JOHANNESBURG – Former President Kgalema Motlanthe says he wishes the current crop of young ANC leaders could learn from the likes of Laloo Chiba.

Motlanthe was paying tribute to the late ANC stalwart and former Robben Island prisoner at a memorial service in Lenasia.

WATCH: Laloo Chiba memorial

“I wished that comrade Laloo could be used as an example of the commitment and selflessness and humility. He could have shared this with the younger members of the African National Congress,” he says. 

“But there is a barrier of conceit and arrogance and complacency in the part of the organisation which makes the organisation poorer, because instead of imbibing from the leaders such as comrade Laloo, the younger people in the ANC have new role models who present themselves as people who are committed to some revolution which is ill-defined and have absolutely no time to listen to the likes of Comrade Laloo Chiba,” says Montlanthe.

eNCA

Cape Town – A man, convicted of being an accessory to war crimes for selling weapons to former Liberian president Charles Taylor, was issued with a temporary visa to stay in South Africa until 2020.

This emerged in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Friday during the appearance of 75-year-old Augustinus Petrus Kouwenhoven.

Kouwenhoven was arrested in Fresnaye at 08:00, ahead of his possible extradition and handover to Dutch authorities.

READ: Fugitive Dutch arms dealer linked to Liberian war nabbed in Cape Town

He was surrounded by police officers as he walked to the courtroom and waited for his appearance.

Prosecutor Christopher Burke told Magistrate Phakama Madinda that a Dutch court had found Kouwenhoven guilty of war crimes, arms trading and crimes against humanity.

The Dutch government made a request for his provisional arrest, and warrants were obtained and executed in Cape Town on Friday morning. 

The prosecution indicated that it would oppose bail and said it needed time to prepare for a bail hearing.

A fugitive from justice

“The State has reason to believe that Mr Kouwenhoven is a fugitive from justice which makes him a flight risk,” Burke said.

The law usually allows a seven-day remand for bail to be obtained. 

Burke proposed a compromise that involved keeping the accused in the Sea Point police cells until Tuesday so that the State could gather the information they needed.

However, Kouwenhoven’s advocate, Liuba Stansfield, rejected the suggestion, saying her client was terminally ill with usual interstitial pneumonia – a form of lung disease.

He is also HIV positive.

“His immune system is so weakened by the pneumonia with which he has been diagnosed,” she said.

A weakened immune system

These two factors make his immune system extremely vulnerable to possible infection in the “unsanitary” conditions of the Sea Point police cells, the court heard.

She said they were astounded by Kouwenhoven’s arrest on Friday, adding that he had instructed his lawyers at the beginning of the year already about a possible arrest.

His lawyers had apparently been in frequent contact with an official at the South African Department of Justice in anticipation of an attempt to arrest him in the long-running case against him.

The official assured him he would not be arrested and that any communication in that regard would be forwarded through “diplomatic channels”.

He had also prepared an affidavit in July in case he was arrested.

He has been living in South Africa with his wife and two children, and had been excused from attending his trial in the Dutch court this year, because of his illness.

“He was certified by a medical doctor as being unable to fly,” said Stansfield.

‘Not in hiding’

“He hasn’t been hiding that they can only find him now. He is going nowhere”  

In addition, the court also heard that the South African Department of Home Affairs gave him a visa in August to let him stay in South Africa until 2020.

Stansfield proposed house arrest and said she could not understand why the police brought him to court when they knew what she had told the court.

But Burke said the National Prosecuting Authority had to carry out its own checks.

It did not want Kouwenhoven out of custody while it did so.

Burke also wanted to know how Kouwenhoven obtained a visa. 

Madinda granted the State’s request for a remand until Tuesday.

Head of the Cape Town police cluster Major-General Jeremy Vearey was at court for a short period and praised the police.

“I commend Captain Althea Noemda-Jefta for the hard work and dedication by her and her team which brought this result,” he said.

MOGWASE, North West – Forum 4 Service Delivery (F4SD) councillor Napoleon Webster accused of murder had his bail conditions relaxed at the North West High Court on Friday.

Webster applied to the court that he should no longer be required to the Marikana police station as none of his co-accused were no longer reporting at the police station.

North West Judge president Monica Leeuw granted the application.

In September, his attorney Lindokhuhle Mdabe, asked the Rustenburg court to relax his bail condition that he should report at the Marikana police station and not at the Meadowlands police station as ordered when he was granted R3,000 bail.

READ: Mineworkers in dock for Marikana murders

At the time he argued that Webster was appointed as a councillor in the Rustenburg and needed to be closer to his constituency in order to fulfil his responsibility as a councillor.

Webster appealed to the high court after the he was denied bail in the Rustenburg Magistrate’s Court.

Outside court Webster said he was relieved that his bail conditions were relaxed and that he would now be able to attend to all activities he was involved in.

“The bail conditions has been relaxed by the high court and that I will be able to have free movement… honesty this bail conditions had been killing me emotionally,” he said.

