Johannesburg – Statements attributed to former president Thabo Mbeki about Zimbabwe’s election and land reform policy were “mischievous”, his office said on Thursday.

They were intended to “communicate falsehoods to achieve particular political outcomes”, Mbeki’s spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga said in a statement.

Zimbabwe’s NewsDay website reported that Mbeki had expressed disappointment at the Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) withdrawal of its court challenge of the election results.

It also reported that, during a seminar at the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute at the University of South Africa in Pretoria last week, he also indicated his disappointment at the way Zimbabwe’s land reform process was carried out. 

Ratshitanga said it was true that Mbeki had expressed the view that Zimbabwe and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) would have been well-served by the MDC’s allegations of electoral irregularities going through the courts.

This was so the matter could be laid to rest once and for all, he said.

“With regard to Zimbabwe’s land reform process, former president Mbeki said that though the SADC agreed with the Zimbabwean government about the imperative for land reform, it did not agree with the manner in which the process was carried out.

“He added that this agreement notwithstanding, the land reform process in Zimbabwe has proved successful.”

Ratshitanga said the fact that SADC, of which South Africa is a member, had expressed a contrary opinion to Zimbabwe’s government at the time must have come as a “shocking surprise” to NewsDay.

However, as shocking as this revelation might have been, it was no justification to twist and manipulate the truth, he said.

SAPA

Johannesburg – A Pretoria University philosophy lecturer has quit after writing in a blog that raping babies is a “black phenomenon”, The Times reported on Friday.

Pretoria University spokesperson Nicolize Mulder told the daily that lecturer Louise Mabille had resigned and that an investigation was underway, but added that she was writing in her personal capacity.

Mabille wrote on the Afrikaans website Praag: “Naturally, it is much easier to endlessly complain about ‘Calvinism’ than to ask the question on why the rape of babies is a cultural phenomenon among black ethnic groups.”

Mabille, who resigned with immediate effect on Thursday night, told the newspaper she “deeply regrets having written the piece and causing harm or pain to anyone”.

SAPA

The majority of the fired ANC councillors in the troubled Tlokwe local municipality, spurned the party’s overtures to lure them back and registered as independent candidates for the by-elections set for September 18.

The ANC’s national disciplinary committee (NDC) recently ruled that the 14 councillors, who had been kicked out of the party by the provincial leadership, be reinstated as party members because their sacking was unprocedural.

The provincial executive met the fired councillors to convey the ruling of the NDC, but the message had no takers.

One of the affected members, Palesa Mohlope, said if they were unprocedurally fired as councillors, then they should be reinstated as councillors.

He said the ANC was trying to buy them back and indicated that they would never sell their souls again.

“To show our determination never to look back, we registered as independent candidates on Monday and the ANC should know what’s coming its way, hence these half-measures to try and defocus us. We say keep your ANC and we keep our integrity,” he said.

Mohlope added that what they fought against was corruption and they would not be seen to be reneging on that score.

“We live among the people, they suffer everyday yet some within the council are helping themselves to issues that should benefit the majority. 

“We fought against the sacked mayor’s conduct over a certain plot, where we were supposed to relocate people but he used it for his cattle and many other issues where the community had been fleeced. It appears in the ANC that people do not come first, a clear violation of the Batho Pele principles and we have had enough of that,” he said.

Mohlope will be standing as an independent in ward 20 and said operations were underway to galvanise support for all the independent candidates.

“The ANC saw what we did in ward 9 and they are running scared. We had little resources but it shook them to the core. We are going to see a changed Tlokwe because people are tired of corruption,” he said.

Provincial ANC spokesperson Ishmail Mnisi said the leadership in the province had met with the councillors but no one had indicated that they had issues.

“We had a meeting with them on Monday but they did not say anything. To us it appears everything was alright and as bearers of the message, there was also a limit on what we could do,” he said.

Mnisi added if any of the affected councillors had issues, they would have to raise them with the party individually because from the onset, each member was charged alone.

Meanwhile, the ANC has released a full list of its candidates set to contest in the September 18 by-elections at Tlokwe.

Source: http://www.thenewage.co.za

Dali Mpofu’s application for the postponement of the Farlam Commission of Inquiry will be discussed on Thursday.

Mpofu, who is appearing for the miners who were wounded and arrested at Marikana last year, arrived at the commission with some of his clients on Wednesday.

He asked that the hearings be put on hold until the issue of funding for his team was resolved.

Mpofu has provisionally withdrawn from the commission because of a lack of funding.

“Continuing with the commission’s work in the absence of my clients is prejudicial,” he submitted.

Mpofu told the commission some of his clients were being harassed by the police.

However, Ishmael Semenya, for the police, said the arrest of anyone was not meant to harass them or disturb the functioning of the hearings.

The commission, which is sitting in Centurion, is investigating the deaths of 44 people in strike-related unrest near Lonmin’s platinum mining operations at Marikana, in North West, last August.

Police shot dead 34 people, almost all of them striking mineworkers, on August 16. Ten people, including two policemen and two security guards, were killed in the preceding week.

-Sapa 

The Mahikeng local municipality finally established a call centre and residents in the provincial capital can now report on issues affecting them directly to the municipality.

The development is set to relieve pressure on the national hotline where Mahikeng residents used to endure long periods of waiting on the line to report on problems in their areas.

Deputy Minister in the Presidency, Obed Bapela, raised the need for a call centre in Mahikeng when he visited the city last year.

Bapela pointed out that the national hotline was clogged by calls on issues that municipalities were well placed to solve.

As an answer to this, member of the mayoral committee (MMC) for marketing and communications, Pontsho Tabane, told journalists on Tuesday that the new call centre would empower residents.

“This facility takes government to the people and it will help municipal leadership to communicate better with people on the ground.

“Expectations are that it will assist many of our consumers to report on potholes, street light defaults, burst water pipes and any other issues that affect the lives of residents,” Tabane said.

Tabane added that the centre will give a test to the municipality’s turn-around time on reported issues.

“When a report is made, we will be able to trace the time it was recorded, the person who recorded it and the time taken to attend to such a problem. The caller will also have these details and reference for the call and they can be able to gauge the responsiveness of the municipality to their issues.”

The call centre number is 0183889000 and it is free of charge.

“Any person can call from the comfort of their homes or anywhere they encounter problems. At present, the centre operates from 7am until 4.30pm due to financial constraints on the municipality’s part. We are looking at reviewing expenditure on this issue so that we train more staff members and be able to operate 24 hours.”

Tabane said the municipality would use the facility to communicate with residents who were in arrears with their bills.

“The auditor general has highlighted that the municipality has over R600m uncollected revenue.

“We will remind all the residents in arrears of up to three months, to keep record of that so that when we act, they will not say the municipality does not give them a chance to make arrangements.”

Asked how the municipality would guard against hoax calls, Tabane said the centre had a foolproof system.

“When a person calls, we will be able to have his/her coordinates and that will help us vet the extent of the problem.

“Unlike in our fire division, we will also have the ability to trace calls but the appeal we are making is for people to use this facility wisely.”

Source: http://www.thenewage.co.za