Cape Town – Parliament has set a six-week deadline for MPs to review the protection of state information bill, after President Jacob Zuma referred it back to the legislature.

“The ad hoc committee must report to the National Assembly by 31 October,” Parliament said in a statement.

The 12-member committee will work in terms of rule 138, which means that it can invite submissions and call hearings.

The contentious official secrets bill had a fractious three-year passage through Parliament before it was adopted by the National Assembly in April.

Zuma opted not to sign it and on Thursday sent it back to Parliament for reconsideration.

The president singled out sections 42 and 45 of the so-called secrecy bill as instances of poor drafting that, he said, rendered it incoherent and irrational, and therefore unconstitutional.

Zuma’s letter of referral, published in Parliament’s list of announcements and tablings on Friday, suggest however that the committee has the power to look beyond these sections and make wider changes.

His decision was applauded by a wide front of opponents of the legislation, who have said they were poised to challenge the bill in the Constitutional Court.

– SAPA

Pretoria – Four members of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) were charged before a military court on Friday, on charges relating to the landing of a private aircraft at the Waterkloof Air Force Base.

SA National Defence Union (Sandu) national secretary Pikkie Greeff, counsel for two of the soldiers, said the exact content of the charges was not yet clear.

“It seems that the military’s view of the matter is that these officers are guilty of some military offence for their role in the Gupta landing, but it’s not clear what that role is alleged to have been.

“They are being charged with charges ranging from disobeying written instructions to conduct prejudicial to military discipline. It will only be clear from the final charge sheet what exactly the charges are,” said Greeff.

The four – Colonel Nomsa Khumalo, Lieutenant Colonel Christo Van Zyl, Lieutenant Colonel Christine Anderson, and Warrant Officer Thabo Ntshisi – appeared in the court, which is located inside the vast Thaba Tshwane military base in Pretoria.

A fifth officer, identified as Colonel Nkosi, was scheduled to appear later on Friday.

The matter was postponed until 2 October for preliminary investigations.

In court, the soldiers were informed that they were charged with contravening different sections of the military defence code (MDC).

“In terms of the MDC and the Defence Act there are certain offences that a soldier can commit which are formulated in the MDC,” Greeff said.

“Charges that were mentioned in this court includes sections [of the MDC] on disobeying written orders or instructions, conduct prejudicial to military discipline, and the abuse or misuse of state vehicles, aircraft or facilities.”

Gupta wedding

Sandu was representing Van Zyl and Anderson, while the others had private attorneys and SANDF counsel, he said.

A chartered commercial aircraft, Jet Airways flight JAI 9900 from India, ferrying more than 200 guests for the wedding of Vega Gupta and Indian-born Aakash Jahajgarhia, landed at the base in April.

The passengers were then transported, either by light aircraft, helicopter or in police-escorted vehicles, to attend the lavish ceremony at Sun City’s Palace of the Lost City in North West.

The landing sparked widespread criticism and several investigations were launched.

A government investigation exonerated President Jacob Zuma and his ministers, and found that the landing was the result of “collusion by officials”.

In June, eight of the 11 Tshwane metro police officers accused of providing unofficial security for the Gupta wedding guests pleaded guilty at an internal disciplinary hearing by the city.

The municipality’s probe into the scandal examined the extent of the damage caused by the officers’ involvement in the fiasco, Tshwane metro police executive director Console Tleane said at the time.

– SAPA

nesburg – Convicted murderer Molemo “Jub Jub” Maarohanye’s fight to stay out of prison continued on Friday in the Protea Magistrate’s Court in Soweto, as his legal team launched yet another bail application.

The hip hop singer’s counsel Rudi Krause informed the court that the appeal followed the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in the case of taxi driver Jacob Humphreys.

“Murder charges are simply unsustainable. He [Maarohanye] should be convicted for culpable homicide,” he said.

The SCA in March converted the 10 murder charges against Humphreys to charges of culpable homicide.

Humphreys’s 20-year prison sentence was reduced to eight years.

Ten school children died when Humphreys drove over a railway level-crossing into the path of an oncoming train.

This was Maarohanye’s third appeal for bail since his conviction last October.

