Durban’s R980 million beachfront amusement park has secured funding for its development phase, with the eThekwini Municipality expecting the project to create over 1000 jobs during construction and operations.

The project is planned for the former Durban Funworld site, about two kilometres from uShaka Marine World.

“With funding approved, the development has completed its design stage, and technical planning work is under way. Statutory development work will follow and is expected to run to the end of the first quarter of 2027, with construction to follow,” the municipality said on Wednesday.

No construction start date has been announced.

The park is expected to introduce a permanent, ride-led family entertainment attraction to Durban’s beachfront, which has been without such a facility since Funworld closed.

“This approval is a critical step towards construction as it confirms institutional confidence,” the municipality said.

“The development finance institution has completed its assessment of the project and approved the funding. It also funds the statutory work and supports the detailed planning and technical aspects.”

The project has received national recognition after being selected by the National Department of Tourism through its 2026 call for projects as one of the key tourism infrastructure developments supported by the department.

The municipality submitted the amusement park as an investment-ready project, reflecting alignment with national tourism priorities.

It was also showcased at the South African Tourism Investment Summit.

“The development is expected to create about 1,400 jobs across construction and operations, with local small businesses built into the park’s supply chain,” the municipality said.

It said the Golden Mile already records more than 17 million promenade visits annually.

“The park is designed to give those visitors more reasons to stay longer, return more often and spend more in surrounding hotels, restaurants and other tourism businesses,” it said.

The park is set to feature multiple “world-class” rides, an extended reality and digital entertainment zone, curated retail offering, and an upgraded amphitheatre focused on events.

The development will operate under a long-term development lease with the municipality and form part of the central beach precinct.

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Five police officers stationed at Polokwane International Airport in Limpopo have each been granted R1,000 bail after appearing in the Polokwane Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday on charges of allegedly helping 46 undocumented Zimbabwean nationals evade arrest and immigration enforcement.

The officers face charges of defeating the ends of justice and contravening the Immigration Act following an incident in April 2025 in which the 46 foreign nationals allegedly disappeared while in police custody.

The accused are Makwela Emanuel Manamela, 49, Joyce Matlala, 48, Johannes Thole, 44, Congress Kwena Mothiba, 44, and Benjamin Chokoe, 51.

According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the offences fall under Schedule 1, and the State did not oppose the accused’s release on bail.

The matter was postponed to 30 November 2026 for further investigation.

The charges stem from an incident on 17 April 2025, when a traffic officer on routine patrol along the

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A 65-year-old woman was killed by a shark while swimming at Orient Beach in KuGompo City, formerly East London, on Tuesday morning.

Janine Lochrenberg was swimming in the sea during a group swim when she signalled that she was in distress. Fellow swimmers rushed to help her and brought her ashore, but attempts to save her life were unsuccessful.

The attack left her with severe bite wounds to her upper arm and thigh.

Eastern Cape police spokesperson Colonel Siphokazi Mawisa said officers were called to Orient Beach at about 7am and found the woman’s body with open wounds.

Police have opened an inquest at the KuGompo police station to investigate the circumstances of her death.

Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality ordered the immediate closure of Orient Beach and nearby Eastern Beach until further notice.

The municipality warned swimmers to stay out of the water at both beaches and said safety warnings had also been issued for other beaches in the area.

“Beachgoers are urged to exercise extreme caution and to refrain from entering the water at the affected beaches,” the municipality said.

Fellow swimmer Mike Loewe told the SABC that members of an open-water swimming group had responded when the woman signalled for help.

He said Lochrenberg was a recently retired nuclear radiographer and musician who enjoyed swimming in the ocean.

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The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) has provided firefighting equipment to six municipalities identified as being at high risk of fires as the province prepares for the summer disaster season.

Speaking in KwaMngomezulu Sportfield, Nkandla, on Tuesday, CoGTA MEC Thulasizwe Buthelezi said the department was implementing programmes aimed at improving people’s lives and strengthening disaster preparedness.

“This government, led by our honourable Premier Ntuli, carries the slogan of restoring hope to the people of KwaZulu-Natal, because year after year they were neglected until 2024, when they stated through their vote that they wanted change,” Buthelezi said.

He said the department’s repeated visits to Nkandla demonstrated its commitment to addressing the municipality’s developmental challenges and ensuring residents benefited from government programmes.

“We bring development that will change the situation in many households here in Nkandla, so that these communities, mayor, may also see

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ActionSA has challenged its coalition partner, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), to explain its role in Tshwane’s water crisis after the party announced plans to open a criminal case against mayor Nasiphi Moya and the city manager over the failure to chlorinate water in Bronkhorstspruit.

ActionSA accused the EFF of trying to distance itself from an administration in which it holds two mayoral committee positions, saying the party could not share power when things were going well and act as the opposition when a crisis hit.

