Yearly Archives: 2012

Ramaphosa must say sorry – ANCYL

NEWS Leave a comment

iol news pic cyril ramaphosa sep 20

Johannesburg – ANC national executive committee member and businessman Cyril Ramaphosa must apologise to the families of those killed at Marikana on August 16, the ANC Youth League said on Wednesday.

“Comrade Cyril Ramaphosa must apologise to the families of the injured and the dead for agitating and inciting the South African Police against them,” the African National Congress Youth League said in a statement.

On Tuesday, advocate Dali Mpofu, representing the miners injured and arrested after the shooting on August 16, said there was an e-mail in which Ramaphosa strongly condemned the protests, described them as criminal acts and suggested “concomitant action”.

Mpofu told the Farlam Commission into the shootings, which is holding hearings at the Rustenburg Civic Centre, that the e-mail was sent 24-hours before 34 miners were killed.

“He advanced that what was taking place were criminal acts and must be characterised as such. In line with this characterisation (Ramaphosa said) there needs to be concomitant action to address the situation,” said Mpofu.

He said e-mails were exchanged between Ramaphosa, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, Lonmin management and Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu.

Ramaphosa sits on the Lonmin board. The striking miners killed in the shooting were from Lonmin’s platinum mine in Marikana.

He is also executive chairman of Shanduka Resources, which owns half of Incwala Resources, Lonmin’s black economic empowerment partner.

Ramaphosa chaired the ANC’s national disciplinary committee of appeals which upheld the expulsion from the party of former ANCYL president Julius Malema, and at which Malema was represented by Mpofu.

The Hawks are investigating charges, brought by the trade union Solidarity, that Malema incited violence during the strike at Lonmin’s Marikana mine.

The ANCYL said Ramaphosa had “lost any credibility as a genuine leader of the people, and as a revolutionary committed to the cause of the working class”.

“With his e-mail to Police Minister, Comrade Nathi Mthethwa, Comrade Ramaphosa delivered the more than 40 people to their death(s) at Marikana,” the ANCYL said.

It said that Ramaphosa’s preoccupation with the preservation of his monetary interests in Lonmin led him to call for concomitant action to deal with the criminal acts.

“As a seasoned unionist, the ANC Youth League expected more from Comrade Ramaphosa.

“The criminal acts he spoke of were the legitimate calls of workers demanding a decent wage.”

The league said Mthethwa had yet to explain from where the police got their orders.

The ANCYL called for a moratorium on all dismissals of workers and a return to order in the mining industry.

“The call for nationalisation of mines has never been more urgent and we call on ANC leaders with vested interests in the mining industry to subordinate their interests in favour of the collective good of all in South Africa, as demanded by the Freedom Charter.” – Sapa

Cosatu rally will not unite workers: DSM

NEWS Leave a comment

IOL pic oct22 miners walkout

A Rustenburg rally by Cosatu will not unite workers, the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) said on Tuesday.

“The rally will not bring the workers together, it will not bring unity, but conflict,” secretary general Weizmann Hamilton said.

His movement was concerned that Cosatu called the rally to claim back Rustenburg from what it called the forces of the counter-revolution.

The Congress of SA Trade Unions had planned a march and a rally on Saturday, at the Olympia Park stadium, to mobilise workers to engage in solidarity protests in support of mineworkers’ wage demands.

The strike started at Lonmin’s Marikana mine in August when workers demanded a monthly salary of R12,500, and elected a committee to represent them, instead of a union.

Hamilton said the DSM did not lead workers into a strike, but offered them support when their union, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), said the R12,500 was unreasonable.

“When workers went on strike for a reasonable demand, we offered them support. It is possible for mineworkers to be paid R88,000 a month and still leave a huge profit for the bosses.”

He said NUM was using the DSM as a scapegoat for its failure to serve the workers.

“NUM has turned into a business union with interests in the mines.”

He said the DSM wanted to form a national socialist party representing the interests of workers.

He said the DSM was a Trotskyist (far left) political party affiliated to the Committee for a Workers’ International, which was represented in 40 countries. The DSM was formed in the 1970s, mostly by expelled African National Congress members.

Hamilton said they had been inundated with requests from people wanting to join the movement. He could not immediately provide membership numbers. – Sapa

 

Lonmin defends emails to government

NEWS Leave a comment

IOL pic oct22 marikana farlam

Rustenburg – Lonmin on Tuesday denied claims that it colluded with the police and the government in the days before the Marikana mine shooting.

“Lonmin’s action to engage with appropriate authorities of the state was simply part of a process aimed at achieving normality,” the company said in a statement.

“Lonmin is a mining company and is not responsible for law enforcement.”

