Six armed men stormed a substation in Mulbarton, Johannesburg South, at the weekend, making off with equipment and personal valuables, City Power said on Saturday.
The men pitched up in a truck around midnight and overpowered the two security guards on duty, said spokesperson Isaac Mangena.
The substation is undergoing a major upgrade and the contractor has been guarding the property.
The robbers broke into the storage and loaded a 500-metre drum of cable and five 75mm copper cables into the truck.
“While busy, a City Power electrician who was working on an outage in Glenvista arrived at the substation trying to trace the outage fault. He was also held and tied up,” said Mangena.
The guards and electrician were robbed of three cellphones. The electrician’s toolbox, valued at around R3500, was also taken.
Mangena said a case of armed robbery has been opened at Mondeor Police station.
City Power also apologised for the delay in restoration of power to several parts of Johannesburg East and north-east following planned maintenance of infrastructure early on Saturday.
The maintenance was scheduled from 06:00 to 17:00 but could not be completed earlier due to adverse weather conditions.
City Power is in the process of migrating High Voltage circuits from the old Kelvin Power Station to the newly built Sebenza Substation.
“This work requires clear weather as we are working on Fibre Optic lines and as such due to the bad rainy windy weather today, work could not be concluded on time as planned, said Mangena.
“Our engineers and technicians as busy on all sites to ensure this is resolved as soon as possible. We are estimating time for return of power to be 22h30.”
Police officials and a security expert have revealed possible South African links to the kidnapping of Tanzanian billionaire Mohammed Dewji, who was released unharmed on Saturday.
Dewji, 43, who heads the MeTL Group and has been dubbed Africa’s youngest billionaire, was seized by gunmen as he entered a hotel gym in Dar es Salaam last Thursday.
Dar es Salaam police chief Lazaro Mambosasa said Dewji had indicated that his kidnappers spoke a “Southern African language”, confirming suspicions that they were foreigners, Al Jazeera reported.
According to AFP, Tanzania national police chief Simon Sirro said at a press conference: “Mohammed Dewji told us that the kidnappers wanted money but were very afraid, even though they were armed. He asked them several times how much they wanted but they gave no figure”.
“We now know their network, we know which country the plans were made,” he reportedly said, without expanding futher.
Ryan Cummings, director of African risk management company Signal Risk, weighed in on the kidnapping.
In a series of tweets on Saturday, he said: “This is very interesting. Firstly, it was confirmed that those who seized Dewji were ‘Caucasion’, now he claims that they were South African? White South African males involved in armed operations on the African continent tends to usually imply one thing and one thing only…. Guns for hire; could be former SANDF guys who are now selling their expertise to the highest bidder.”
Bloomberg reported police as saying that an AK-47 rifle and three pistols were found in the vehicle used by three kidnappers, of whom two spoke English and the other Swahili.
“I thank Allah that I have returned home safely. I thank all my fellow Tanzanians, and everyone around the world for their prayers. I thank the authorities of Tanzania, including the Police Force for working for my safe return.” — Mohammed Dewji (3:15AM, Dar es Salaam)
Three Tshwane Metro Police Department (TMPD) officers were arrested for allegedly soliciting a bribe from a motorist in Pretoria West on Friday.
The motorist reported the three female officers after they stopped him for driving towards oncoming traffic.
“Instead of issuing a fine, the three officers allegedly demanded money from the motorist,” said a statement from the Tshwane metro police communication unit.
“The motorist alleges that he gave them the money and took down their vehicle registration as they left. He then went to the TMPD offices to report the incident where he was immediately assisted.”
The officers were arrested for bribery and corruption upon further investigation and questioning.
They are currently detained at a local police station and will appear in court in due course.
“The Tshwane Metro Police Department promotes zero tolerance to corruption and we will not hesitate to arrest and oust officers who are corrupt,” the statement said.
“Regardless of the outcome in court, further steps will be taken internally where the accused officers will face disciplinary action.
“We applaud the motorist for reporting the matter to us and we encourage all motorists to refrain from offering money to the officers and to report officers who demand money.”
Two children are among the 27 people who died in a horror multi-vehicle collision on the N1 in Mookgopong outside Modimolle, Limpopo, on Friday.
Four people survived the crash and were taken to various hospitals for medical treatment, said police spokesperson Colonel Moatshe Ngoepe.
