Pretoria – The rate of sexual offences decreased by 0.4% during the 2012/13 financial year, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said on Thursday.

However, the raw figures for the total number of sexual offences showed an increase from the 2011/12 figure of 64 514 to 66 387 in 2012/13.

Mthethwa’s spokesperson Zweli Mnisi later explained that population growth had to be taken into account when considering the figures.

Speaking at the release of the annual crime statistics in Pretoria, Mthethwa said rape had decreased by 0.4% over the past financial year.

“Nonetheless, we want to reiterate the point that we are still unhappy and concerned about the levels of rape in the country,” he said.

“Protection of communities is now central to our strategies that are aimed at reducing incidences of gender-based violence.”

Sexual assault decreased by 6.2% over the same period, after increasing during the preceding three years.

– SAPA

Tlokwe, in North West, will probably revert to ANC control but at a price, political analysts said on Thursday.

“If you analyse [Wednesday’s] three ward elections, with the exception of the influence of independent candidates… then basically it was a business as usual scenario, very similar to the scenario we had in the 2011 local government elections,” said North West political analyst Professor André Duvenhage.

“But what is important is that there were very, very, high levels of political apathy, if you compare this election with the 2011 elections.”

There was a huge drop in Wednesday’s voter turnout.

The ANC retained control in two of the three wards in the Tlokwe by-elections.

In Ward 26, the party’s candidate Oupa Mogoshane lost, with 900 votes to independent candidate Butiki “Stone” Mahlabe’s 1 425 votes. Mahlabe was a former ANC councillor.

A total of 5 677 people were registered to vote in the ward, but only 2 374 cast their ballots.

University of Johannesburg political analyst Professor Steven Friedman said the by-elections highlighted that the threat to the ANC did not come from other parties, but people from the organisation.

“It illustrates the point that the real threat from the ANC comes from splits. The party becomes vulnerable when there are splits,” he said.

Victory in two wards

The ANC won the by-elections in Ward 6 and Ward 18.

In Ward 6, the ANC’s Japhta Monaisa won 882 of the 1 386 valid votes cast. The DA’s Johann Coetzee came in second with 493 votes.

A total of 4 254 people were registered to vote in Ward 6, but only 1 408 voted.

In Ward 18, the ANC faced off with another former party member and provincial chief whip David Kham, who registered as an independent candidate. ANC candidate Thapelo Skozana won with 884 votes to Kham’s 520.

A total of 3 251 people were registered to vote in Ward 18, but only 1 452 votes were cast.

Mahlabe and Kham were two of the 14 ANC councillors expelled from the party in July for participating in a motion of no confidence against Tlokwe mayor Maphetle Maphetle.

Maphetle was replaced as mayor by DA councillor Annette Combrink.

The ANC’s national disciplinary committee later overturned the expulsions, but Mahlabe and Kham decided not to return to the party.

Duvenhage said that, following Wednesday’s by-election, the Tlokwe council was in a similar situation to a hung parliament – one which does not have a majority and is in a position where it cannot make proper decisions.

“Before the by-elections, 21 councillors supported the ANC and 22 councillors supported the opposition groups and independent candidates. Now at this point we have a total of 23-23,” he said.

In this type of situation, the speaker had the final vote.

The current speaker of the Tlokwe council was an ANC member, and as a result the party was most likely going to retain control of the municipality.

Postponed by-elections

After the next six Tlokwe by-elections, which were postponed by the Electoral Court earlier this week, the ANC would be in a more powerful position.

“I think we are going to have an ANC majority,” said Duvenhage.

“At the moment it’s a slight majority, with the speaker’s vote, but in future they will probably ensure they have had least three or four of the other seats,” said Duvenhage.

Friedman said he would not be surprised if the ANC won the other six wards, but he was sceptical of a landslide victory for the party.

“I think the ANC will win most of them, if not all. If it does win all six, it is likely to do so with vastly decreased numbers.”

Duvenhage said this was good news for the ANC, and the party would definitely take the opportunity to unseat Combrink and table a vote of no confidence.

“We are talking about a date very close to the next by-election. They will probably wait until [then].

“I believe that the ANC at that point will be in a position to get Tlokwe under ANC control,” Duvenhage said.

Friedman said there was no doubt that the ANC would unseat Combrink in the Tlokwe council.

He expected the move in mid November, once the by-elections were concluded.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Serious crime in South Africa is on the rise again for the first time in 10 years, Agang SA said on Thursday.

“Nearly 20 years since freedom, violent crime is still unacceptably high and it is the poorest, who are often affected worst,” Agang SA political director Moeketsi Mosola said in a statement.

“Failures by the [ANC] government in providing quality education and in creating jobs continue to trap millions in poverty without hope. This is the root cause of crime and it is a betrayal of the values of the struggle.”

Mosola said serious crime could be tackled only by ensuring people did not go hungry, that they could earn money to sustain their families, and that their children could get quality education.

Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa released the 2012/13 crime statistics in Pretoria on Thursday.

Mthethwa said the number of murders had increased by 0.6% in the past financial year.

However, this figure was down 16.6% over the past four years, and 27.2% over the past nine years.

SA deserves better

Mosola said South Africans deserved better and needed a criminal justice system that ensured criminals were caught and prosecuted.

The police should be commended for the difficult job they did and the reduction in other types of crime, but they also deserved better.

He said they deserved better leadership, training, and equipment, and more officers were needed.

“Crime reports should be published at least monthly, enabling the public to be better informed about crime trends, and to be able to hold the police and political leadership accountable,” Mosola said.

Communities and police needed the latest information about crime trends in their area to work together to combat crime, he said.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – The police have failed to reassure people that they are winning the war against crime, the DA said on Thursday after the release of the national crime statistics.

“It is abundantly clear that there has been an increase in major crimes, [and] meagre incremental decreases are hardly solace for those who continue to live in fear,” said DA MP Dianne Kohler-Barnard.

“It is devastating that the murder rate is up for the first time in five years, reversing what had become a most welcome trend.”

She said the DA would study the statistics and conduct a comprehensive analysis.

It would then provide recommendations on what needed be done to reduce crime in South Africa.

“The miniscule 0.4% decrease in sexual offences is highly unsatisfactory, particularly when most rape cases are not reported,” said Kohler-Barnard.

“The high incidence of rape in South Africa is our national shame, and needs to be backed with stronger reporting mechanisms, arrests and convictions.”

She also found it worrying that the statistics released on Thursday morning were up to 18-months-old.

The out of date information did not help people protect themselves as they did not know what to expect in their neighbourhoods, she said.

“The DA will continue to push for a monthly release of crime statistics,” said Kohler-Barnard.

– SAPA

London – The evidence against Shrien Dewani, accused of ordering the murder of his fiancée on honeymoon, would not stand up in a British court, a forensic scientist has told the BBC.

Anni Dewani, 28, was shot in a taxi on the outskirts of Cape Town in 2010.

Professor Jim Fraser told the BBC’s Panorama programme there was “simply a cloud of suspicion… rather than any evidence” against Dewani, a 33-year-old British businessman, who has denied any involvement in the shooting.

Dewani remains in Britain in a mental health clinic where he is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder and is fighting extradition to South Africa.

He has launched a bid to take his case to the Supreme Court after a judge ruled he should be transferred to stand trial.

Fraser told the BBC there were contradictions in the evidence of a witness, who is expected to form a key part of the prosecution case in South Africa, and said the investigation fell short of British standards.

Panorama said it had seen video confessions, CCTV footage, phone records, scientific evidence and pictures of the crime scene.

The Dewanis’ taxi driver Zola Tongo was jailed for 18 years in 2010 after he admitted his part in the killing, and another accomplice, Mziwamadoda Qwabe, also pleaded guilty to murder and was given a 25-year prison sentence.

CCTV footage contradicts statement

The BBC programme examined a statement by Tongo, who having struck a plea bargain is expected to testify in the case alleging that Dewani hired him.

Panorama said the CCTV footage and phone records appear to contradict Tongo’s sworn statement.

On the day Anni Dewani was murdered, the couple had had a late breakfast.

Tongo’s said in his statement that Dewani called him at 11:30, asking to be picked up. But phone records in the police file show no such call took place.

Taylor said: “A single thing that was inconsequential – even a number of things that were inconsequential – wouldn’t worry me.

“But there are really quite a few things here which are plainly untrue.

“This is not an investigation that would meet the standards in this country.”

Taylor has advised the British interior ministry, or Home Office, on a number of high-profile cases.

– AFP

Pretoria – Plans are afoot to suspend the CEO of the Holy Cross Hospital in the Eastern Cape and its nursing manager, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said on Thursday.

He was announcing the findings and recommendations of a probe sparked by a report by the Eastern Cape Health Coalition titled “Death and Dying. An Investigation into the collapse of a healthcare system”.

“It is my intention that the CEO should be suspended with immediate effect,” Motsoaledi told reporters in Pretoria.

“It is [also] my intention that the nursing services manager should also be suspended with immediate effect pending the full investigation.”

Motsoaledi did not name them.

He intended reporting them to the SA Nursing Council, since they were both nurses by profession.

Further recommendations were that disciplinary measures be taken against the hospital administrator.

Motsoaledi’s investigators found gross mismanagement at the hospital, which was investigated along with other hospitals in the OR Tambo district, after the release of the coalition’s report.

The district is in one of the 11 pilot districts for the National Health Insurance initiative.

In its report the coalition, which includes Section 27 and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), called for drastic action to rebuild the province’s health care system.

Mismanagement of funds

It detailed stories of patients being unable to get help at hospitals and clinics because of a lack of medication.

It identified mismanagement of funds as an underlying problem, finding that the department overspent on its staffing budget by more than R1bn in 2011/2012 because of above-inflation salary increases and poorly-managed employee benefits.