“The EFF is entitled to demand accountability. What it cannot credibly do is pretend to be an opposition party in a government in which it serves,” ActionSA Tshwane caucus spokesperson Henriette Frohlich said on Tuesday.

The EFF’s treasurer-general and Tshwane mayoral candidate, Omphile Maotwe, announced plans to open a criminal case against Moya and the city manager at Bronkhorstspruit Police Station over the failure to chlorinate water at the treatment plant.

ActionSA questioned the timing of the move, accusing the EFF of using election campaign material featuring Maotwe and an appeal to vote for the party to promote the planned police action.

Frohlich said the EFF also had responsibilities within the administration, with its representatives overseeing the environment and agriculture management, and health portfolios.

She said these portfolios were relevant to the broader crisis, which involved sewage contamination in the Bronkhorstspruit River, public health concerns and the failure to warn residents about the risks associated with unsafe drinking water.

Frohlich also questioned the absence of the EFF’s two mayoral committee members from the mayor’s engagements with affected communities during the week, despite their departments continuing to contribute to the response.

“Residents are entitled to accountability from everyone entrusted with governing Tshwane, including the EFF,” Frohlich said.

“The EFF cannot have one foot in government and another on the opposition benches whenever political convenience demands it.”

The political dispute comes as the city faces scrutiny over the failure to chlorinate water supplied by the Bronkhorstspruit Water Treatment Works between September 24 and October 14.

Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina said a departmental investigation found that the plant had run out of chlorine following problems with its supplier.

The investigation also found that the city failed to warn residents that the water had not been chlorinated and should not be used for drinking, cooking, washing or bathing.

A total of 408 gastrointestinal illness cases were recorded between October 7 and 18, with children under four accounting for most cases. No deaths had been reported in the figures released by the minister.

The investigation also identified malfunctioning pumps, sand filters and other mechanical equipment at the treatment works.

Moya said the city had reached a deadlock in negotiations with its chlorine supplier after the company increased its prices. She promised consequence management against officials who failed to properly oversee the plant and alert city leadership to the chlorine shortage.

The mayor has also pushed back against criticism from former mayor Cilliers Brink over the city’s spending on water tankers and the refurbishment of the treatment plant.

Moya said the city spent about R20.8 million on refurbishment in the 2025/26 financial year, with R57 million approved for 2026/27 and another R30 million planned for 2027/28.

She disputed Brink’s claim that the city spent R777 million on water tankers in 2024/25, saying the figure included purchase orders for cancelled, duplicated or unprocessed transactions. She put actual expenditure on services delivered at about R441 million.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has separately opened a criminal case against the City of Tshwane over the water crisis and demanded the immediate release of water-quality test results.

ActionSA said the city’s chief operations officer had been tasked with investigating the chlorination failure and the delay in warning residents.

“Appropriate consequences must follow wherever negligence or misconduct is established,” Frohlich said.

She said the priority remained supplying safe alternative drinking water to affected communities and rehabilitating the treatment plant.

The EFF’s planned criminal case adds to the growing political dispute over accountability for the water crisis, with ActionSA insisting that responsibility must extend to parties serving in the coalition government.

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The South African Police Service (SAPS) on Tuesday opened the newly built Villa Nora Police Station in Limpopo’s Waterberg District to strengthen policing and improve access to safety and security in rural communities.

The station, which comprises park homes, will serve residents in the area and help address crime, including gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) and stock theft.

Speaking at the official opening, Deputy Police Minister Polly Boshielo said the facility marked an important improvement in policing services in the area.

“For many years, policing services in Villa Nora were provided from a residential house. While the members did their best to serve the community, the old premises were not designed to meet the needs of a police station,” Boshielo said.

Although the new facility is not a permanent brick-and-mortar structure, Boshielo said it provides dedicated premises for police officers to serve the community.

She officially opened

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A 27-year-old man remains missing after apparently trying to rescue a friend from rip currents at Alkantstrand Beach in Richards Bay, while another person’s body was recovered from nearby Pelican Island following a separate incident.

The City of uMhlathuze Municipality on Tuesday told residents and visitors to exercise extreme caution and adhere to beach-safety regulations following the incidents over the weekend.

ALSO READ: Rise Mzansi’s Mnguni warns Jozi could become unfixable without urgent intervention

According to the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI), its Richards Bay duty crew was activated at about 17:33 on Sunday, following eyewitness reports of two men in distress in the surf zone at Alkantstrand’s Main Beach.

“NSRI rescue swimmers, our NSRI rescue vehicle, the SA Police Service, Police Search and Rescue, uMhlathuze Fire and Rescue Services and Mounties EMS (Emergency Medical Services) responded,” the NSRI said.

