For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Lumkile Nkomfe.

Making headlines: Paul Mashatile launches anti-GBV campaign; Eskom finalises technical breakthrough enabling it to extend deadline for meter conversions; And, Namibia to vote in toughest election yet for ruling party

Paul Mashatile launches anti-GBV campaign

Deputy President Paul Mashatile said today the fight against gender-based violence and femicide persists in South Africa and requires a full year of action, not just 16 days, as he gave the keynote speech at the opening of the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign in Rustenburg.

The campaign runs between November 25 and December 10, and this year’s theme is ‘30 Years of Advancing Collective Action to End Violence Against Women and Children’.

Mashatile pointed to the recent statistics, released by the Human Science Research Council and Statistics South Africa, which show that one in three women aged 16 and older has experienced physical violence, while one in five has been sexually abused.

Further, the HSRC’s first-ever GBV survey shows that more than 33% of South African women have experienced physical violence in their lifetime, while 9.8% have faced sexual violence. About 7.3-million women have experienced physical abuse, while 2.1-million have experienced sexual violations.

Eskom finalises technical breakthrough enabling it to extend deadline for meter conversions

State-owned utility Eskom notes that it, at the weekend, succeeded in a technological breakthrough enabling it to pre-create Key Change Tokens on its online vending system.

This meant that buyers with active meters, but who had not bought electricity in recent months, had been granted an extension to update their meters to be Key Revision Number 2-compliant beyond the November 24 deadline.

Buyers were required to have gone to their legal vending sites with their meter numbers to buy electricity before November 24. Once the meter was activated through the buying of electricity, the customer could then visit any of the Eskom sites to complete the conversion process.

By Sunday morning, however, more than a million prepaid meters under Eskom’s management had yet to be upgraded.

And, Namibia to vote in toughest election yet for ruling party

Namibians will vote on Wednesday in what is expected to be the most competitive election yet for the ruling SWAPO party, which has governed the Southern African nation for 34 years.

If SWAPO candidate Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah wins, she will become the country's first female president. A SWAPO loss would mean the first transition of power to a new party since Namibia gained independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990.

High unemployment, corruption allegations and inequality have eroded SWAPO's support, which fell to 56% in the 2019 presidential election from 87% in 2014. There are no reliable polls on how it might fare this time.

The frontrunner among 14 opposition candidates is Panduleni Itula, a former dentist who won 29% of votes in 2019 after splitting from SWAPO and now leads a new political party, the Independent Patriots for Change.

Namibians vote separately for members of Parliament and for the President, who needs more than 50% of votes to win.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

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