Free State


Taxpayers to pay R400m for ANC party

Thursday, November 10, 2011 1 Comment by Zelda

Taxpayers will have to pay more than R400m for the ANC’s centenary celebrations in Bloemfontein.

This is on top of the R100m which the ANC had already budgeted for next year’s big party.

This amount is however petty cash compared to the money that will be spent to ready infrastructure in the Free State to host the party.

- Taxpayers have already paid R150m for the Philip Sanders resort just outside the city. The resort will be the headquarters of the festivities;

- A further R35m has been budgeted to restore the Methodist church in Waaihoek, where the ANC was founded in 1912;

- R200m has been allocated to renovate the Seisa Ramabodu Stadium in Mangaung;

- The official house of Free State Premier Ace Magashule will get an upgrade costing R15m;

- Millions will also be spent to restore the historic Mapikela home, and the Winnie Mandela home in Brandfort.

Heritage

Cope’s Casca Mokitlane said that as it is an ANC celebration, the organisation must use its own money to finance the party.

The ANC however feels that the centenary celebrations form part of every South African’s heritage, which is why it sees no problem in spending large sums of money.

Roy Jankielsohn, leader of the DA in the Free State, said it would be highly irregular for a political party to tap into national, provincial and municipal budgets to pay for its celebrations.

“We are worried about how much money is being used for the restoration of the buildings and church, even if they could be declared national heritage sites.”

Professor Andre Duvenhage, political commentator of the North West University, said such spending of taxpayers’ money threatens democracy.

William Bulwane, spokesperson for Premier Magashule, did not respond.

Credit to: Volksblad and New 24

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New move to jack up municipal finances

Monday, September 12, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The government is preparing tough regulations that will force municipalities to hire only qualified chartered accountants as chief financial officers – and those that cannot afford to might be dissolved.

Deputy Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Yunus Carrim told parliament’s select committee on finance that auditor-general Terrence Nombembe and the Institute of Chartered Accountants supported the move.

Nombembe had told Carrim there were enough black chartered accountants to fill the country’s municipal CFO posts.

Carrim said there would be no extra cost to the fiscus, because municipal CFOs are already paid market-related salaries.

“It is not as if the gap between what is currently being paid and what would have to be paid is necessarily so great,” he told the Sunday Times.

“There are municipalities that are not viable anyway, and we are exploring the possibility of merging those into adjoining municipalities. If a municipality cannot appoint a CFO who is suitably qualified, then it means that municipality may have to be questioned for its relevance and viability.”

The move has been prompted by the government’s growing frustration over financial mismanagement in a number of municipalities where infighting, deployment of unqualified cadres and corruption have brought many towns to their knees.

Carrim’s department has been hard pressed to make good on its promise of achieving clean municipal audits by 2014.

But the deputy minister admitted that they may have to “tweak” the target, as it appears unlikely to be attained. “We must consider a phased 10-year programme to turn things around. Large numbers of people simply cannot pay. It is the failure of our (previous) economic growth path.”

So far, only seven of the country’s 237 municipalities have achieved clean audits.

Meanwhile, Mangaung’s municipal manager, Sandile Msibi, told the committee that the municipality owed Eskom R143million, needed R2.3 billion just to upgrade its stormwater drainage system and had received negative audit opinions for the past three years.

Six of the city’s 14 water reservoirs could not hold enough water, and the municipality had bought new garbage trucks that had mechanical faults, leaving fewer than half of them in action at any time. The municipality had over 1100km of untarred roads, and 367 of its tarred roads were in a poor condition.

He said the municipality had a turnaround plan, but was likely to get a negative audit opinion for the next two years.

Free State’s Masilonyana municipality, covering Brandfort, Soutpan, and Theunissen, presented a document saying that infrastructure “has all but reached the end of its lifespan and will have to be replaced to avoid a complete collapse”.

Committee chairman Charel de Beer said a recent visit by MPs to Free State had shown a province in financial chaos, where forensic reports into irregularities were never tabled in council meetings.