“I assure you the matter of mismanagement of funds is being dealt with and is receiving the attention it should be. We are doing something about it,” Motsoaledi said.

Asked if he would take on the provincial leadership in the health department, Motsoaledi said his hands were essentially tied.

“There is no minister in the country that can appoint MECs. They are appointed by the premier. So I work with them.”

More than R1bn would be spent upgrading the Eastern Cape’s healthcare system.

“In this case, we are implementing 287 projects covering new additions, upgrades, renovations and maintenance works in 132 facilities,” said Motsoaledi.

He said 159 of these projects were in the construction phase, and the rest were at developmental phase.

The projects included the building and refurbishment of eight nursing colleges.

– SAPA

Cape Town – Thousands of correctional services officials were themselves “corrected” in the past three years, according to Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele.

In a written reply to a parliamentary question, tabled on Thursday, he said more than 12 000 disciplinary hearings involving prisons staff were held between 2010 and 2013.

The hearings involved cases of both serious misconduct and “less serious” cases, though not all of the latter were preceded by an investigation.

Ndebele said that during the past financial year (2012/13), the department recorded 3 765 disciplinary cases.

According to a table included with the reply, the outcomes of 3 294 of these included that 167 officials were dismissed, 497 were given written warnings, 12 were demoted, and 156 were suspended without pay, as an alternative to dismissal.

According to Ndebele, the difference between the number of cases heard and the number of outcomes, was due to some employees being involved in more than one disciplinary case and/or facing several charges that resulted in more than one sanction in the same hearing.

The table in the reply shows that the bulk of last year’s cases resulted in the officials found guilty receiving “corrective counselling”, or a verbal or written warning.

It does not indicate how many of the cases were for serious or for less serious misconduct.

According to the reply, the total number of disciplinary hearings held in 2011/12 and 2010/11 was 4 171 and 4 247 respectively.

According to correctional services’ website – which declares 2013 to be “the year of the correctional official” – the department has 41 591 staff.

– SAPA

The Farlam Commission of Inquiry into 44 deaths during unrest at Marikana last year has been postponed until Wednesday.

“In the past 10 days we have discovered through the evidence leaders that there must be info that was not disclosed by the police that seeks to suggest that the information was withheld to try and portray a certain approach to the commission in relation to what has been discovered,” commission spokesperson Tshepo Mahlangu said.

Previously, evidence leader Geoff Budlender, SC, asked that the commission be postponed to allow his team to examine the police evidence.

In Lt-Col Duncan Scott’s version on a computer hard drive containing the police’s evidence, “some documents have been added and some files we haven’t seen before”, Budlender told the commission.

He said the police team had been co-operative, but that the process of going through the evidence “could take some time”.

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

Police shot dead 34 people, almost all of them striking mineworkers, while trying to disperse and disarm them on August 16, 2012. Ten people, including two police officers and two security guards, were killed in the preceding week.

President Jacob Zuma established the commission shortly after the unrest.
For more http://www.sabc.co.za

Analysis of annual crime statistics, released today by Police Minister, Nathi Mthethwa, indicates that the least safe province to live in in South Africa is the Western Cape, followed by the Free State.

SABC News Online created a map that uses a combination of the crime stats released today and the Census 2011 population data to show the number of contact crimes per 100 000 inhabitants of each province in South Africa, from worst (darker shades) to best (lighter shades).

This map reveals that the most dangerous provinces to live in in South Africa – where your chances of being a victim of contact crime are the highest – are the Western Cape and the Free State, and you’re safest in Limpopo.

Contact crimes are defined by SAPS as: murder; sexual crimes; attempted murder; assault with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm; common assault; common robbery; and robbery with aggravating circumstances
For more http://www.sabc.co.za

Pretoria – There must be information police have held back in the inquiry into 44 deaths during labour unrest at Marikana last year, the Farlam Commission said on Thursday.

Spokesperson Tshepo Mahlangu said this had been discovered in the past 10 days.

The commission had, therefore, postponed its proceedings until Wednesday next week.

“In the past 10 days we have discovered through the evidence leaders that there must be info that was not disclosed by the police, that seeks to suggest that the information was withheld to try and portray a certain approach to the commission in relation to what has been discovered,” Mahlangu said.

Previously, evidence leader Advocate Geoff Budlender, asked that the commission be postponed to allow his team to examine the police evidence.

In Lieutenant Colonel Duncan Scott’s version on a computer hard drive containing the police’s evidence, “some documents have been added and some files we haven’t seen before”, Budlender told the commission.

He said the police team had been co-operative, but that the process of going through the evidence “could take some time”.

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

Police shot dead 34 people, almost all of them striking mineworkers, while trying to disperse and disarm them on 16 August 2012.

Ten people, including two police officers and two security guards, were killed in the preceding week.

President Jacob Zuma established the commission shortly after the unrest.

– SAPA