The platinum miner was responding to arguments heard on Tuesday at the Farlam inquiry, which is investigating the August 16 shooting at Lonmin’s Marikana mine.

The company said it wanted to communicate with the government to ensure it understood the company’s view of the situation, to ensure a peaceful resolution of the matter.

Advocate Dali Mpofu, representing the miners injured and arrested after the shooting, told the inquiry of an e-mail in which ANC heavyweight and Lonmin board member Cyril Ramaphosa strongly condemned the protests, described them as criminal acts and suggested “concomitant action”.

“This (e-mail) was (sent) on 15 August at 2.58pm, exactly 24 hours before the people were mowed down on that mountain,” said Mpofu.

“We have e-mails that were being exchanged between Lonmin management, government ministers 1/8of mineral resources and the police 3/8, and at the centre is a gentleman called Cyril Ramaphosa,” he said.

“He advanced that what was taking place were criminal acts and must be characterised as such.”

Mpofu said the e-mail was addressed to a certain “dear Albert of Lonmin”.

He said evidence would be led to discredit claims that the shootings were spontaneous acts committed in self-defence by police officers.

One of the causes of the Marikana tragedy was a “toxic collusion between the state and capital”, he said.

“The main causes of the massacre are the SA Police Service (SAPS), other agencies of government, and Lonmin. The people I represent here seek the truth for themselves and their colleagues who passed away.”

Mpofu described the actions of the police as “murder and extra-judicial killings”.

The police opened fire while trying to disperse a group of strikers encamped on a hill in Nkaneng, killing 34 and wounding 78 on August 16.

The workers had been carrying knobkerries, pangas, sticks and iron rods. They went on strike on August 10, demanding a monthly salary of R12,500. Within four days, 10 people had been killed, two of them policemen and two of them security guards. – Sapa


child shot oct 24

Johannesburg – Eleven-year-old Kimberly Mzizi had just taken a break from skipping with her friends when she felt blood trickling from her chest.

“I am bleeding,” she said, clutching her chest.

The girl she was leaning against turned to look at her, saw the blood, got scared and pulled away.

As Kimberly was about to fall, another friend leaned towards her quickly, grabbed her, laid her down on the ground gently and fled.

Scared, the rest of the group scattered, leaving Kimberly dead on the gravel.

A police officer, allegedly looking scared, ran to where Kimberly lay, conducted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and checked her for wounds. When he realised that the girl was dead, he gave up.

Kimberly’s mother, Ntokozo, had been watching the afternoon news in her Bramfischer home when a crying neighbour burst through the door and told her that her child had been injured.

Ntokozo rushed outside to be met by the sight of her daughter’s body lying at the neighbour’s gate.

“I tried to wake her up, shaking her and calling her name. But she was just quiet,” the woman recalled. “I heard that the officer who shot her was chasing after a suspect. I wondered why he had to shoot here when there were children in the streets. However, only God will judge him,” Ntokozo said.

Ntokozo sat on her bed on Tuesday, surrounded by relatives.

Three months ago, she had buried her husband. A week before he died, he suffered a stroke and was paralysed. “I’m still in shock and don’t even know how I will bury my daughter. I don’t have a cent,” she said.

A neighbour, whose daughter grabbed Kimberly before she fell, said she had seen people running past her yard before hearing a gunshot.

Margaret Rahube said she had initially thought the sound was one of her windows breaking.

However, when she saw the officer performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Kimberly, she realised what had happened.

For more details go to http://www.iol.co.za

Ramaphosa under siege

NEWS Leave a comment

Image

ANC heavyweight Cyril Ramaphosa – who is being nominated by supporters of President Jacob Zuma to be his deputy – has been named as authoring an e-mail that called on the eve of the Marikana shootings for action against striking Lonmin miners.

 

Sapa reported that advocate Dali Mpofu told the Farlam Commission of Inquiry of an e-mail in which Ramaphosa condemned protests by workers at the mine, describing them as criminal acts and calling for “concomitant action”.

 

“This was on 15 August at 2.58 pm, exactly 24 hours before the people were mowed down on that mountain,” Sapa reported Mpofu as saying.

 

“We have e-mails that were being exchanged between Lonmin management, government ministers and at the centre is a gentleman called Cyril Ramaphosa,” Mpofu was quoted as telling the inquiry.

 

“He advanced that what was taking place criminal acts and must be characterised as such. In line with this characterisation there needs to be concomitant action to address the situation.”

 

In a statement on Tuesday night, Lonmin said that due to “the violence and loss of life in the period August 10 to 14”, it had “engaged with a number of stakeholders to ensure that the situation in and around Marikana was addressed in the appropriate manner”.

