Johannesburg – Legal action is being considered against Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) over an alleged scam, Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini said on Thursday.

“We are going to meet the lawyers and see what other possible means we can use to ensure that we move forward,” she told SABC radio news.

CPS was allegedly deducting money from grant beneficiaries illegally. The legal action included possibly terminating the multi-billion rand grants distribution contract.

Some of the deductions left pensioners receiving only a few rand at the end of each month.

On 29 August, Dlamini said there was nothing corrupt about the SA Social Security Agency’s R10bn grants tender to CPS.

The tender would stand despite a ruling on 28 August, by the Gauteng South High Court in Johannesburg, that the awarding of the contract was illegal and invalid. The court, however, did not set aside the tender to provide grants to 10 million South Africans.

Dlamini said irregularities identified in the awarding of the tender were technical and administrative in nature.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – The Democratic Alliance plans to capitalise on the “ever-evident” signs of paralysis showing within the African National Congress, DA leader Helen Zille announced on Thursday.

The DA leader and premier of the Western Cape said her party was on the lookout for a series of “catalytic moments” currently in the political landscape that would contribute to the fundamental realignment of politics in the country.

She predicted that in the months leading up to the general elections in the next year would present the most notable of these moments.

“There have been many catalytic moments for the ANC even though they haven’t noticed them,” she said.

The departure from the ruling party of United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa, she believed, was one event the ANC had disregarded.

She said Holomisa’s appearance in Marikana during the Economic Freedom Fighters’ launch was telling of many moments to come.

“The birth of Cope [Congress of the People] was a big moment, could it have turned out differently.”

“The start of [Julius] Malema’s party, the EFF, because it has made the ‘verkramptes’ [ANC] uncomfortable because they are worried about their support base. They know they have to stick in there, but the terrain has become more difficult.”

‘ANC a dying party’

She said the future of suspended Congress of SA Trade Union general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, as a massive catalytic moment.

“And we know that Sdumo Dlamini and [President] Jacob Zuma’s allies… are mobilising very hard [against Vavi].”

“We also know that sexual indiscretions will not get Vavi ousted. But that is the reason, I believe, they are running the forensic audits so that it is not possible for him to be reinstated and to continue leading the union movement.”

Zille predicted that although Vavi was working very hard to push for a special congress within the congress, it would unlikely happen before the elections.

She said the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa), which was at the forefront of Vavi’s defence, was a powerful entity.

“If Vavi is not reinstated it will lead to a massive catalytic moment. Numsa is extremely powerful and many people within Numsa are pushing hard to start a new labour party.”

She quoted from unnamed research that if a new labour party was formed, 67% of Cosatu shop stewards across the board would vote for it.

Zille described the ANC as a dying party with a lot of tension and divergence within its leadership structures.

“The ANC is a dying party. A wounded animal is always the most dangerous. In the next 10 years we’ll see just how vicious it can be.”

The Western Cape premier anticipated that the political realignment was closer than expected and would most likely happen in Gauteng.

“The DA will be at the centre of this realignment, and the DA will do well in South Africa,” she said.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Kirsty Theologo was aware that her friends wanted to sell their souls and wanted to sell hers too, the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, sitting in Palm Ridge, heard on Thursday.

Linden Wagner, the alleged mastermind behind the soul-selling ritual, testified that Theologo was present when he and the other accused spoke about what they wanted to do.

“She wanted to be part of it and I said no because I cared about her,” he told the court.

“There were things she wanted in life and selling her soul would have taken it away from her.”

This was because she would have lost all emotion after selling her soul, Wagner said.

He had hoped to gain power from selling his soul. He told the court that, days before the ritual, Theologo offered herself to be burnt, her flesh to be eaten and her blood to be drunk.

His co-accused had believed she was the prostitute who needed to be sacrificed to resurrect the beast spoken of in the book of Revelations in the Bible. Theologo had denied that she was a prostitute.

“Kirsty came in with a big smile on her face and said she wanted to be burnt with fire and her flesh could be eaten,” said Wagner.

He told the court that Theologo had perhaps not believed them capable of doing so.

“I don’t think she believed we were capable of doing that to her… She trusted us,” said Wagner.

Theologo was assaulted and set alight in a ritual at the top of a hill in Linmeyer, Johannesburg, on Friday, 21 October 2011.

She died of her injuries in hospital the following Friday. Her 14-year-old friend survived the attack.

Wagner told the court he agreed to allow Courtney Daniels, the only female accused, to be part of the ritual.

He said this was because he had heard from his brother, who was dating Daniels at the time, that she knew of things from the dark side.

Wagner and three of his co-accused, Daniels, Harvey Isha, and Robin Harwood have pleaded not guilty to killing Theologo and the attempted murder of her friend.

The other accused, Lester Moody and Jeremy King, confessed to the crime and were each sentenced to 17 years’ imprisonment, five of them suspended.

The trial continues.

– SAPA

The North West Provincial Government is concerned that an earlier agreement reached on reduction of the toll fee at the Swartruggens Toll gate on the N4 Bakwena Platinum Highway from R71 to R58 has not been honoured and that instead the fee has increased to R75.

The Executive Council (Exco) in its meeting held on Wednesday resolved that its dissatisfaction regarding non-implementation of the agreement should be pursued with the Minister of Transport.

Exco also expressed a concern regarding rebates for locals which seemed not to have been implemented.

The provincial government had facilitated an engagement with Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the Department of Transport, South African National Roads Agency Limited(SANRAL), Kgetleng Rivier Local Municipality and Bakwena Toll to resolve an impasse between Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and Bakwena Toll on the price of the toll fee charged at the Swartruggens Tollgate.

The intervention had followed two memorandums which were presented to the MEC for Public Works, Roads & Transport, MEC Raymond Elisha by COSATU alleging that the toll fee charged at the tollgate were exorbitant, added an additional financial burden carried by the impoverished in the area and perpetuates exclusion as no alternative routes are provided for those who cannot afford it.

Fast tracking construction of alternative routes, continuous and consistent maintenance of the toll road and accountability for contribution of Bakwena’s Corporate Social Investment programme were some of the issues that the provincial government had taken up with the key stakeholders before agreement was reached to reduce the toll fees.-TDN
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