Credit to: Times Live

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More than half of sewage plants “critical”

Friday, July 1, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

Less than half of South Africa’s 821 sewage works are treating the billions of litres of effluent they receive each day to safe and acceptable standards, according to the latest Green Drop Report.

The report – a measure of the state of waste water treatment plants in all nine provinces – was released by Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa on Thursday.

While it awards Green Drop status to 40 plants – up from 33 in 2009 – it warns that another 460 plants (56%) are either in a “critical state” or delivering a “very poor performance”.

The latest report examines waste water treatment at 821 plants in 156 municipalities – the previous (2009) report examined 444 plants in 98 municipalities – and says this is “100% coverage of all systems”.

It is understood the report does not cover treatment works owned by public works, such as those at prisons, and other private operators.

Many of the poorly performing plants are located in the country’s poorer provinces, including the Eastern Cape, Free State, Northern Cape and Limpopo.

“The Western Cape, followed by KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, are producing the high-performing waste water systems; Eastern Cape, followed by Free State, Northern Cape and Limpopo, are producing the bulk of the systems that are in critical and poor-performing positions.”

The report’s findings imply that millions of litres of untreated or inadequately treated sewage are being illegally discharged into rivers and streams each day, mainly by small town municipalities.

High risk increasing

In a national overview, the document describes the overall “risk trend” of the 821 treatment plants as “neutral to negative”.

It says that compared to 2008, the number of “critical risk” waste water treatment plants has increased from 129 to 137; and the number of “high risk” plants from 264 to 284.

At the other end of the scale, the number of plants previously deemed low risk” has dropped – from 196 in 2008, to 138 now.

The report says municipal waste water treatment service performance around the country varies from “excellent” to “unacceptable”.

“Analysis of the Green Drop results indicates a fairly good national score of 71%. However, this value might be skewed, as a few excellent provincial scores would balance out the lower provincial performers.”

The number of plants achieving a Green Drop score of more than 50% has decreased proportionally, from 49% in 2009, to 44%.

“This trend can possibly be explained by considering that 377 ‘first time’ systems were assessed and many of these achieved low Green Drop scores.”

Half in Gauteng

The 821 sewage plants around the country treat a total flow of about 5,258bn litres of waste water a day, almost half of it in Gauteng.

“Analysis of the operational flows indicates that Gauteng manages the bulk of the national load (49%), followed by the Western Cape (17%) and KwaZulu-Natal (14%).

“The balance of the provinces receives and treats the remaining 20% of waste water generated in South Africa.”

The report says that of the 821 plants, a total of 40 – those awarded Green Drop status – were in an “excellent situation”, 78 were “good”, and 243 delivered an “average performance”.

However, a total of 143 delivered a “very poor performance”; and 317 were in a “critical state”.

The report’s release comes at the end of a three-day municipal water quality conference in Cape Town.

The names of the municipalities awarded Green Drop status were announced at an awards dinner in Cape Town on Thursday.

Credit to: Sapa and News24

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No water, electricity at schools

Wednesday, June 22, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

While the country is fighting an uphill battle to improve basic education, more than 3500 public schools in the country have no electricity, while 2402 have no water supply.

This is according to a school infrastructure report published in May by the Department of Basic Education.

Of the country’s 24793 public schools, 913 have no toilets.

These figures refer to schools that never had these facilities at all, as well as schools where infrastructure was destroyed or not properly maintained.

In KwaZulu-Natal, which – along with the Eastern Cape and the Free State – is one of the worst-off provinces for school infrastructure, 150 students are crammed into one classroom in a school in President Jacob Zuma’s home town, Nkandla.

The Shoba High School in Hlobane in northern KwaZulu-Natal was forced to shut its doors because of a low admission rate due to poor facilities.

Parents said their children did not want to go to a school that was just “one room in the middle of a bush”.

Spokesman for the Department of Basic Education Granville Whittle said the infrastructure backlog will be addressed through the department’s Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative.

The initiative aims to eradicate the 395 mud schools in the country, which are all in the Eastern Cape, and provide all schools with water, electricity and sanitation by 2014.

The National Treasury has allocated R700m to the department for the 2011/2012 financial year to fund the initiative, said Whittle.

