Pretoria – A Mamelodi man accused of strangling his wife and two young children claims he was wrestling with a snake when he attacked his wife.

“When I explained to him that this person I was with changed into a figure like a snake and that I tried to fight with this snake… he stopped me,” Evans Mpanyane, 33, told the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.

He was giving evidence about his discussion with the police captain who interviewed him after his arrest. This formed part of proceedings to determine the admissibility of certain statements he made to the police after his arrest.

Referring to the police captain, he said: “Also when I told him I suspected this has got to do with witchcraft he stopped me. He said witchcraft has got nothing to do with the law. I then took his advice.”

Mpanyane has denied guilt on charges of murdering his wife of 14 years Connie and their daughters Priscilla, 6, and Joy, 7, near Kameeldrift, Pretoria North, on 16 December 2011.

Connie’s body, clad only in her underwear, was found under a tree in the veld with what appeared to be suicide notes tucked into the back of her bra.

A police handwriting expert testified on Wednesday that Mpanyane wrote the rambling notes, in which he mostly asked God for forgiveness.

The children’s bodies were found in the back of their father’s car. All three had been strangled.

Mpanyane claimed on Thursday that the captain who first interviewed him warned him he would be assaulted if he did not make a statement.

“I told him I would co-operate because of was afraid of being assaulted. I told him what happened at the scene while I was with the deceased. I tried to explain to him, but he did not accept some of the things I told him.

“During this discussion he told me there will be a day that I will be taken to the place where the crime was committed. I didn’t think I had a choice to deny or not to agree with his instructions,” he said.

The trial continues.

SAPA

A moment of silence was observed for former Chief Justice Pius Langa at the Farlam Commission of Inquiry on Thursday.
The commission’s chair, retired judge Ian Farlam, said Langa had made an important contribution to the justice system.

Langa (74) died at Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg on Wednesday morning following a lengthy illness.

The commission, sitting in Centurion, Pretoria, is investigating the deaths of 44 people during strike-related unrest at Lonmin’s platinum mine in Marikana, North West, in August 2012.

Police shot dead 34 striking mineworkers on August 16, while 10 people, including two police officers, were killed in the preceding week.

Meanwhile, the commission has been postponed once again in Centurion, south of Pretoria. It has been interrupted several times after lawyers for the mineworkers advocate Dali Mpofu, temporarily withdrew from the commission. His application for the State to pay the legal costs of his clients was dismissed last week by the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria last week.

The commission has been postponed until Monday to see what the outcomes will be to get an interim funding for the lawyers representing the mineworkers.

The Legal Resource Centre says it is concerned about maintaining public confidence in the credibility of the Marikana Commission of Inquiry.
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Eight people have been injured in an accident between two vehicles on the M7 on the outskirts of Pinetown, west of Durban. EThekwini Metro spokesperson Eugene Msomi says there is, at the moment, a traffic backlog at the scene.

Msomi has urged motorists to use alternative routes.

“The accident happened on the M7 East Rand by Belville. Two vehicles were involved which resulted in eight people being injured. Three of them were critically injured. We had to close off the roadway so that the helicopter could pick up the critically injured people. The scene is being cleared and one has been already airlifted to hospital. The scene should be cleared very soon.”

In another accident, on Wednesday night, one person was killed and another seriously injured in a collision between two vehicles on the N2 in the Overberg region of the Western Cape.

The Cape Town traffic service says a car, which apparently experienced a tyre burst, landed underneath a truck just outside of Riviersonderend, killing the male driver and seriously injuring his female passenger. She has been admitted to the Caledon hospital.

Meanwhile, the taxi industry in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape has embarked on a process to improve the services it renders. This comes after a series of fatal accidents involving taxis in the past few months.

Earlier this month nine people lost their lives in a taxi accident on the N2 near Sibangweni outside Mthatha.

Chairperson of the O.R Tambo Taxi Industry, Mabuya Shumayele says: “We are busy as the taxi industry, making arrangements of training our drivers on driving and customer care. We are doing this with the Department of Transport.”
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Construction has still not resumed at the troublesome Medupi power station in Limpopo after the latest industrial action by workers.

All workers have been removed from the construction site after some employees attacked cars on Wednesday.

The protest happened as members of parliament’s portfolio committee on public enterprises were undertaking an oversight visit.

