A founder of the apartheid-era Conservative Party (CP) died on Friday, the same day as his political foe Pik Botha.
“I can confirm he died yesterday [Friday] afternoon,” said Corne Mulder, Chief Whip of the Freedom Front Front Plus, which has some of its roots in the CP.
It is understood that he died on his farm in Limpopo.
“He and Pik Botha had a political feud for many years and I know that he at some stage said he wanted to outlive Pik Botha. Ironically they died on the same day,” said Mulder.
Botha died on Friday at home at the age of 86 after a spell in hospital.
Langley formed part of a group of National Party Members of Parliament led by Andries Treurnicht.
They would not accept former head of state PW Botha’s apparent leanings towards “power sharing” with people not classified white, in an era of “swart gevaar” (black danger).
They construed this to be the first step towards a black government and erosion of the rights of minorities and Afrikaners. They were also deeply opposed to the anti-apartheid movement’s association with the SA Communist Party and saw the movement as a threat to country’s security.
They broke away to form the CP in 1982 and became the official opposition in Parliament, surpassing the liberal Progressive Federal Party, to the shock of many.
The party also called for a “no” vote in a referendum on whether there should be “power sharing” in the form of a tricameral parliament – where there would be separate houses of parliament for people classified as coloured and Indian, but not for black representatives.
One of its leaders Clive Derby-Lewis was incarcerated for helping Polish national Janusz Walus kill SACP leader Chris Hani in 1993.
Mulder said Langley was the spokesperson for the CP and after the first democratic elections, the late former president Nelson Mandela posted Langley to Prague as ambassador for South Africa, in one of his characteristic politically inclusive moves.
Mulder said Mandela contacted the Freedom Front Plus and asked for names for the post and they suggested two. Mandela chose Langley for Prague and Carl Werth served as ambassador in Singapore.
Werth later joined the Democratic Party, predecessor to the DA, and then the ANC.
Mulder said Langley was a strong youth leader for the National Party when he entered politics and played an important role in the difficult days of the early 80s, when he was chairperson of the foreign affairs committee in Parliament.
He said it was while shadow minister of foreign affairs that he and Botha constantly disagreed.
Langley’s constituency was Waterkloof before he left politics and went farming.
“But I think he played an important role. He was basically always in the leadership of the official opposition in those days.”
Seven Eastern Cape children were taken to a place of safety after neighbours reported that they were being kept out of school because of their father’s religious beliefs, the province’s Department of Social Development said.
Department spokesperson Gcobani Maswana said their father did not allow his children to go to school or have birth certificates.
“He believed they could not get an education from worldly society,” said Maswana.
The department thinks he may have been a part of the Seven Angels Ministry cult which was discovered after five police officers were shot dead in a robbery at Ngcobo police station in February.
While following the trail of the killers police came upon a collection of filthy rooms where women and children were kept in dire conditions and were not allowed to leave the property. Some members of the cult were arrested, and others were killed in a shootout with police.
Maswana said it is thought that the father of children moved from there to a village near Idutywa with his family.
However, neighbours became upset that none of he and his wife’s nine children between the ages of 7 to 14 were going to school.
They raised their concerns with authorities and it was established that not only were the children not going to school, but they did not even have birth certificates.
In a lengthy process a court order was obtained to remove seven of the nine children to places of safety.
“They deserve to have an identity. They deserve to have an education,” said Maswana.
Maswana said that in addition to the incredible inter-agency corperation that led to the children being taken into care, the department was bowled over by how the residents were so worried about the children and let the authorities know.
And, after the children were removed, residents rallied around to collect blankets, clothes and any other items that they could donate to contribute to the department’s and NGOs’ efforts to make the childrens’ experience less traumatic.
The children are also receiving health checks and counselling.
In the meantime, processes are underway to investigate the circumstances of the remaining two children, and to establish more details regarding the parents’ actions.
On February 21, attackers entered Ngcobo police station, between Mthatha and Queenstown, and shot and killed five policemen and a soldier.
A subsequent raid at the Seven Angels Ministry left seven people, suspected to be involved in the murders, dead.
Three Mancoba brothers, who were church leaders, were among those killed.
Apartheid-era foreign affairs minister Pik Botha has died in his Pretoria home at the age of 86, his family confirmed on Friday morning.
His son, Piet Botha, who is in the band Jack Hammer, confirmed to News24 that his father died peacefully in his sleep in the early hours of the morning.
“His wife Ina was with him until the end,” he said.
“He was very sick during the last three weeks and his body just couldn’t take it anymore.”