NSRI Richards Bay station commander Norman Rautenbach said rescuers confirmed that a 26-year-old man had reached the shore safely, but his 27-year-old friend had disappeared after apparently being caught in rip currents.

An extensive search failed to locate the missing man.

“Police have opened an investigation,” the NSRI said.

“It appears that while swimming the 26-year-old may have been caught in rip currents when his friend reportedly tried to assist him, but he was then caught in the rip currents.”

Paramedics assessed the 26-year-old man at the scene, but he did not require further medical treatment.

Police Search and Rescue continued searching for the missing man.

In a separate incident, two members of the public reported a missing person at Pelican Island on Sunday morning.

ALSO READ: Bronkhorstspruit residents warned about unsafe water after 408 fall ill

“They indicated that the individual had gone missing the previous evening while they were at Pelican Island, which is a non-bathing beach,” the municipality said.

“Following the report, the individuals were advised to open a case with the relevant authorities, and patrols were planned, particularly during low tide.”

The municipality said the person’s body was found floating in the water at about 12:45 on Monday, and was recovered. The necessary procedures were subsequently followed.

The two incidents follow another fatal drowning in Richards Bay earlier this month.

On 4 October, a 28-year-old man was recovered from the water near the Bay Hall area. Emergency personnel attempted to resuscitate him, but he was declared dead at the scene, according to the NSRI.

The City of uMhlathuze extended its condolences to the families and loved ones affected by the incidents.

“Pelican Island is not a designated bathing beach and the public is urged to avoid entering the water when lifeguards are off duty,” it said.

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Four independent members of the Johannesburg Art Gallery’s (JAG) governing committee have resigned, saying that an ongoing governance dispute has stalled efforts to protect one of Africa’s most significant public art collections.

Pfunzo Sidogi, Molemo Moiloa, Nontobeko Ntombela and Joseph Gaylard announced their resignations on Friday, citing years of deadlock between the City of Johannesburg, Friends of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, and the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation.

ALSO READ: Mbeki denies suppressing apartheid-era TRC cases

In a statement, the four said they were resigning to “open a way past the present impasse” and to speak more freely about the problems at the gallery.

“The Gallery faces a formidable set of challenges: a building in disrepair, one of the most significant public collections of art on the continent housed in conditions that compromise its physical integrity, an institution without the capacity or the resources it requires, and with no clear picture of what it should become. These challenges are real and they are urgent. They are also surmountable,” they said.

“Instead of addressing these issues, we have been drawn into a fight not of our making, and with no end in sight. For several years the City of Johannesburg and the Friends of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, together with the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, have been embroiled in a dispute about who has authority over the institution, the shape of the remedial measures that should be taken, by whom, and with what resources.”

According to an advisory note published by the outgoing members, the application seeks the replacement of the four independent members and two government representatives on the committee.

The process would give the relevant authorities 30 days to appoint government representatives, followed by another 30 days for those representatives and the mayor to appoint four independent members.

The outgoing members criticised the appointment process, saying it would take place “behind closed doors, with no criteria, nominations, public input or required expertise”.

They accused both sides of losing sight of the gallery’s interests.

The members said public money had already been spent preparing temporary facilities for the artworks and called for outstanding problems to be resolved so relocation could proceed.

They also criticised the Friends and Johannesburg Heritage Foundation for pursuing legal action and public campaigns, including allegations they considered unsubstantiated, which they said had undermined efforts to secure cooperation and support for the gallery.

The four said they had previously proposed a cooperative framework mediated by neutral parties, including an approach to the Office of the Mayor in December 2024. They suspended their participation in the committee in July 2025, setting conditions for their return.

They rejected the premise of the legal proceedings and the account of their conduct contained in them.

“We no longer believe that we can make meaningful progress from inside this structure,” the statement reads. “Nor are we any longer willing to serve as collateral on the sidelines of a power struggle that we have been unable to mediate and whose consequences we have been unable to mitigate.”

ALSO READ: Bronkhorstspruit residents warned about unsafe water after 408 fall ill

The members called for an end to the litigation in favour of independently facilitated negotiations involving the city, the Friends, the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation and other stakeholders.

They also proposed binding agreements governing external partnerships and funding, the relocation and auditing of the collection, urgent repairs to the building and a broader review of the gallery’s governance and institutional structure.

They said that the gallery’s position within the municipal administration restricted its ability to raise funds, manage resources, recruit staff and establish partnerships.

The four also called for a transparent process to appoint their successors, informed by professional expertise and public participation.

They thanked the Chief Curator and staff “who have held it and themselves together in conditions no professional should be asked to work in.”

The Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, which is acting alongside the Friends of JAG in the litigation, said documents released with the resignations showed that the independent members had supported several measures the Foundation had also advocated.