“At about 14:30, a truck that was carrying cement was travelling along the N1 South when it lost control [and veered into] the other lane facing the oncoming traffic [and] collided with four motor vehicles,” she said.
“A 22-seater Mercedes Benz and Nissan NP200 caught fire on impact.”
Police are as yet unable to determine the exact cause of the accident; however, Limpopo department of transport spokesperson Matome Moremi Taueatsoala told News24 that the truck driver lost control after the vehicle’s front tyre burst.
A case of culpable homicide is being investigated.
The process of identifying the deceased is still underway.
N1 FATAL CRASH: MT> @Tendani_Mul:The Limpopo Transport Department has confirmed there’s been a fatal ∗crash∗ on the N1 north near Kranskorp, resulting in the partial closure of the highway. [Picture: SUPPLIED] pic.twitter.com/GzJBDuIV5N#FM54
Families who fled Blikkiesdorp last week have sent a lawyer’s letter to the City of Cape Town to ask the authorities to find alternative accommodation for them, or else they will take the matter to court, GroundUp reports.
Nine families were forced to vacate their homes in Blikkiesdorp on Wednesday evening, after threats were made by other residents. Some of them are members of the old Blikkiesdorp Joint Committee (BJC).
One of the residents who was expelled last week – and who is currently living at the Central Methodist Mission Church in central Cape Town with more than 30 other residents – Etienne Claasen, said: “This whole thing ultimately lies with the City, because they are the ones who evicted us from the very beginning and brought us to Blikkiesdorp, which they said would be for a year. But it is now 10 years since we have been staying in Blikkiesdorp.”
Claasen said that, together with Right2Know, they had sent a letter to the City, asking it to find them alternative accommodation. The letter asks the City to urgently:
• Reinstate the homes in which they lived until they were dispossessed or, alternatively, provide the families with alternative safe accommodation by Wednesday, October 17; • Ensure that the families are able to access and complete the subsidy forms that are going to be distributed in Blikkiesdorp on October 20, 2018; • Bring eviction proceedings against alleged unlawful occupiers of the families’ homes; • Secure Blikkiesdorp and ensure the safety and security of all of its lawful residents; • Take steps to ensure that Blikkiesdorp is effectively policed against criminal acts of violence and vigilantism; • Take measures to remove the conflict of interests within the steering committee and restore the steering committee to a meaningful and effective tool for the benefit of all of the listed beneficiaries of the Symphony Way Scheme.
Alison Tilley, of the Open Democracy Advice Centre, who works closely with the residents of Blikkiesdorp, said: “Blikkiesdorp was established by court order. The City is under obligation to accommodate them.”
But a resident, who spoke to GroundUp on condition of anonymity, gave a different account to that of the people who fled to the church. He said what had happened in Blikkiesdorp had nothing to do with race, but was about crime.
“I do not understand why these people keep playing the race card. If anything, the coloured and blacks are working together. This is a fight against crime. The BJC members were not chased away. They left voluntarily.
“As a community, only two people were chased out of Blikkiesdorp. Those two people were chased out because one of them’s son-in-law was a well-known gangster around here and he was feared, and she harboured him.
“The second person was chased out because she is close friends with the woman whose son-in-law is a gangster. The rest of the families who left, were not chased away. They were standing with the two that were chased away,” said the resident.
Regarding infighting in the BJC, the resident said a decision had been taken by the community to disband the previous BJC because it was not inclusive. “A new committee has been formed which is more inclusive to everyone and all races, and it does not have a name yet. It is a committee that represents everyone in Blikkiesdorp.”
The resident said, after a public meeting on Saturday, the community had no problem with letting those who left come back, as long as they did not come back with the two residents who were chased away.
The families who have sought shelter in the Methodist church said they would be there until Wednesday, and after that they did not know where they would go. The letter to the City states that, “of their nine homes in Blikkiesdorp left by the families, four have subsequently been destroyed by criminals… and the remaining five have been unlawfully occupied”.
Claasen said they could not return to Blikkiesdorp, as it was not safe for them.
More than four months ago the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) wrote to President Cyril Ramaphosa asking him to uphold a promise made in 2014 for a moratorium on farm evictions. Ramaphosa has not yet responded, GroundUp reports.
