A father and son apparently employed by Johannesburg City Power were arrested after they allegedly swindled a resident out of R40 000.
Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba said the men approached a resident and offered to write off a R500 000 debt he owed to the City of Johannesburg.
In return, the man allegedly had to pay R150 000, R40 000 of which had to be paid upfront.
Mashaba said he allegedly had to pay the balance of R110 000 before the end of the week.
The resident instructed the men to collect the money at his place of work, but instead informed the City’s Group Forensic and Investigation Services team which set up a sting operation together with members of the Hawks.
When they were about to leave, the Hawks pounced on the men and they were arrested.
The two are expected to appear in the Johannesburg Specialised Commercial Crime Court on Wednesday.
“Corruption has no place in this administration. We are working tirelessly, in collaboration with institutions such as the Hawks, to ensure that corruption becomes a thing of the past,” Mashaba said.
Despite the disputed removal of the DA-led government in Nelson Mandela Bay and doom looming over the DA-led government in Tshwane, the party’s leader Mmusi Maimane is not giving up on coalitions.
“I believe in coalitions,” he said earnestly at a press briefing on Tuesday following Monday’s drama in the Nelson Mandela Bay council.
“I believe coalitions are the future of South Africa.”
Maimane said one-party dominance leads to state capture.
On Monday the ANC, with the support of the EFF, unseated Athol Trollip as Nelson Mandela Bay mayor. The DA disputes the legality of this action.
Also addressing a press briefing on Tuesday, EFF leader Julius Malema said Tshwane Mayor Solly Msimanga would suffer a similar fate as Trollip when a motion of no confidence against him is heard in Tshwane on Thursday.
EFF ‘unapologetic’ about Trollip’s removal
After the 2016 municipal elections the EFF offered its support, without agreeing to coalitions, to the DA to govern in municipalities where it could unseat the ANC, notably in the metros of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay.
But things have changed.
After the DA didn’t support the EFF’s motion on expropriation of land without compensation Malema said his party would remove Trollip as mayor as punishment and to “cut the throat of whiteness”.
On Tuesday, he said: “The EFF is unapologetic about its decision to remove Athol Trollip as the executive mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay. The vote must be understood as serious opposition to the white arrogance of the white-dominated DA.”
He said Msimanga “allows white racists who are exposed for taking jobs without the necessary qualifications to retaliate and punishes the black city manager for exposing them”, in reference to allegations of tender irregularities against Tshwane city manager Moeketsi Mosola who last week issued a report on irregular senior appointments in Msimanga’s office.
“We hate corruption,” Malema said.
Maimane said the EFF seemed to only oppose corruption that isn’t its own.
‘What has changed?’
“Coalitions actually work,” Maimane said.
“If the EFF wants to hold the view that they want to insert the ANC, then let it be their view.”
He said the DA worked well with the EFF.
“We have to ask: What has changed?”
He said it seemed the red berets’ opposition was more against Jacob Zuma than the ANC, and now with him out of the way, the EFF was happy to be in the “same WhatsApp group” as the ANC.
“It would not have been us who pushed the EFF back to the ANC,” Maimane said. “More than anything, it has been a question of them pushing us away.
Red berets singing a new tune
“The reason there is toenadering (advances) between the ANC and EFF, is because they agree [on expropriation without compensation].”
Maimane said the DA couldn’t support the EFF’s motion in order to stay in power.
“What kind of party would we be if we said we will stay in government and dissolve our principles?
“You should stand with your people. When the EFF said we must remove [Johannesburg Mayor] Herman Mashaba, we said we can’t because we told people he is standing.”
During the horse-trading between parties following the 2016 local elections, the EFF wanted the DA not to appoint Mashaba as mayor of Johannesburg. They have since changed their tune.
“We are not going to remove Herman Mashaba because he works well with everyone and he consults. If the DA wants to remove him they must do it themselves,” Malema said on Tuesday.
The DA’s Athol Trollip has been removed as mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality without a single DA councillor in the chamber on Monday evening.