A total of 160 schools in KwaZulu-Natal have no toilets, while 26.6% and 10.6% of its 5931 schools don’t have electricity and water respectively.

In the Eastern Cape 551 of its 5676 schools don’t have toilets, 1152 have no electricity and 1096 have no water.

Credit to: Times Live

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Municipality spent R2bn on dodgy deals

Monday, June 13, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

One of the country’s worst-run municipalities went on a R2bn spending spree, which has been exposed in a series of explosive reports.

Free State premier Ace Magashule knew about suspicious dealings at the Matjhabeng municipality as far back as 2009 – but no action has been taken against any of the implicated officials.

The municipality, which incorporates Welkom, Odendaalsrus, Virginia, Henneman, Allenridge and Ventersburg, spent R1.6bn of its R1.7bn budget on “unaccounted expenditure” and property, according to the latest auditor-general’s report.

In addition, the municipality, according to the AG, wrote off bad debts totalling R1bn in the past four years. The R1.6bn includes R876.3m on property, R258.5m through unaccounted expenditure, R227.8m in debts incorrectly written off and R230.3m on “unauthorised, fruitless and wasteful expenditure”.

Several reports by a forensic company, as well as a commission of inquiry headed by the then co-operative governance MEC Mosebenzi Zwane, show how Matjhabeng – which, according to its website has a population of “more than 500000″ – got itself into such a mess.

They show that, on one occasion, officials tried to destroy documents stashed in wheelie bins, while investigations were under way. Some of the reports are over a year old.

Magashule this week admitted that there were “problems” at Matjhabeng that were reported to him as far back as 2009. However, he said he was never made aware of the full extent. “I didn’t know about these details and these billions.”

One of the men implicated in ripping off public funds is Jaqui Gao. Magashule said he had stopped Gao’s company, Rui Star, from doing business in Matjhabeng because of suspected corruption involving Matjhabeng’s former municipal manager, the late Thabo Pietersen.

The company had up to that point received at least R20m in tenders. “We picked up about Rui Star supplying substandard bricks and supplying (bricks) for Pietersen’s house (in Bloemfontein),” he said.

The reports also detail that:
•    R200000 was paid into the account of ex-mayor Mathabo Leeto’s husband, Lehana, by photocopy company Gestetner after it was awarded an “irregular” R15m tender;
•    R1.5m was approved for renovations to the mayoral house, deemed to be “personal enrichment”; and
•    Former municipal manager Dr Ben Malakoane signed questionable tenders worth R80m – 10 of them in one day, shortly before he resigned to join a company that benefited.

The Zwane report found Malakoane “grossly negligent” and “undermining the rule of law” for signing contracts “without following due process”. The report recommended a “dedicated forensic investigation” into his role in the sale of council land to Pinnacle Point for a R500m shopping mall.

Magashule admitted he was close to Pietersen and Malakoane saying: “They are my comrades.”

Leeto is mayor of the Lejweleputswa district municipality in northwest Free State and has widely been tipped to be promoted by Magashule to an MEC.

Asked if she’d repay the costs of her home renovations, Leeto said “there was neither determination made nor any finding that there was an irregularity on my part”.

Her husband Lehana confirmed that the R200000 was indeed deposited into his bank account but couldn’t explain how. He was unable to prove, as he claimed, that the money had been returned.

Said Magashule: “I think it’s completely unfair if you want to blame me for all of this. I can’t protect anyone. I’m not that powerful.”

Matjhabeng spokesman Modise Mahlatsane said the council was still waiting for the final report from investigating firm Ramathe Fivaz and had never seen Zwane’s report.

Mahlatsane said the council was implementing an “action plan” to deal with the auditor-general’s “queries and recommendations”.

Gao denied any wrongdoing. “People are jealous. I know Pietersen because I used to go to his office to demand (outstanding payments).”

Credit to: Times Live

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ANC embarrased about Free State open toilets

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 4 Comments by Zelda

The African National Congress (ANC) plans to crack the whip on its Free State leaders who did not inform the party that the Moqhaka municipality — which includes Kroonstad — had built open toilets, secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said on Friday.