Committee chairperson Peter Maluleke has expressed concern about work stoppages.

“We are very concerned about the work stoppages especially the violence that is taking place on the site. I think people have the right to strike and they have the right to embark on a work stoppage and so on,” says Maluleke.

He says that the violence is completely unacceptable and they were very shocked when they got there on Wednesday.

“We found that there were some work stoppages which actually went completely out of hand where people burnt cars and cranes.”

Maluleke says he suspected that there were some people who were hurt during the process.
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Johannesburg – Kaizer Chiefs are out to halt Orlando Pirates’ dominance of the Carling Black Label Cup, says Amakhosi skipper Itumeleng Khune.

“People might think we’re not taking this competition seriously, but we do, and we’re going out to win this trophy since it’s the only one we have not won,” Khune said on Wednesday.
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Pretoria – Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has made several findings of misconduct against the former manager and other officials of the Free State’s Nala municipality.

“The Nala administration caused the state to lose an enormous amount of money resulting in mass action by the community,” she said in a report released in Pretoria on Thursday.

Her investigation followed a request by residents, who complained about a lack of service delivery.

Madonsela found that:

– A R70m flush toilet system was not connected even though the contractor had been paid, which she declared fruitless, wasteful expenditure, and financial misconduct;

– A bucket system supposed to work in its place was dysfunctional, leading to sewage being spilled “all over the place”, which was against the right to healthy and safe services;

– There were unfinished houses in Maranatha, but that this was the domain of the human settlements department. A total of R2.8m had been paid to the contractor by the Free State government to complete the project. The Special Investigating Unit (SIU)was currently probing the contractor to make sure the money was recovered;

– The Mabana School had a sewage spillage problem, but action the education department had taken action;

– A report by KPMG detailing problems in the municipality was not tabled timeously in council after it was received in 2010. In 2011, only the executive summary was tabled, which meant the municipality did not have enough information to work on;

– There was “manipulation of supply chain processes” and “abuse of process”;

– Poor communication between the mayor and municipality culminated in protests;

– A sewage plant was incomplete and non-operational because of maladministration;

– An incomplete park did in fact exist as alleged. The land was given to the municipality by the agriculture and forestry department, and it was up to residents to plant and maintain trees. However, this had not been communicated to locals, which constituted maladministration;

– A community hall was incomplete. The tender specifications had changed and did not fit the budget. The human settlements department had stepped in to allocate money for this;

– Municipal manager Chris Mokomela was paid a R90 000 bonus as alleged, but this was the result of a computer capturing error, and he proved he repaid the money;

– R2.8m was spent implementing the KPMG report, which residents had called for.

Most of the findings were violations of the Municipal Finance Management Act and the Constitution.

Madonsela said that during the investigation, the departments of co-operative governance and human settlements had put measures in place to rectify matters.

She recommended that the wasteful and fruitless expenditure be recovered, that the lack of capacity with project management be addressed, and that supply chain managers and bid committee members be properly trained.

Erika Celliers, counsel for the protector’s office, said former municipal manager David Shongwe was no longer employed by any municipality or government entity, and faced criminal charges.

– SAPA

Cape Town – President Jacob Zuma has signed five bills into law, his office said on Thursday.

These include the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Act, also referred to as the “spy bill”.

“The main purpose of the bill is to amend three acts of Parliament, which relate to security services and to repeal an act which had become obsolete due to the consolidation of the intelligence structures,” it said in a statement.

“The three acts being amended are the National Strategic Intelligence Act, 1994, the Intelligence Services Oversight Act, 1994, and the Intelligence Services Act, 2002.”

The bill was not without controversy, with the Right2Know Campaign (R2K) opposing it.

“While we welcome some of the amendments proposed by the [parliamentary] committee which, for instance, make it more difficult for securocrats to monitor lawful political activity, we remain concerned about the unregulated interception of foreign signals,” R2K said in a statement after the National Assembly passed the bill in April this year.

The dangerous weapons bill was also enacted. It empowers police to arrest people carrying dangerous weapons in public, including during protests.

Police officers will be given the discretion to decide whether there is a reasonable suspicion that a weapon could be used for unlawful purposes.

They will be able to crack down on protesters brandishing firearms, bricks, glass bottles, spears, or any object, which could be used to harm someone or damage property. The use of toy guns to commit a crime is also covered under the proposed law.