The UDM’s Mongameli Bobani was elected as mayor in his place. Bobani, who was former deputy mayor, was previously ousted from his position following a rift with Trollip.
Earlier, Speaker Jonathan Lawack was removed after 60 supported the motion against him, and 59 were against. DA councillor Victor Manyati abstained.
Manyati was summarily dismissed from the DA, and municipal manager Johann Mettler declared that Manyati, who was by then sitting among ANC councillors and not his DA colleagues, was not a councillor.
Upon this statement the councillors from the DA and its coalition partners jumped up and danced, and proceeded to leave the chamber.
Mettler said there was no longer a quorum, so the meeting couldn’t continue, and left.
The opposition councillors stuck around, as they heard that Eastern Cape MEC for cooperative governance and traditional affairs Fikile Xasa sent an official to oversee the election of a speaker.
ANC councillor Buyelwa Mafaya was elected speaker and proceeded with a motion of no confidence in Trollip, brought by the EFF. Every councillor present supported it.
The Democratic Alliance has taken quick action against a Nelson Mandela Bay councillor, who abstained during a motion of no confidence on Monday that saw Speaker Jonathan Lawack removed from his position.
DA councillor Victor Manyati opted not to toe the party line during a motion of no confidence in Lawack in the City council on Monday.
Lawack was voted out by 60 votes to 59. A tie would have seen him remain in the position.
Soon after, the DA presented a letter to Municipal Manager Johann Mettler, stating that Manyati was no longer a DA member.
After obtaining a legal opinion, Mettler declared that Manyati, who was by then sitting among ANC councillors and not his DA colleagues, was no longer a councillor.
With this statement, DA councillors and the party’s coalition partners jumped up and danced and proceeded to leave the chamber.
The council would have had to elect a new speaker, after which a motion of no confidence in Trollip would have been heard.
Mettler said the meeting didn’t have a quorum and couldn’t continue.
Several opposition councillors complained.
The move would likely scupper any attempts to remove Mayor Athol Trollip as well, with the DA now able to replace the vacant seat in the council.
Earlier, Manyathi told reporters he took a “sober decision” not to vote with the DA. When a reporter asked him if he was going to leave the DA, he said yes.
“I’m leaving the DA,” he said.
After Mettler’s announcement, Manyathi told him in the meeting: “You cannot allow a kangaroo court.”
“I did not say I’m going to resign,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned I’m still a councillor.”
Emmerson Mnangagwa has taken the oath as Zimbabwe’s president after a bitterly disputed election.
Cheers ring out in a national stadium at his inauguration as the country moves on from the decades-long rule of Robert Mugabe.
Mnangagwa first took office in November after Mugabe resigned under military pressure, and narrowly won a July 30 election that the opposition alleged was rigged.
The Constitutional Court on Friday rejected those claims.
The 75-year-old Mnangagwa, a former Mugabe confidant, now faces the mammoth task of rebuilding a worsening economy and uniting a nation deeply divided by a vote that many hoped would deliver change.
An eight-year-old boy drowned while swimming in the Mzamba lagoon near the Wild Coast Sun, Port Edward, on Saturday afternoon.
The National Sea Rescue Institute was activated after lifeguards reported a drowning in the lagoon.
Police search and rescue divers and NSRI rescue swimmers searched the water while the NSRI jet ski was also deployed, NSRI Port Edward Station Commander John Nicholas said in a statement.
“During an extensive search operation police search and rescue divers located and recovered the body of the child from the water and sadly the child…[had] been declared deceased by paramedics.”
Police have opened an inquest docket.
“Condolences are conveyed to family and police are assisting the family,” Nicholas said.
Police thwarted a business robbery and killed three suspects during a shootout and high speed chase near Middelburg, Mpumalanga in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Crime intelligence were following up on information about plans to break into and rob business premises in Mhluzi, when they encountered a group already in progress.
“On arrival at the place, the team discovered that a safe inside one of the premises had already been blown up,” said police spokesperson Colonel Brenda Muridili.