In November 2014, Ramaphosa, who was deputy president at the time, was quoted by City Press as promising a moratorium on evictions, after he and a delegation of senior ministers met agricultural and farm labour representatives in Paarl. The visit came after a spate of protests by farmworkers, demanding higher wages and better working conditions, turned violent.
Since his election to office in February, activists and lobby groups have called on Ramaphosa to implement the moratorium, but without success.
Activists argue that a moratorium is necessary to secure the tenure rights of all farm dwellers. They want an end to forced removals; the opportunity for long-term tenants to build structures; and for farm dwellers to be able to use the land they occupy for their own purposes.
At an indaba on farm evictions, hosted by the SAHRC in April, Drakenstein municipal manager Lauren Waring acknowledged that the municipality had become “a hotspot for evictions” with an estimated 20 000 people affected by 1 127 pending eviction matters at the time.
On Monday, the SAHRC’s Western Cape head Chris Nissen told GroundUp that the commission had still not heard back from the Presidency. He said the commission and lobby group Women on Farms were working with the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform to curb unlawful farm evictions.
Online campaign
This, Nissen said, followed a visit to farms in Simondium by Deputy Minister Mcebisi Skwatsha in June. At the time, Skwatsha said he “was alarmed” by the living conditions of some farm dwellers in the area. He added that Parliament was “busy strengthening the legislation around the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (ESTA)”.
Skwatsha’s visit prompted civil society group Tshintsha Amakhaya to start its own online campaign to get Ramaphosa to ban all farm evictions. To date, the group has collected nearly 360 online signatures.
Sobantu Mzwakali, advocacy and campaigns officer at Tshintsha Amakhaya, said: “After we sent the letter in June, we did not hear directly from the president’s office.”
Mzwakali said the group had handed Skwatsha a draft petition to pass on to the Presidency.
“The department responded saying they wanted to engage with farmworkers and educate them about ESTA. We weren’t happy with this response. We know the laws exist but on the ground evictions are still happening and the law is not being implemented the way it should be,” he said.
Carmen Louw, of Women on Farms Project, said that it appeared to be “business as usual” for officials at the department.
Women’s Day protest unsuccessful
“We participated in a number of engagements and helped to shape a strategy but this process came to a halt. No strategic interventions were implemented to deal with the crisis.”
This, Louw said, had resulted in a breakdown of trust between civil society and government.
Louw said Women on Farms had assisted more than 200 families in eviction-related matters this year alone. Most of the cases were in the Drakenstein municipality.
She said there had been no feedback from Skwatsha’s office.
“Evictions continue as usual and farm dwellers are left with very little support and resources. We are therefore reluctant to participate in any further big engagements with him,” she added.
Attempts to get a response from the Presidency, including staging a protest during Women’s Day celebrations in August in Mbekweni, where Ramaphosa was speaking, had not been successful either.
No comment
“We had a silent demonstration, calling for a moratorium on evictions and requesting a meeting with him. We are still awaiting a response from him. Since becoming President, he has not directly referred to the moratorium on farm evictions,” she said.
Nissen said the current land debate had no immediate impact for families on farms who faced human rights violations.
“We are still seeing evictions done illegally,” he said.
GroundUp contacted the Presidency for comment on June 12, 14, 25, September 10 and again on October 15, without success.
We also contacted the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform via telephone and email.
On September 26, a spokesperson for the department, Phuti Mabelebele, promised in an email to respond to questions within two days. Despite several further calls and emails to officials, no response had been received by the time of publication.
South African Sign Language (SASL) will be offered as a matric subject, the Western Cape education department said on Monday.
The department embarked on a three-year South African Sign Language pilot project from 2011 to 2013 to establish SALS as a subject in schools for the deaf.
It is the first SASL curriculum worldwide to be implemented at a Grade 12 level.
“There are currently only nine schools in the country that will be sitting for the 2018 (NSC) SASL exams,” DA spokesperson on social development Lorraine Botha said.
“Two schools in the Western Cape, De La Bat School for the Deaf learners in Worcester and Dominican Wittebome’s matriculants have the privilege of presenting SASL on home language level at the end of 2018.”
SASL will be offered as a subject at home language level from Grade 1 to matric.
Promoting inclusivity
“The DA in the Western Cape remains committed to eliminating all barriers to deaf learners and to ensure these individuals can fully exercise their right to be taught and assessed in their own language,” Botha said.