Piet Botha added that he would always remember his father for having the ability to immediately sort out issues if there was any trouble, and that he will miss him dearly.
Botha was admitted to a Pretoria hospital in late September.
Roelof “Pik” Botha was the world’s longest-serving foreign minister. He was born in April 1932, and according to SA History Online the law graduate started in the foreign affairs department in 1953.
In April 1977, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and represented the constituency of Westdene in Johannesburg. Botha was appointed minister of mineral of energy affairs in 1994 and resigned from that post in May 1996.
Botha famously changed allegiance from the National Party to the African National Congress in 2000.
Roelof “Pik” Botha, who has died at the age of 86, was the world’s longest-serving foreign minister, a charismatic career diplomat-turned-politician whose negotiating skills were in high demand as international opposition to apartheid gathered pace, particularly in the 1980s.
Greatly admired, even by many of his political foes, the verligte or “enlightened” Botha was, as one western diplomat put it, “a good man working for a bad government, one of the first National Party leaders who saw that democracy was inevitable. South Africa could have avoided years of turmoil and bloodshed if the NP had taken his advice”.
And therein lay the rub. The merits of a “good man” serving apartheid have been questioned by those who have argued that, thanks to Botha’s diplomatic successes — and they were considerable, given the odds — the advent of a democratic South Africa was considerably deferred. Simply put, he further delayed the inevitable.
It said a lot for his negotiation skills that his greatest successes in foreign affairs came in the mid-1980s, precisely at a time when the government’s stubborn reluctance to scrap its apartheid policies was contributing to its further isolation.
He was, for example, instrumental in setting up the 1984 Nkomati Accord, a non-aggression pact signed by Pretoria and the communist People’s Republic of Mozambique that was viewed with derision by other southern African countries.
It was soon revealed to be an agreement of little substance. Despite its stated intentions, Maputo continued to offer support to the then-banned African National Congress, and Pretoria continued, despite repeated pleas from Mozambique’s Samora Machel, to supply arms to the rebel Renamo group.
More impressively, however, Botha arranged for Willie van Niekerk, then administrator-general of South West Africa, as Namibia was known when the territory was under Pretoria’s control, and various other internal political parties to meet with insurgent Swapo leader Sam Nujoma in Zambia.
At the same time Botha also maintained an ongoing dialogue with the government of Angola to prepare for an end to the so-called “Border War”, and to thus pave the way for Namibian independence.
His other significant achievement at the time was to organise then-prime minister PW Botha’s (no relation) European tour in May and June 1984.
Again, the 18-day, nine-nation trip was trumpeted as a diplomatic breakthrough and an indication that the isolation from the international community was drawing to a close.
Nothing could have been further from the truth, and those Western European governments that met the South Africans all reaffirmed their continued opposition to Pretoria’s racial policies.
Journalists who were assigned to cover these trips soon learnt that Botha had very little in common with his dour prime minister, and that his legendary reputation as a bon vivant and raconteur was not without foundation.
Simply put, Botha liked to drink – and he often chose to do so with journalists. These “off-duty” moments were often hilarious, especially when Botha was in a mischievous mood.
On one particularly long flight, he filled an ice bucket with the contents of various miniature bottles of spirits to produce a lethal concoction which he passed around like a large African calabash. When that was finished he began “throwing” the empty bottles – as a sangoma with bones – to jokingly predict the journalists’ futures.
On another occasion, this time in Rome, Botha filled a large ceremonial marble skull with grappa and had the press corps drink it. Later, the press corps all joked that it was the first time they’d been drunk “out of someone else’s head”.
The fact that none of these stories surfaced during Botha’s lifetime, and the rule that “what happens on the trip, stays on the trip” was universally upheld, spoke volumes of the fourth estate’s respect for him.
Botha’s poetic streak, one of staggering sentimentality, would often surface when he was in his cups. One rambling soul-searching free verse epic, scrawled on the back of a cigarette box around a bushveld campfire, read thus:
“Who am I?/an astronaut/a passenger/an animal/an almoner/a rover/hunter often missing the mark/thief who lies and deceives/wage earner/cave dwell-er/Afrikaner/twister of facts/middle-aged man/awaiting the grave/summonsed and awaiting trial/victim of my own thoughts/the hunter and the hunted/defenceless before fate/beachcomber and shipwreck/bruised branch/smoking wick/hypocritical believer…”
Another time, he declared, “Forget me. Who am I? In time and space, I am nothing.”
Away from such introspection, however, South Africa’s relationship with the outside world continued to sour as the hard-line government of PW Botha, now president, increasingly resorted to violent methods to quell growing domestic protests.