“The suspects then allegedly started shooting their way out of the situation. The police returned fire but the suspects fled the scene with undisclosed amounts of money in three vehicles.
“A high speed chase and exchange of fire with the suspects, while police were in pursuit of the vehicles, resulted in two of the suspects’ vehicles coming to a halt – one as a result of all three occupants being fatally wounded during the shootout and the driver of the other vehicle lost control.”
Muridili said four suspects then fled on foot but police chased after the suspects with the support of the SAPS K9 Unit and managed to arrest one.
Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan will receive a state funeral and burial in Ghana on September 13, the Ghanaian president said on Friday, calling it “a major event for our country”.
The announcement was made by President Nana Akufo-Addo following a meeting with Annan’s family in the capital Accra.
Annan, a Ghanaian national and Nobel peace laureate, died on August 8 at the age of 80 after a short illness.
“Kofi Annan was one of the most illustrious people of this generation. He was like an elderly brother,” Akufo-Addo said.
“It’s going to be a major event for our country… I expect many leaders to be present,” he said, adding that Annan will be buried in Accra’s new military cemetery.
Born in Kumasi, the capital city of Ghana’s Ashanti region, Annan devoted four decades of his working life to the UN and was the first chief from sub-Saharan Africa.
A career diplomat, he projected quiet charisma and was widely credited for raising the world body’s profile in global politics during his two terms as head of the UN from 1997 to 2006.
Following Annan’s death in Switzerland, where he lived not far from the UN European headquarters in Geneva, Akufo-Addo announced a week of mourning for “one of our greatest compatriots”.
Annan was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, as the world was reeling from the September 11 attacks in the United States, jointly with the UN “for their work for a better organised and more peaceful world”.
Another Nobel laureate, retired South African archbishop Desmond Tutu, described Annan as “an outstanding human being who represented our continent and the world with enormous graciousness, integrity and distinction”.
‘Humanity’s best example’
The first chief to rise from within the organisation’s ranks, Annan left the post as one of the most popular UN leaders ever, and was considered a “diplomatic rock star” in international diplomatic circles.
After ending his second term as chief, he kept up his diplomatic work, taking high-profile mediation roles in Kenya and in Syria, and more recently leading an advisory commission in Myanmar on the crisis in Rakhine state.
He enjoyed some success in ending post-election turmoil in Kenya in 2007, and the two main players in that crisis, former president Mwai Kibaki and his opposition rival Raila Odinga celebrated his efforts this week.
Annan’s death was met with an outpouring of tributes from world leaders.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed his “wisdom and courage”, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel celebrated the “exceptional statesman in the service of the global community”.
Former US president Barack Obama said Annan “embodied the mission of the United Nations like few others”.
Current UN chief Antonio Guterres described his predecessor as “a guiding force for good”. “In many ways, Kofi Annan was the United Nations,” he said.
The UN high commissioner for human rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein described him as a “friend to thousands and a leader of millions”.
“Kofi was humanity’s best example, the epitome of human decency and grace. In a world now filled with leaders who are anything but that, our loss, the world’s loss becomes even more painful.”
Former president Jacob Zuma arrived at the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on Thursday for his son Duduzane’s appearance on two counts of culpable homicide.
They arrived together, and Zuma took a seat in the gallery. He laughed and cracked jokes with journalists in the courtroom.
At Duduzane’s last appearance in July, the case was postponed for the disclosure of inquest proceedings and content of the docket.
Duduzane was summoned to court after the National Prosecuting Authority decided to go ahead with prosecuting him after declining to do so in July 2014, citing insufficient evidence.
The case relates to a car accident that occurred in February 2014, when he crashed into a taxi after losing control of his Porsche on the Grayston Drive off-ramp on the M1 north of Johannesburg.
Phumzile Dube was killed instantly, while three others were injured.
A second woman, Jeanette Mashaba, died a couple of weeks later. However, during the inquest it was found that her death was not a result of the accident and that she died in hospital of natural causes.
