What could be called one of the more turbulent weeks in recent memory has drawn to a close and that means its time for another edition of the htxt.africast.

This week we take a look at the newly launched Home Affairs eChannel. The online portal through which all South Africans will be able to apply for a new Smart ID and passport (at the moment only persons aged between 30 and 35 in Gauteng can apply) went live on Thursday.

Granted, the portal suffered some down time at launch, but all appears to be well at time of writing. Lungelo takes us through some of the finer details about how to get the new identification documents.

Then, Nick takes us through the happenings around the Panama Papers and why politicians being named is probably more shocking than the likes of Jackie Chan and Simon Cowell.

Finally Brendyn and Nick discuss their experiences at the launch of the LG G5 and the Huawei Mate 8 this week.

As a bit of a bonus, Brendyn also chats about the Office Excel Champs competition. A competition where your skills in Excel can net you a new notebook and an Office 365 subscription and a lot more swag.