Mantashe said the local government elections had served to remind the party of the need to resuscitate the debate on whether all the three spheres of government should be retained as they are. Many smaller municipalities were burdened with a broad range of duties but were unable to raise revenue, he said.

Last week, the ANC was embarrassed by news of unenclosed toilets built by a municipality it controls. The revelations emerged at a time when the party was taking the Democratic Alliance to task for its open toilets in Cape Town.

Mantashe said the ANC was let down by those running the party in the Fezile Dabi region.

A disciplinary inquiry would be held, he said. Blaming Free State local government MEC Mamiki Qabathe for the toilet saga, he said she should have known about the toilets.

Amid further revelations that a company owned by Moqhaka mayor Mantebu Mokgosi was involved in the erection of the toilets, Mantashe said: “That is even worse. That is scandalous…. If you ask me, you should never do business with the company you are in.”

Officials and politicians had to be banned from doing business with the bodies they were part of. But he did not think a law was necessary to enforce this.

“Political ethics cannot be legislated. It is a function of consciousness. If you loot, there is something wrong with your consciousness … something is rotten with your consciousness,” he said.

Mantashe echoed Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi’s call last week for the debate on the levels of government to be reopened. Vavi said provincial governments were blocking the fast delivery of services, and should be done away with in order to embolden municipalities.

The ANC has been re-evaluating the three tiers of government. A conference in December recommended that a presidential review investigate ways of structuring the administration. Possible options included abolishing or reducing the number of provinces to allow for the strengthening of municipalities. But abolishing provincial government was not popular with the ANC’s rank and file as provincial governments and legislatures provided jobs, and were used by regional power brokers to dole out patronage.

Another option is the abolition of district municipalities. The duties of smaller municipalities should be reduced, leaving district municipalities to fulfil the rest of the mandate, said Mantashe. However, he said the state of municipalities was not all gloomy, as many were doing sterling work. “We are underselling what we have done in the last 17 years.”

The debate on the structure of government should be raised during the party’s policy conference, to be held in June next year, he said.

Credit to: The Business Day

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Mass municipal strike coming

Thursday, April 21, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The South African Municipal Workers Union on Wednesday announced its members would go on a nationwide strike in May.

A previous municipal strike. Photo courtesy of SABC News.

Spokesperson for the union Tahir Sema said they decided to embark on the strike due to “a number of issues nationally, affecting the union and its membership”.

The strike would start in the Free State on May 10 and Gauteng May 11 as they were “hot spot provinces”. National action was planned for May 13 and then it would spread to the North West on May 27 and Mpumalanga on May 31.

In a statement he said the union confirmed its support for the ANC in the upcoming local government elections.

“The programme of action … is not in any way intended to disrupt the upcoming local government elections and will ensure we respect citizens’ rights to participate in the elections.”

He said the protest would continue until the problems raised were resolved.

During the strike members planned to march and deliver memorandums to Gauteng MEC for co-operative governance and traditional affairs, the South African Local Government Association, the Free State premier, the ministers of labour, public enterprises and justice and the presidency.

Problems raised by Samwu included “attacks” on workers and union leaders as well as “political dismissals”, the privatisation of public services and assets, and the transfer of services from local to provincial government.

The union wants the president not to sign the Municipal Systems Amendment Bill into law, and remove provincial government from the Constitution. It wants limitations on workers’ rights to strike removed from statutes, an end to labour brokers and corruption and Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka dismissed, if the allegations against him were true. It also raised its concerns about police brutality.

“These mass actions will be used to name and shame the beneficiaries of corruption within the public sector and the private sector.”

Credit to: News 24

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Law society will help Tatane’s family

Saturday, April 16, 2011 No Comments by Zelda

The violence which led to the death of Ficksburg protester Andries Tatane was “shocking, unjustified and disproportionate”, the Law Society of SA (LSSA) said on Friday.

“By all accounts Mr Tatane, who was part of a group protesting against the lack of service delivery in the town, posed no threat to the police,” LSSA leaders Nano Matlala and Praveen Sham said in a statement.