Pik Botha’s first run-in with his boss came in 1985 when he reportedly drafted a speech that would have announced the release of the imprisoned ANC leader, Nelson Mandela. The draft was rejected by President Botha.
Then, in February 1986, Botha told a Cape Town press conference that it was possible the country would be ruled by a black president provided minority rights were guaranteed.
A furious President Botha, however, publicly repudiated him for this statement, and Pik Botha was forced to acknowledge, in a letter to his boss, that a black president was not part of government policy.
But the downfall of the Nationalists was already on the cards.
In December 1988, he flew to Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, to sign a peace protocol with Angolan and Cuban representatives.
At the signing he announced, “A new era has begun in South Africa. My government is removing racial discrimination. We want to be accepted by our African brothers.”
This time there would be no such repudiation from PW Botha. Within weeks, the president would suffer the stroke that led to his resignation, and the eventual appointment of FW de Klerk as the last apartheid leader.
After the country’s first democratic elections, in 1994, Botha went on serve in President Nelson Mandela’s government as Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs from 1994 to 1996, after which he retired from politics.
He emerged from retirement in 2000 to declare his support for President Thabo Mbeki, and it was reported that he had joined the ANC. But he denied this in a 2013 interview in which he criticised the government’s affirmative action programme.
The son of a school principal, Roelof Frederick Botha was born on April 27, 1932, in Rustenberg, in the then Transvaal. When he was four, the boy was struck by meningitis while on holiday in Mozambique and was treated at a hospital in Barberton. His mother vowed that if he survived, he would become a church minister.
He attended Paul Kruger Primary School, where his father taught, and Hoër Volkskool in Potchefstroom, where he became chairman of the debating society, captain of the first rugby team, and an officer in the school cadets.
He studied law at the University of Pretoria, where a theologian explained to him he was in no way bound to honour his mother’s promise to God that he become a man of the cloth.
After completing his degree, he joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in February 1953, and in 1956 was posted to Sweden and then, in 1960, to West Germany.
It was about this time that he acquired his nickname, Pik – short for “pikkewyn”, Afrikaans for penguin – because his posture resembled that of the seabird whenever he wore a suit.
Upon his return to South Africa, in 1963, he joined the legal team to represent South Africa in their case at the International Court of Justice at the Hague over the administration of South West Africa.
The case, brought by Liberia and Ethiopia, ran from 1965 to 1966 and was ultimately dismissed the court ruled that the two African countries had no jurisdiction in the matter.
Botha was then appointed Foreign Affairs’ law adviser and between 1966 and 1974 attended various sessions of the United Nations General Assembly as a member of the South African delegation. He rose up through the ranks and was eventually appointed Ambassador to the UN. A month into the job, however, South Africa was suspended and he returned home.
He was by then a prominent Nationalist MP, having won the Wonderboom seat in 1970 and 1974. In 1977 he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and in the same year became MP for Westdene, the Johannesburg constituency he represented for the rest of his career.
He is survived by his second wife, Ina, who he married in August 1998, and his four children and several grandchildren. His first wife, Helena, died in April 1996 after a long illness.
An employee at the Lethabo Power Station in the Free State died and another was seriously injured in a “major incident” on Wednesday afternoon, Eskom said.
The power utility said in a statement that police officials were on the scene at Unit 5 and emergency response teams had been activated.
“The Department of Labour has been notified and Eskom executives are travelling to the site… As a result of the rupture of a mainsteam pipe, the unit is not operational. Operations continue on the other units.”
The employee’s next of kin were being informed.
“Our condolences go out to the family and friends and we pray for the recovery of our injured colleague.”
Energy expert Chris Yelland tweeted that there had been a boiler explosion.
Eskom confirms only Unit 5 at Lethabo is down after a generator trip followed by a loud boiler explosion. The other 5 units at @Eskom_SA‘s Lethabo PS are still operating, but staff have been evacuated as much as possible as a precautionary measure. Situation “calm” at the moment.
What’s going on at #eskom? Fire again. It was very easy for #ThumaMina to destroy the technical excellence we put together over many years. It’s becoming a mission impossible to rebuild. Indeed Eskom can’t save itself pic.twitter.com/yOhYgzpbb1
The ANC has welcomed a final investigation report into large-scale fraud at VBS Mutual Bank, saying heads must roll where there was any wrongdoing.
The report, commissioned by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), recommended that more than 50 individuals be criminally charged and held liable in civil proceedings, following the bank’s implosion earlier this year.
This includes the bank’s former executives and their associates, shareholder executives, politicians and their relatives and auditors who signed off on the bank’s “fraudulent” financials.