 

As it was a mining company and “not responsible for law enforcement”, it “stands to reason that the company, including members of its board, would communicate with the relevant stakeholders in government to ensure that they properly understood the company’s view of the situation on the ground to ensure a peaceful resolution of the matter”, the statement said.

 

“Lonmin’s action to engage with appropriate authorities of the state was simply part of a process aimed at achieving normality.”

 

Ramaphosa is a non-executive director of Lonmin. His Shanduka group owns 9 percent of the company through its 50 percent stake in Incwala Resources, Lonmin’s black economic empowerment partner.

 

While he has given no formal indication of his willingness to replace deputy ANC president Kgalema Motlanthe, speculation that he is keen to play a bigger role in the party has been rife for months.

 

He has been nominated by the ANC in Mpumalanga on a pro-Zuma slate that would keep Gwede Mantashe as secretary-general, have Jessie Duarte as his deputy (in place of Thandi Modise), and Baleka Mbete as ANC chairwoman, and KwaZulu-Natal Premier Zweli Mkhize as treasurer-general instead of Mathews Phosa.

 

The same list of names was put forward after a meeting of the branch at Zuma’s home in Nkandla earlier this month, the Sunday Times reported at the weekend.

 

If the speculations are true, however, Ramaphosa – who last month apologised on national radio for bidding R18 million for a buffalo and its calf while fellow South Africans lived in poverty – could find the path to political power very convoluted.

 

The SAfm interview also offered Ramaphosa the opportunity to reject categorically “outrageous” allegations on a website that he owned a company that was contracting labour to Lonmin but pocketing the bulk of workers’ wages.

 

The former struggle activist and National Union of Mineworkers leader is now best known as a capitalist, and – as chairman of the party’s disciplinary appeals committee – the man who sealed the fate of ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema.

Elected ANC secretary-general in 1991, he led the ANC in the negotiations that paved the way for the 1994 democratic breakthrough.

 

The height of his popularity in the ANC was in 1997 when he got the top number of votes for a place on the national executive committee. When he left politics for business, the word was he had been pushed, and speculation was that he would aim for a comeback.

 

Ramaphosa turns 60 on November 17. If he accepts nomination as deputy president, and his bid is not derailed, he would be well placed to step into top spot come 2017, with a shot at becoming South Africa’s president in 2019.

 

Political Bureau

For more details go to http://www.iol.co.za

Mahikeng to host tourney final


Image

By Obakeng Maje

Mahikeng-In order to intensify community mass sport participation, the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture working together with the recently launched Provincial Sport Council will on Saturday, 27 October 2012 host the Provincial Finals of the Football and Netball Tournament that started with eliminations at local municipality level during the past two months.  

 

The provincial finals which will involve both male and female football teams as well as netball teams from the four districts will take place at Mmabatho Stadium and Montshioa Stadium.

 

“Working closely with relevant structures, we want to ensure that sport development becomes a reality in this talent flowing province”, said MEC for Sport, Arts and Culture, Mme Tebogo Modise, adding that such arrangements would be a continuous practice, to strengthen cooperation and support with Sport Federations, secondly to verify if local structures/associations are existing and functional in all service points and thirdly to identify areas that need intervention for local association to function efficiently and inclusively within communities in our areas.

Follow us on Twitter@Taung_DailyNews

 

Vaaltar FM suspends Top DJ


Image

By Obakeng Maje

Taung- Vaaltar Fm is one of leading community radio stations in South Africa. And the station is based at Lesedi Corporation Buildings in Taung CBD.

The station has suspended their Breakfast show host Tshokollo “MrTM” Maine. According to our mole at the station, the Top Dj was suspended yesterday for late coming.

Mr TM allegedly arrived two hours late for his show yesterday and he was put in the cold.

Our crew received few calls from concerned  listeners who wanted to know what’s really transpires at the station.

We contacted the station for any clarity on the matter.

We spoke to an acting Programme Manager and Head of News Amogelang Matuane.

“I am suprised because we haven’t received any calls from so-called concerned listeners. Maybe your newspaper is a shareholder at Vaaltar Fm because our listeners know our numbers” she said angrily.

“Mr TM arrived late yesterday and according to his statement he woke up late. And on this issue I do not want to comment further” Matuane yelled.

 Our crew next stop was the Dj himself to get his side of story and refutes all that statement.

“I do not want to say much on that issue as the relevant people to talk to, is the Station Management. I cannot deny nor agree regarding my suspension” Mr TM as he is affectionately known to his fans said.

According to information we received the Dj was also suspendedd back in July for unknown reasons.

“We were engaged in a meeting a hour ago and i received your messages.I really want to know who leaked the story or who are those listeners” Amogelang said.