Tatane was a member of the Congress of the People and Ward 14 candidate for the May 18 local government elections in Meqheleng, Ficksburg in the eastern Free State.

He was killed in the town on Wednesday, allegedly after being hit by a rubber bullet and being beaten by the police. The incident was broadcast on SABC news that night.

The alleged police brutality has since been widely condemned by political parties, trade unions and civil society.

The society has offered to help Tatane’s family explore all legal remedies open to them, including instituting a claim against the police minister.

“The LSSA calls on the Independent Complaints Directorate, the minister and the Ficksburg local authority to investigate the incident speedily,including the holding of an inquest. No stone must be left unturned in bringing the perpetrators to book.

“As long as previously marginalised and dispossessed communities continue to live in dire poverty, the increasing disillusionment with regard to poor or non-existent service delivery will, inevitably, lead to protests.”

The LSSA believed it was within the community’s rights to demand that the Constitution be respected in relation to adequate housing, human dignity, health care, food, water and social security.

Government and the police should act with sympathy and not violence when addressing the complaints of communities.

“The LSSA urges the [SA Police Service] to exercise appropriate restraint and use force only as a last resort. It must also be proportionate to the threat facing the Saps. South Africa should learn from Egypt on how to deal with crowd control.”

Credit to: News 24 and Sapa

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Residents outraged over Ficksburg deaths

Police allegedly kills service delivery protester

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Residents outraged over Ficksburg death

Friday, April 15, 2011 2 Comments by Zelda

Emotions boiled over in the Free State town of Ficksburg yesterday with residents baying for the blood of the policemen who allegedly killed a protester.

Protesters in Ficksburg set three buildings alight after the death of Andries Tatane. Photo courtesy of Times Live.

At least three buildings were burned down and streets were blockaded.

The day before, Andries Tatane was beaten and shot dead, allegedly by a group of policemen.

The vicious assault by at least six policemen shocked the nation when it was shown on prime-time TV news bulletins.

Last night, police and thousands of residents of Meqheleng, Tatane’s home township, and of neighbouring townships, were still locked in a tense stand-off.

Entry to the area was restricted as violence flared. Residents threw a variety of missiles at the police, including petrol bombs.

What was meant to be a peaceful demonstration against service-delivery failure turned violent on Wednesday after police repeatedly struck Tatane with batons, kicked him and allegedly shot him twice.

Footage of the 33-year-old married father of one collapsing in front of the protesters, and dying about 20 minutes later, has been described as damning evidence of police brutality.

It incited anger that yesterday led to hundreds of protesters setting alight the Ficksburg offices of the departments of home affairs and of public works at midday.

Several schools closed as pupils – some of whom Tatane tutored in maths, science and Afrikaans – joined the protest.

“They killed Andries like a dog and they expect us to listen to them,” said one protester.

“Voetsek! Our lives are worth much more than just an apology after their reckless actions. The police are murderers,” he said.

Protest-march organiser and chairman of the Meqheleng Concerned Citizens group, Sam Motseare, said: “The community is very angry as a result of what unfolded yesterday.”

Motseare described the attack on Tatane as “police brutality typical of the apartheid system”.

Tatane’s family has demanded answers from the police.

The family yesterday went to the spot where he was killed. Tatane’s wife and siblings wept as a priest prayed that his soul would find peace – and for those responsible to be brought to book.

“It has been a very difficult two days,” said Tatane’s brother, Lefu. “It still seems so unreal. We have to start making funeral arrangements, but it hurts too much.”

The family home has been inundated with visitors paying their respects.

A team from the Independent Complaints Directorate was sent to investigate the killing and has been ordered to finalise the case quickly.

Directorate spokesman Moses Dlamini said the postmortem would be conducted today.
“Following the completion of all investigations, we will send our findings to the Director of Public Prosecutions to make a decision. The police will have to decide on what actions to take against any policemen implicated,” said Dlamini.

None of the police officers involved in the attack has been suspended, but they have been transferred to other areas.

National Police Commissioner Bheki Cele’s office refused to comment, saying Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa had already spoken about the case.

Neither of them has visited Tatane’s family.