In December last year, Maarohanye and his co-accused Themba Tshabalala were each sentenced to 25 years in jail.

The two were each sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for murder and four years imprisonment for attempted murder.

For use of drugs, driving under the influence of drugs, and racing on a public road, they got a year for each count, to run concurrently.

Drag-racing

They were drag-racing in Protea North on 8 March 2010, when they crashed into a group of schoolboys. Prince Mohube, Mlungisi Cwayi, Andile Mthombeni, and Phomello Masemola were killed.

Frank Mlambo and Fumani Mushwana were left permanently brain damaged.

Maarohanye first appealed before magistrate Brian Nemavhidi in February and his appeal was refused.

He then went to the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg and failed.

Judge Nico Coetzee said he agreed with the Protea Magistrate’s Court’s finding that Maarohanye had failed to prove exceptional circumstances to support the application.

On Friday, prosecutor Raymond Mathunjwa said Maarohanye’s legal team was relying on a ruling that was different to their case.

“Humphreys’s case from the beginning was a schedule five not six case,” he said.

He added that in Humphreys’s case, it was a question of misjudgement.

“There were no drugs or racing involved. There was no recklessness, which is the case in this matter. I would say the matter remains a schedule six,” he said.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Senior police management blocked a planned raid on charities associated with former president Nelson Mandela, the Mail & Guardian reported on Friday.

High level police officials were reportedly worried that a raid on the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, and the Nelson Mandela trust would cause embarrassment.

After this, a letter from police unit the Hawks was sent, including to some Mandela relatives, demanding financial statements.

Chief executive of the children’s fund Sibongile Mkhabela’s spokesperson Oupa Ngwenya confirmed a letter was received.

“The account the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund has with Nedbank is public knowledge and has been accounted in the financial statement for the year ended 31 March 2013 and is included as… [a note in] the annual report.”

Ngwenya and Danielle Melville, spokesperson for the foundation’s chief executive, said the letters had been passed to Mandela’s lawyer Bally Chuene.

The letters reportedly related to charges of fraud, forgery and uttering laid against Mandela’s former attorney Ismail Ayob.

In July, a court application for the removal of George Bizos, Tokyo Sexwale, and Chuene as directors of Harmonieux Investment Holdings and Magnifique Investment Holdings was struck off the court roll.

The application was brought by Mandela’s daughters Makaziwe Mandela and Zenani Mandela-Dlamini.

Mandela is at home recovering after a lengthy stay in hospital.

SAPA

Johannesburg – South Africa’s media needs to be protected, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela said on Friday.

“The media helps to keep democracy alive, though they sometimes get it wrong,” she told an Association of Independent Publishers conference in Johannesburg.

“What a sad day it would be that corruption were to continue because there was no media to inform us of it. Let us protect the media.”

Madonsela said it was society’s duty to protect the independence of the media, and indicated that the media helped her office perform its core functions.

“The media is the most effective accountability mechanism, as in the world it watches closely over those that exercise power in public platforms.”

SAPA

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said it had agreed to a deal for wage hikes of up to 12% with the construction industry, ending a three-week strike.

“This is a major victory for us,” union official Issac Ntshangase said today in a statement.

The strike in the construction industry, one of several in a number of sectors, had appeared to have a relatively small impact, with many workers refusing to heed union demands to down tools and many building sites remaining active.

Major construction firms include Aveng, Murray & Roberts and Group Five.

Workers in the motor and gold industries have returned to work after strikes that crippled operations at some of the country’s biggest producers were resolved last week.

Airline technical workers also returned to work this week, while an ongoing strike by petrol station attendants has caused little disruption so far in Africa’s top economy.

With the unemployment rate stuck at about 25% for years and poverty gripping millions, many South Africans have said they are more concerned with securing a pay cheque than heeding the strike calls of union bosses.

For more http://www.citypress.co.za

A Kraaifontein man has been sentenced to 15 years for murdering Ge-Audrey Green, 19, whose body was found in a drawer under his bed.