The report was compiled by advocate Terry Motau, who was appointed to head an investigation into the bank’s collapse.
“The ‘Great Bank Heist’ report is alarming and highlights the roles of a range of individuals and institutions in these heinous events,” said ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe.
“The report points towards grave abuse of authority and office as well as worrying instances of corruption.”
Mabe said SARB was now expected to act decisively and with speed to process the recommendations in the report.
“The ANC maintains that where there [has] been wrongdoing by individuals and institutions, heads must roll, and the law must take its cause without fear or favour. The manner in which authorities process this report, will be an important indication on our nation’s commitment to renewal and ethical leadership.”
In a statement on Wednesday, the SARB said the evidence in the report was not a reflection of the innocence or guilt of any party, as not all parties had been given the opportunity to respond to the evidence.
News24 previously reported that between 2015 and early 2018, when the SARB placed VBS under curatorship due to a liquidity crisis, the chair of the bank, Tshifhiwa Matodzi – together with his co-directors and ally Robert Madzonga – facilitated the looting of nearly R2bn.
Both have steadfastly maintained their innocence.
The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) welcomed the report and said it had already taken a number of steps against its two delegated directors on the VBS board, Ernest Nesane and Paul Magula.
PIC spokesperson Sekgoela Sekgoela said they were no longer employed there. Maqula was dismissed for incompetence in April and Nesane resigned.
The Financial Sector Conduct Authority debarred the men after the PIC applied in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act.
The PIC was in the process of applying to have them declared delinquent directors and, in consultation with the Prudential Authority, will lay criminal charges against them.
With Nesane, the PIC was in the process of applying to have him struck from the roll of attorneys.
Sekgoela said the report made mention of testimony to the effect that PIC CEO Daniel Matjila was to be paid a bribe of R5 million.
Motau could not make any definitive finding on this but recommended further investigation by authorities.
Matjila responded: “I emphatically reject any suggestion that I may have received R5 million to facilitate further funding for VBS Mutual Bank. In fact, the portfolio management committee of the PIC, turned down an application to put more money into VBS Mutual Bank, two days before VBS was placed under curatorship,” he said.
“Such allegations are without merit and no facts or evidence could be placed before Advocate Motau’s panel of investigation to substantiate these allegations, which I regard as malicious. However, should an investigation be instituted into these allegations, I am willing and ready to subject myself to the process.”
The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) received the forensic investigation report into the affairs of VBS Mutual Bank (VBS) from Advocate Terry Motau SC on 5 October 2018. This report was in pursuance of Advocate Motau’s appointment as an investigator in terms of section 134 of the Financial Sector Regulation Act 9 of 2017 by Deputy Governor of the SARB and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Prudential Authority (PA), Mr Kuben Naidoo.
Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Transport grilled the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa’s (Prasa) presentation at a meeting in Cape Town on Tuesday, for lacking urgency and progress.
The meeting comes after the Rail Safety Regulator (RSR) communicated its intention to suspend Prasa’s safety permit.
The suspension was apparently because of a train-on-train collision at Van Riebeeck station in Kempton Park during manual authorisation last week.
However, Prasa delayed the suspension that would have caused a nationwide shutdown of all rail services by approaching the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to hold the RSR’s urgent application over.
“People are saying we should not have gone to court, but if commuters went to the station on Monday and there were no trains – there would have been riots,” Prasa board chairperson Khanyisile Kweyama said.
ANC MP Sheilla Xego agreed with this approach, but reminded them that the remedy was temporary.
“What have you done since the notice of suspension, in terms of self-correction? Are you able to convince the RSR of your improvement?”
Prasa CEO Sibusiso Sithole listed the eight conditions to the safety permit and gave short summaries regarding their progress.
New strategies and short-term plans were presented in detail.
However, the portfolio committee remained unimpressed.
One of the plans included the completion of Gauteng’s electronic signalling – which is currently 71.9% complete.
The absence of electronic signalling requires manual authorisation. Manual authorisation contributed to the Kempton Park train collision on October 4.
“Four years ago we were told that electronic signalling in Gauteng was 80% complete when we visited. What is happening? Has there been a reversal or has nothing happened in all that time?” ANC MP Leonard Ramatlakane asked.
Sithole explained that the delay was the result of cable theft and the vandalisation of signalling equipment.
Ramatlakane said he had already heard the plans the board had laid out.
“We were told the same plans a year ago by the Department of Transport. Who is fooling who?” he asked the Prasa board.
“Remove this woolish language and tell us how it is.”