“Furthermore, this offers a platform for those with hearing impairments to also be recognised as a fundamental part of South African culture.”
The Western Cape Education Department has been promoting a culture of inclusivity in schools.
Earlier this month, spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said that Western Cape schools had been encouraged to protect members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
A handful of schools have started allowing transgender students to wear the uniforms that suit their gender identity.
The Mazibuye African Congress (MAC) claims it is not a mouthpiece for former president Jacob Zuma and hasn’t spoken to him since establishing itself as a political party in July. It is, however, still in touch with people close to him, the party said.
The newly formed political party’s president Reggie Ngcobo said after approaching former presidents, among them FW de Klerk and Thabo Mbeki, Zuma was the only former leader interested in hearing the organisation’s views.
Ngcobo said the party had not met with Zuma since a July rally during which supporters decided that the organisation could not remain a civic movement “addressing political ills outside of the political space”.
“We had three or more meetings with the former president to get his input as far as the ills that we identified in the country. [He] gave his own personal input but didn’t ask us to become a political party,” said Ngcobo.
He was speaking to a near-empty room at a media briefing called by the party in Ekurhuleni on Monday.
AfriForum partnership
The organisation, which only accepts people of African descent as members, is well-known for its pro-Zuma stance and is widely believed to have been formed with his blessings, a claim Ngcobo denies.
The MAC, which also said it wants to contest the 2019 polls, announced that it was partnering with a few small civic organisations and that right-wing lobby group AfriForum would possibly be one of them.
The two parties are an odd pair as they differ on their approach to the land question in South Africa. AfriForum is opposed to the call for expropriation of land without compensation while the MAC supports the proposed policy.
“AfriForum, they regard themselves as Africans, because they are Afrikaners, the only thing that separates us from them is the economy and complexion of their skin,” said Ngcobo.
However, he reiterated calls made by the organisation when it was launched just over three months ago that land in South Africa must be given to “African natives”.
He said it was necessary for Afrikaner land owners to “admit the land they are occupying and using was a result of theft” and for them to “take it back to the native people of this land”.
He said he would like to see Afrikaners continuing to work the land, however.
“We cannot dispute the fact that Afrikaners are good agricultural people. We don’t want to see a situation like in Zimbabwe where the farmers were chased out and serious famine happened in the country,” he continued.
State capture revelations
Ngcobo also used the opportunity to hit out at Zuma’s detractors and to give his views on current affairs.
“We are witnessing the uncovering of top surface corruption committed by our respectable public leaders, we can’t trust anyone anymore,” he said.
Ngcobo said leaders were suddenly unable to prioritise the needs of South Africans, even welcoming the resignation of former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene who stepped down last week.
“The resignation of Nhlanhla Nene leaves a lot to be desired. He was long portrayed as a financial saint who was victimised by president Zuma for alleged corrupt ends. We remain surprised by the allegations that led him to resign,” said Ngcobo.
Nene stepped down after admitting to having lied about meeting with the controversial Gupta family at the heart of state capture allegations.
The former minister admitted during testimony at the commission of inquiry into state capture to having met with their family six times at their Saxonwold home.
Ngcobo also noted that the SACP had, through its leader Blade Nzimande, said it would approach the commission. He called on Transport Minister Nzimande and Minister of Public Works Thulas Nxesi to testify before the commission.
President Cyril Ramaphosa handed over more than 4000 hectares of land to the KwaMkhwanazi community in Empangeni, northern KwaZulu-Natal on Sunday.
“This handover of 4 586 hectares of land comes at a time when the attention of our nation is focused on the effort to correct the original sin of land dispossession,” Ramaphosa said.
He also handed over the title deeds of both the land the Mkhwanazi residents have held since 2002 and the land that had been restored on Sunday.
“We firmly believe that people should have the deeds to the land they own,” he said.
The KwaMkwanazi community was forcibly removed from their land in three phases following the enactment of the 1913 Land Act, according to The Presidency.
From 1915 to 1918 the first group of dispossessions took place to the KwaMkhwanazi people, their dispossession was a result of returning World War I white soldiers.
The second phase of dispossession took place in the 1940s, when the white farming community expanded their commercial interests in timber and cane.