Charlton Douw entered into a plea and sentence agreement with the State in the Western Cape High Court on Thursday. In the agreement, it emerged that Douw, 21, tried to kill another woman, Ester Sokupe, in Kotze Street, Scottsville, four months before he murdered Green, whose body was found under his bed in the flatlet behind his family home.

Douw said in the agreement that he had invited Green to his flat on February 7 and they had consensual sex. She started to scream.

“He became worried that his grandparents in the main house would be aware that he had someone in the flat, and (that he) would be chastised for his behaviour,” the agreement reads. “He strangled her in an effort to subdue her screams.”

Two days later, Douw’s mother, Magdeline Douw, and her niece, Mellisa Reiners, went to clean his room and found Green’s body.

On February 11, Douw admitted to Hawks Captain Paul Hendrickse that he had killed Green and had tried to kill Sokupe on October 20.

He had lured Sokupe from her home under the pretext of taking her to her son.

“Once outside her dwelling he… strangled her with his bare hands. A struggle ensued and when she managed to scream for help he ran away and left her,” the agreement reads.

The mitigating factors were that Douw was young, in custody for seven months and addicted to tik at the time of the offences .

Judge President John Hlophe sentenced Douw to 15 years for Green’s murder and 10 years for the attempted murder of Sokupe. The sentences will run concurrently.

Cape Argus

By Obakeng Maje

Potchefstroom-North West Social Development MEC Mokone Collen Maine, together with Minister Bathabile Dlamini, will today conduct a follow-up visit to Tlokwe, North West Province, in order to identify areas for further service delivery improvements in the municipality based on the challenges uncovered during her first visit to the area on August 2.

The visit forms part of Project Mikondzo – a service delivery improvement initiative aimed at improving access to the Department and its entities’ (the South African Social Security Agency and National Development Agency) services in the poorest wards of the country. According to the General Household Survey (GHS) of 2010, food access problems were most serious in North West Province where 33,3% of households had inadequate or severely inadequate food access. 

“This will be followed later during the day by an Imbizo where the MEC Maine and Minister Dlamini will interact with over 3000 community members” departmental spokesperson Vuyisile Ngesi said.-TDN

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Potchefstroom-Corruption allegations will still loom large over the Tlokwe local council following delaying tactics in the release of a graft-busting report.

North West MEC for local government and traditional affairs Manketsi Tlhape had yesterday been expected to release findings of the report into allegations that former ANC mayor Maphetle Maphetle engaged in corrupt activities while in office.

He was removed from office in July after 16 ANC councillors, along with opposition members in the council, passed a motion of no-confidence against Maphetle and voted in DA councillor Prof Annette Combrink as the new mayor.

That was Maphetle’s second ousting from office.

But Tlhape revealed the report will first have to be tabled in the council in a special sitting on September 20 – two days after crucial by-elections which will pit the ANC against its former members who have registered as independent candidates.

This latest report by Tlhape’s department brings to two the number of reports into corruption allegations against Maphetle.

Combrink commissioned a report to investigate Maphetle earlier this year – during her initial brief stint as mayor.

The report found the council irregularly bought a R736 000 customised Mercedes-Benz for Maphetle. It recommended formal disciplinary action against the mayor and council officials.

The report also alleged that the mayor was involved in fraudulently siphoning R300000 from the municipality’s Poverty Relief Fund to sponsor a jazz festival.

But attempts were made yesterday to discredit the Nexus report commissioned by Combrink.

Tlhape said supply chain management processes were not followed in the commissioning of that report but that it would not be nullified.

An investigation into the commissioning of the Nexus report was likely, she said.

Seeking to lend credibility to her department’s “independent” probe into Maphetle’s conduct, Tlhape said it was imperative for her to intervene in the interests of service delivery.

Though the full findings will only be revealed next week, there may be misgivings that the investigations by Tlhape’s department represent a government whitewash. According to the department’s statement, there seems to have been only one finding – that “the allegations that have been levelled against the then executive mayor Maphetle are being investigated by the Hawks branch in Klerksdorp”.

The DA formally laid criminal charges in May with Potchefstroom police and the matter was handed to the Hawks.

The department would allow the Hawks to continue investigating “and will observe the processes”.

For more http://www.timelive.co.za