Other bills signed into law are the National Health Amendment Act, the Prevention and Combating of Torture of Persons Act, and the National Environmental Management Laws Amendment Act.

– SAPA

Cape Town – President Jacob Zuma’s intention to appoint a national director of public prosecutions (NDPP) was welcomed on Thursday by the Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution (Casac).

“We trust the president will now appoint a fit and proper person as the NDPP before the end of August,” Casac secretary Lawson Naidoo said in a statement.

“The National Prosecuting Authority [NPA] is a critical component of the criminal justice system in South Africa, whose independence needs to be bolstered to restore public confidence in its ability to exercise its functions without fear, favour or prejudice,” he said.

Casac recently approached the Constitutional Court seeking an order that Zuma make the appointment within 30 days.

Naidoo said the organisation had written to Zuma before the application, on 31 May, asking him to make a commitment to hire a permanent head diligently and without delay, as required by the Constitution.

In the letter, it stated that if Zuma failed to appoint an NDPP within two weeks, Casac would consider approaching the court.

“It is regrettable that the president chose not to reply to this letter. Had he done so and made the commitment that he now has, we would have avoided the litigation that has ensued, Naidoo said.”

Zuma filed his answering affidavit in the court on Wednesday.

According to Casac, the affidavit reads: “I wish to state that I have been considering various candidates for the position of NDPP and, all things being equal and unless some unforeseen event occurs, I will appoint a permanent NDPP by the end of August 2013, if not sooner.

“I give such undertaking to this court in recognition of the presidential obligations under the Constitution.”

The NPA has been without a permanent chief since November 2011, after Menzi Simelane’s appointment was declared invalid.

– SAPA

Durban – Textbooks meant for schools in KwaZulu-Natal were found shredded and burnt at a warehouse in Empangeni, provincial education authorities said on Thursday.

They were to have been delivered to schools in the province by March, education MEC Senzo Mchunu said.

The books were discovered on Wednesday at a warehouse belonging to UTi Distributors, a company the basic education department had contracted to distribute textbooks in all provinces.

“We can’t help but suspect that there is a case of huge corruption on the part of the company in question,” Mchunu said.

UTi Distributors denied not delivering textbooks to schools in the province.

The company’s Africa divisions director Greg Saffy said in a statement about 100 school workbooks from the 2012 school year were found irreparably damaged and shredded at its Empangeni warehouse. He said no schools had been adversely affected and there was no evidence of “criminality” or “corruption”.

Mchunu said the department began suspecting something was amiss when, instead of distributing workbooks directly to schools, UTi decided to deliver workbooks to the offices of the Uthungulu district.

“That meant we had to incur unnecessary expenses where principals had to drive to the district offices to collect workbooks. This inefficiency happened more than once.”

The department investigated and found the textbooks in Empangeni. Mchunu said he had reported the matter to Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga and police.

UTi said once it had identified the schools for which the damaged books were intended, the workbooks were replaced and delivered. The replacement was done within two weeks, and no schools were affected.

5 578 550 workbooks delivered

“UTi delivered 5 578 550 workbooks in KwaZulu-Natal in 2012, and have delivered 5 122 660 to the province for the 2013 school year,” Saffy said.

He said the company was conducting its own investigation. Once that was complete disciplinary steps would be taken if necessary.

Saffy said UTi would provide Motshekga, Mchunu and other relevant parties with an official report as soon as possible.

“UTi was appointed as a service provider to a Joint Venture (JV) with Paarl Media and Lebone Litho for the distribution of school workbooks,” he said.

Saffy said the JV agreed with UTi’s statement.

The African National Congress in the province condemned the non-delivery of textbooks.

“It is absurd that books which are of great value to our children could be disposed of in this careless way,” ANC spokesperson Senzo Mkhize said in a statement. He said this proved that some business people did not care about the development of the country and pupils.

“The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal therefore calls for a speedy police investigation so that the perpetrators of this unspeakable deed are prosecuted and blacklisted from doing business with any government department or public entity.”

– SAPA

Johannesburg – The family of Cosatu General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has pushed him to quit politics, as they fear his life is in danger.

ENCA reported that his family held a meeting to urge the union leader to leave both Cosatu and the ANC.
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