Mthethwa urge the public to allow the investigation to take its course.

“From where we are, it will be improper to draw conclusions on the incident but [we] remain confident that an impartial investigation will inform us what transpired, who was in the wrong and so forth,” he said.

Mthethwa said he was confident that the Independent Complaints Directorate would investigate the incident without delay and “without fear or favour”.

But Human Rights Commission chairman Lawrence Mushwana called for tough action against the police officers who had been involved in the attack on Tatane.

“The commission is concerned about what appears to be a trend around the country whereby the human rights of innocent residents are violated by members of the police when they exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to use protest as a form of expression to raise legitimate socio-economic concerns with their elected representatives.”

Mushwana said the alleged conduct of the police contradicted section 205 of the constitution, which provides that members of the police have a duty to, among other things, “maintain public order, protect and secure South Africa’s inhabitants, and to enforce the law”.

Credit to: Times Live

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Police allegedly kills service delivery protester

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Police allegedly kills service delivery protester

Thursday, April 14, 2011 1 Comment by Zelda

Shocking images of police brutality were broadcast to the nation on television yesterday – they showed an unarmed man being beaten to death by a mob of policemen.

Pictures of the attack on the 33-year-old man by at least six policemen simultaneously, during a service delivery protest at Setsoto, in Ficksburg, eastern Free State, were shown on all SABC news bulletins last night.

The visuals show how the armed policemen cornered Andries Tatane, striking him with their batons and kicking him in an assault that lasted for a few minutes.

Tatane, from Masaleng township, Ficksburg, is seen holding his hand against his chest after the assault. He collapsed about 20 minutes later and died before an ambulance arrived.
As well as being beaten, he had been shot twice.

Last night Tatane’s brother, Lefu Tatane, told The Times of the “shocking murder” of his elder brother.

“We are very angry. I can’t even describe it. He was no danger to the police or anyone. Why did they have to kill him?” said Lefu.

Tatane was part of a group of about 4000 protesters who marched to the Setsoto municipal offices yesterday morning demanding a response to a memorandum of demands they had sent to the mayor, Mbothoma Maduna, and the municipal manager, Bafana Mthembu.

The people of Setsoto, like many others across the country, are fed-up with the lack of services in their area and demanded that Maduna and Mthembu speed up their provision.

According to Lefu, the demonstration had been peaceful until a rock was thrown into the crowd of protesters.

Police reinforcements were called in and, according to at least two eyewitnesses, chaos erupted when police water cannon were used against the protesters.

One eyewitness said that Tatane had jumped in front of an elderly man who was being sprayed by the water cannon.

“The only thing he did was to ask that they not spray the old man and then all hell broke loose. The next minute, police were all over Tatane. He was defenceless.”

According to his brother, Tatane sustained two bullet wounds, one to the chest and one in the back.

But the police claim that they were trying to arrest Tatane. They said they did not know who shot him.

Police spokesman Captain Phumelelo Dlamini said: “They were trying to arrest him. While he was being arrested, there was a gunshot so we don’t know who shot him but we’re going to investigate.”

Police also shot at the crowd, which, after witnessing the beating of Tatane, turned violent.

A number of witnesses said it was the police that shot Tatane.

Last night, Lefu said his brother’s wife was too distraught to talk and the family was taking her for medical treatment.

Tatane is also survived by a three-year-old child.

Maduna, the mayor of Setsoto, said: “It’s really unfortunate to have a person dying as a result [of the protests]. We regret it . It was not supposed to have happened. We will contribute towards the burial and show that we care.”

Free State Premier Ace Magashule said: “We will sit down and talk and work together [with the people of Setsoto]. We are sending condolences to the family.”

Lefu said officials of the Independant Complaints Directorate visited the family home at about 3pm yesterday and would return today.

The ANC last night condemned the killing and called on Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa to set up a commission of inquiry

ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu said the police responsible for the killing should be brought to book.

“We are shocked and disgusted by what we saw on television. No reason can be raised about the behaviour of the police.

“Our people have a constitutional right to protest and the action by the police is reminiscent of the apartheid police force,” Mthembu said.

Credit to: Times Live

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