Our crew explained to her that whether she knows those listeners or not is not much of importance as we only wanted a clarification regarding unsolved issues hovering the station.

If our mole information is anything to go by, Tokollo “Mr TM” Maine is bound to be expelled.

Only time will tell,so keep captivated to your favourite newspaper.

Follow us on Twitter@Taung_DailyNews 

Provincial Arts and Culture Indaba in full swing


Image

By Obakeng Maje

The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture has announced that preparations for the launching of the Provincial Arts and Culture Indaba are in full swing. 

 

Chief Director: Arts and Culture, Libraries and Archives, Mr. Thabo Mabe, says the Indaba, which was initially scheduled for October, will now take place in November in the Dr Kenneth Kaunda District. 

 

“The October date was subject to a number of things being in place, matters including the venue, the completion of district indabas and the confirmation of speakers for the event,” says Mabe. “Now we have a clear schedule of district indabas, with the first one in Ngaka Modiri Molema District on October 29. We encourage all artists to participate at district level, before we engage at provincial level.

 

“As we speak, logistical arrangements such as the engagement of all genres, the venue, and selection of participants and confirmations of attendants are underway.”

 

The theme of the Indaba is: “Carving a Place for the North West in the Mzansi’s Golden Economy”, in recognition of the need for the development of cohesive and well-defined and thought-out strategies for the carving of a proper role and space in the socio-economic development of this country.

 

“The overall outcome is to ensure that out of the indaba we have clear guidelines regarding such critical issues as funding policy and other elements,” says Mabe. “We want to ensure that all stakeholders know the rules of the game.“

 

Mabe says he is impressed with the engagement of the artists, as they are critical to the success of the Indaba. Following a meeting with the artists and Premier Thandi Modise, a joint steering committee comprising artists and Departmental officials was formed. 

 

“Already, five members of the Arts and Culture community have been part of three meetings with Departmental staff in preparation for the Indaba. That is an impressive development, as we seek to find solutions to common challenges. I am confident that we will work together for the benefit of arts and culture in the Province.”

Follow us on twitter@Taung_DailyNews

Recovery of firearms commendable-Nwest Exco


Image

By Obakeng Maje

 The North West Executive Council (Exco) has commented police for the recovery of 606 firearms and 7 486 rounds of ammunition. According to Annual Crime Statistics presented to Exco by the Provincial Management of the South African Police Service recently, the illegal firearms were recovered from the hands of criminals in 479 incidents during the 2011/2012 financial year.In calling to communities to work closer with police and for the partnership against crime to be strengthened, Premier Thandi Modise said that without the support of communities, police cannot win the war against crime.
 
“Though the recovery of the firearms contributed significantly towards reduction of crime, the onslaught against crime has to be sustained and intensified on all fronts to ensure that criminals are uprooted from our communities. Law abiding citizens should not live in fear whilst criminals are roaming our streets.” said Premier Modise.
 
One hundred and thirteen murders, 2354 robberies and 409 incidents of attempted murder were committed with the use of firearms during the past financial year. 
 
   Exco     

North West supports reproductive health for all 


Image

By Obakeng Maje

The North West Province’s support for the universal call for attention to the essential part that reproductive health plays in creating a just and equitable world is to be amplified at the provincial event to commemorate World Population Day to be held at the Orion Hotel in Rustenburg on Thursday.

 

The theme adopted by the United Nations to reenergize commitments made in the past towards universal access to reproductive health and to recognise those who provide information, services and supplies as part of commemorating the 2012 World Population Day is “Universal Access to Reproductive Health Services.”

 

“Although reproductive health is recognised as a human rights issue which should be at the very heart of development and crucial to delivering the United Nations Population Fund vision of a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every child birth is safe, and every young person’s potential is fulfilled, problems associated with it remain the leading cause of ill health and death for women of childbearing age worldwide says Premier Thandi Modise.

 

Premier Modise added that with the world population having reached 7 billion, investing in sexual and reproductive health is one of the surest and most effective ways to promote equitable and sustainable development and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

 

“We are challenged to take urgent concerted action to bridge the gap between demand and supply of reproductive health care because women and young people who are in good health, and who have the power and the means to make their decisions about how many children to have–and when to have them, are better able to contribute to the development of their societies If we can reach the poorest and most vulnerable communities with reproductive health information and services, we can save many lives and improve countless others. We will also make significant strides in reducing poverty, advancing development and protecting human rights.” she stressed

 

The provincial commemoration hosted by the Planning Commission in the Office of the Premier in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund and the Provincial Department of a Health is intended at promoting and informing citizens on various aspects of reproductive and sexual health will determine whether we are committed to the idea that everyone has a right to reproductive health.

Follow us on Twitter@Taung_DailyNews