‘Restitution, not retribution’
At the height of apartheid supremacy the government of the time between 1958 and 1960 violently removed landowners to cater for the expansion of the white community around Richards Bay and the Mthunzini coast.
Ramaphosa said the history of dispossession of the KwaMkhwanazi community straddled colonialism and the relentless discrimination, prejudice and violence that culminated in the 1948 victory of the National Party in an all-white election.
“Seventy years after apartheid rule commenced, our land redistribution programme is an undertaking in restitution, not retribution,” said Ramaphosa.
The injustice, indignity and impoverishment inflicted on the people of Mkhwanazi mirrored the hardship to which colonialism and apartheid subjected communities throughout a country endowed with great natural gifts that should have been able to provide a life of dignity and worth to all its people, he said.
In response to the inhumane dispossession and injustice brought upon the people of this land, the ANC’s Freedom Charter made a clear call that the land must be shared among those who work it, he said.
“As government, we are intensifying implementation of our land reform and restitution programmes so that South Africans such as the KwaMkhwanazi residents can leverage land for the betterment of their lives and the growth of our economy.”
He announced that government would assist the community with post-settlement packages that would develop their ability to create sustainable income and jobs from the land transferred to them.
“These post settlement support packages are designed to ensure that beneficiary communities, such as Mkhwanazi, build on your existing presence and participation in the sector and shift from subsistence to commercial participants and owners of businesses across the value chains of the assets on their land,” he said.
Ramaphosa said it was government’s belief that communities should take great interest in their land restitution processes and be active participants in all enterprises and activities taking place on their land.
“This community can be exemplary to other recipients of land through its active participation in the administration of funds received through the Phalane Trust. The Mkhwanazi land recipients, through the Phalane Trust, currently own sugarcane enterprises and the Forestry Inn Hotel Pty Ltd that operate on behalf of the community and we encourage this type of entrepreneurship,” he said.
The president commended companies, such as SiyaQhubekha Forests (Pty) Ltd, that have lease agreements on the Mkhwanazi land and “who will provide bursaries for local students studying in areas relevant to the forestry sector”.
The DA says its lawyers are considering laying charges against President Cyril Ramaphosa following reports that he had prior knowledge of widespread looting at VBS Mutual Bank but allegedly failed to act.
Mmusi Maimane said in a statement on Sunday that the charges would be in accordance with the Prevention of Organised Crime Act (POCA).
City Press reported that Ramaphosa was apparently informed of widespread corruption and looting involving bank executives at a meeting in Johannesburg very early last year.
Sources close to a major VBS shareholder said the shareholder personally informed Ramaphosa, who was not president at the time, about what was going on, according to City Press.
Ramaphosa promised to do something about it, but he did not, according to the City Press’ source.
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Khusela Diko reportedly told the publication that the Presidency had no knowledge of such a meeting.
Diko’s phone rang unanswered on Sunday and she did not reply to an SMS News24 sent to her.
Maimane said these were “incredibly serious allegations” that needed to be answered by Ramaphosa with “haste”.
“I will therefore be submitting an urgent question to be asked during oral questions to President Ramaphosa in Parliament on Thursday to confirm the veracity of these allegations,” Maimane said in a statement.
“While President Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Khusela Diko, has denied this meeting ever occurred, the President would be wise to use his final oral questions session for the year next week to play open cards with the people of South Africa,” said Maimane.
Advocate Terry Motau SC released his damning report, The Great Bank Heist, on Wednesday into how 50 individuals and companies, including many of the bank’s executives, received “gratuitous payments” amounting to R1.8bn from the bank.
It has also been alleged that former president Jacob Zuma’s VBS loan of R8.5m – used to pay back part of his Nkandla home upgrades – was used as political security.
“South Africa cannot afford another compromised president,” Maimane said.
He said the allegations were all symptomatic of the loss of power in the ANC and was demonstrable of the politics of patronage trumping the service of citizens.
“The absence of divisive action and the protection of certain individuals can only mean that unity in the ANC is more important than accountability to the ruling party. And it begs the question of what other scandals the president also had knowledge of. This system of corruption must be broken,” he said.
Maimane suggested that Ramaphosa’s “‘New Dawn’ glass box seems to have shattered”.
“He has already confirmed his willingness to appear before the State Capture Commission and now needs to start picking up the shards of this ANC-created mess and come clean with South Africa,” Maimane said.
