they wanted to see in the municipality.
US President Donald Trump’s administration is discussing a refugee admissions cap of around 40 000 for the coming year with a majority allocated to white South Africans, according to two US officials briefed on the matter and an internal refugee programme email, reflecting a major shift in the US approach to refugees.
Angie Salazar, the top refugee programme official at the US Department of Health and Human Services, told state-level refugee workers that she expected the cap to be 40 000, according to an email summary of an August 1 meeting.
The two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said some 30 000 of the 40 000 spaces would be devoted to Afrikaners, a largely Dutch-descended minority in South Africa that Trump has prioritised for resettlement.
Trump's focus on resettling Afrikaners could upend the precedent around the refugee programme, which for decades had bipartisan support.
There are 37-million refugees worldwide, according to a United Nations estimate.
That’s a roundup of news making headlines today
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