Webster and 13 others are accused of the murder of SA National Civic Organisation (Sanco) member Sabata Petros Chale, 39.

WATCH: 5th anniversary of Marikana massacre

The State alleges that Aubrey Seitsang, Sibonile Sobopha, Mdlondozi Fundiwo, Herbert Baqhesi, Webster, William Nyenyane, Aphindile Pungone, Samson Gqwetani, Gift Luveli, Nkululeko Msithwa, Nkosindiphile Nziyose, Luvo Soyizwaphi, Sivuyile Qasha and Mzolisi Mbulana hacked Chale to death in Marikana West near Rustenburrg in North West, on December 8, 2016. They allegedly drank his blood after hacking him.

He was allegedly killed over a dispute over the allocation of low cost (RDP) houses in Marikana Extension 2.

Their case was postponed to February 19, for trial.

Seitsang, Sobopha, Fundiwo, Baqhesi and Nyanyane were denied bail and were remanded in custody.

Pungone was granted bail of R2,000  and the others were released on R5,000 bail, their bail was extended until their trial date in February.

African News Agency

Cape Town – The State Security Agency (SSA) and Parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence are drafting new regulations around vetting procedures at state institutions that will include sanctions.

State Security Minister Bongani Bongo and SSA Director-General Arthur Fraser addressed the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on Thursday on the vetting processes at government departments.

A coy Fraser said he could not give much detail away about the drafting of the new legislation, but said it would ensure greater consequences for non-compliance.

“These regulations should be finalised very soon. There is just one element we are [still] finalising,” he told MPs.

ALSO READ: Senior crime intelligence officials without top secret clearance

“The regulations are going to attach a sanction to both the individual and the head of the institution. That is important going forward.”

Bongo agreed, saying that although accounting officers already had powers to vet individuals, accountability was a problem.

“What was lacking is the sanction. In the main, we want to zoom in on sanctions to the accounting officer and the one who does not want to take polygraph-related assessments.

“We also accept we have not moved at the pace that Parliament has wanted us, but we are a nation at work.”

‘Playground of corruption’

The meeting was called after it came to light that only 7% of Transnet’s supply-chain management (SCM) staff have been vetted, despite a 2014 Cabinet instruction that all SCM staff in government be vetted.

Scopa MPs appreciated the developments, but said the nitty-gritty of how they conducted vetting was between them and the standing committee.

What was of concern to Scopa, was that it was leading to small and huge rand losses at almost all levels of government through corruption.

ALSO READ: DA threatens legal action against SSA’s Arthur Fraser

“Supply-chain management is the playground of corruption, and staff have not been vetted, despite Cabinet’s decision,” said IFP MP Mkhuleko Hlengwa.

“That is the biggest threat to national security at the moment; freeloaders dealing with public funds. We need to plug the hole.”

ANC MP Ezekiel Kekana said it was worrying that the SSA seemed to be explaining away the lack of compliance on Cabinet’s directive.

DA MP David Ross said heads of state institutions also had a duty to vet individuals, and that the SSA should ensure compliance.

New e-vetting pilot coming

Fraser admitted that there had been little follow through on Cabinet’s instruction, but claimed the problem was one of resources, volume and time. The process was also still manual, he said.

They also found resistance from some top executives and labour unions.

“We are vetting, we just aren’t doing enough. We have found in many instances that people do not want to co-operate or be a part of polygraph tests.”

The solution, he explained, was a proposed e-vetting system for the first two phases of the process, including the gathering of information.

ALSO READ: SA spy agency ‘mismanaged’ R1.5bn

A pilot run of a new digital system is planned for April 2018.

“We will enroll all individuals who do business with [the] State and verify their bona fides. Once we have digitised and modernised our vetting, we’d be able to reflect on all those that work within the State.

“It would then mean we can do more detailed investigation when required.”

‘Aiding and abetting’

Up until now, heads of state institutions could still override an SSA recommendation and appoint an individual without a security clearance, he said.

The legislation and the new system would deal with the workflow problems and ensure sanctions in future.

They were also in the process of placing a unit within the Chief Procurement Office at Treasury.

Hlengwa ended with a warning around Cabinet’s directive.

“If that is not done with the necessary haste, then we can come to no other conclusion than that the SSA is aiding and abetting non-compliance in the SCM sector and the rise in corruption.

“It makes you complicit.”

After the meeting, Bongo told two journalists that he had not yet received any feedback from his political authority or the police over accusations that he had tried to bribe the evidence leader of Parliament’s Eskom inquiry.

He said the matter was sub judice and he could not comment, before being whisked away by four bodyguards.

State Security Minister Bongani #Bongo and #SSA director general Arthur Fraser in Parliament to discuss #vetting processes at #SOEs and govt departments with #Scopa. @TeamNews24 pic.twitter.com/T2Q6sJp6Vl

— Paul Herman (@PaulHermanCPT) December 7, 2017