“We have also found out when they released all the documentation along with the resignation letter, we discovered that the independent members have been advising, advocating for certain things that we agree with, that actually we proposed. However the city has been ignoring them,” the Foundation’s chairman, David Fleminger, said.

Fleminger also said that the resignations had left the Art Gallery Committee without the legal standing required to make decisions.

“With the four independent members resigned, the Art Gallery Committee is not legally constituted as it stands. It actually cannot take decisions relating to JAG,” he said. “They have to reconstitute a legally sound Art Gallery Committee as per the deed of donation, even in a temporary capacity.”

Under the gallery’s 1913 Deed of Donation, the committee provides for four independent members and three government representatives, including the mayor, council representative and national government representative.

The deed requires a quorum of four members to conduct committee business.

In their advisory note, the members acknowledged that the simultaneous resignations raised legal questions about the appointment of successors, given the deed’s provisions for succession and the minimum quorum requirement.

They recommended that the remaining government representatives follow a transparent appointment process and obtain appropriate legal advice to ensure compliance with the deed and applicable law.

The four said they would continue advocating for the institution from outside the committee and would submit proposals to the City’s Executive Mayor, the Friends and the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation.

Their supporting documents, advisory note and proposals can be found here.  

The city and Friends of the Johannesburg Art Gallery had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.

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Johannesburg could reach a point where its deteriorating infrastructure and deepening inequality become too difficult to reverse, warns Rise Mzansi’s mayoral candidate for the city, Lukhona Mnguni.

He has called for urgent intervention to prevent its economic decline.

In an interview on the Inside Metros podcast, Mnguni warns that the city’s future depends on serious political leadership capable of addressing corruption, infrastructure failures and the unequal distribution of development.

ALSO READ: Al Jama-ah wants EPWP jobs made permanent in LGE manifesto

He describes Johannesburg as an engineering construct that will become increasingly difficult to rehabilitate if basic maintenance continues to be neglected.

“Any engineering product, that’s why a building, you can either renovate it or it reaches a stage where they say, this building needs to be demolished. Cities too can experience that. And when they reach that point, it becomes much harder to invest in their rehabilitation. And they become ghettos, they become gangster paradise, they become places that are run by drug lords,” he said.

Mnguni believes Johannesburg needs at least three years of serious leadership focused on tackling waste and corruption, replacing ageing water pipes and extending infrastructure to underserved communities.

He criticises what he describes as an excessive concentration of development in the northern suburbs, arguing that municipal priorities are too often shaped by property developers rather than a broader vision for the city.

“Part of what has gone wrong is that the politics has stopped being able to embed a vision, because the politics has been hijacked by money,” he said.

Mnguni stressed that Johannesburg’s problems cannot be solved simply by improving financial administration or celebrating clean audits. It needs to prioritise residents’ quality of life and ensure that infrastructure and economic opportunities benefit communities across the municipality.

He said the city’s economic importance makes its decline a national concern, pointing to Johannesburg’s contribution to South Africa’s economy.

“Joburg is too big to be written off. 16% of the country’s GDP is generated here. 40% of Gauteng province’s economic activity happens in Joburg. We also know that every 30 years, the population of Joburg is going to double. The question is, when it doubles, what kind of society it becomes?” he asked.

ALSO READ: Al Jama-ah wants EPWP jobs made permanent in LGE manifesto

Turning to national governance, Mnguni praised the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, describing it as “probably the best use of taxpayers’ money we have seen in a very long time”.

He said the commission is addressing what he views as a central cause of South Africa’s governance failures: the alleged infiltration of state institutions and political structures by criminal networks.

“What Mkhwanazi was alluding to is what is at the crux of failure of this country, the infiltration of not only the criminal justice system, but the governance system and politicians by criminals, enterprising criminals,” he said.

He praised the commission’s work for offering hope of accountability, but said meaningful change will also depend on voters choosing political leaders willing to confront corruption and those who enable it.

• Watch the full Inside Metros podcast interview for Mnguni’s plans for Johannesburg, his criticism of Zille’s campaign and his assessment of the Madlanga Commission.

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A total of 408 cases of gastrointestinal illness were recorded in Bronkhorstspruit between 7 and 18 October, as an investigation by the Department of Water and Sanitation found that the City of Tshwane failed to warn residents that their water supply was unsafe for consumption.

At a joint media briefing on Monday, Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina said the investigation found that water supplied by the Bronkhorstspruit Water Treatment Works (BWTW) was left unchlorinated from 24 September to 14 October because of problems with its chlorine supplier.

She said the treatment works draws water from a river polluted by sewage from dysfunctional wastewater treatment plants in Victor Khanye Municipality and faulty sewage pump stations in Tshwane.

“The investigation also found that the CoT had failed to warn residents in the affected areas of Bronkhorstspruit that the water being supplied had not been chlorinated and therefore should

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