Nelspruit – A young, self-confessed Mpumalanga robber recounted on Tuesday how a 63-year-old woman got him involved in her younger brother’s murder.

A Sapa correspondent reported that Nhlanhla Percy Dube, 23, was testifying in the trial of Bellinah Maluka, 63, Louis Mlungisi Given Msibi, 26, and Surprise Sibusiso Nzima, 25, in the Nelspruit Circuit of the High Court in Pretoria.

The three, from Phathwa Trust near White River, are accused of robbing Julia Dories Mashabane and killing her husband Richard Philip Manikela, 53, who was gunned down at his home in Phathwa Trust on the morning of July 22, 2011.

They have all pleaded not guilty to murder, conspiracy to commit murder, robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, and possession of unlawful firearms and ammunition.

Dube, the fourth suspect in the matter, has turned State witness after confessing to the crime and receiving a 20-year prison term.

“I know Gogo Bellinah as someone who was selling dagga in Phathwa Trust. On June 28, 2011, when I was a Grade 12 pupil at Phathwa Secondary School, she sent someone to invite me to her house,” Dube testified.

Maluka told him her brother, a herbalist who lived near her house, was keeping R3 million in his house on behalf of some men who had committed an armed robbery.

“She asked me if I needed money and whether I had courage. She said her brother was playing around with the money, which he used to buy cars while he had no (driver’s) licence and that he gave the cars to other people to drive them, not his own children.”

Dube said after thinking for a week, he consulted Msibi, whom he knew through a friend. After inviting Msibi to Maluka’s house, he came along with five other men in a red Uno.

He said Maluka gave them a plan for them to rob Manikela.

“She requested that we only rob him of the money, but not take his life. We all agreed on that.”

Dube testified that on July 21, only Msibi, Nzima, and a third man known as Steven, arrived at Maluka’s house to plan the robbery.

“At Maluka’s house, the three men showed her a hand gun, cables and a masking tape… She warned us he had a shotgun and also gave us information that he usually woke up at 4am and would drive somewhere.”

Dube testified that around 4am on July 22 Nzima, who had the gun, waited outside the victim’s house to discuss a way forward.

“Msibi asked not to enter first as the deceased knew him. He said he used to come to (Manikela) for muti when he wanted to commit crimes. We then heard the accused start his vehicle. When he came to open the gate, Nzima and Steven attacked him, tied him up and covered his mouth with the masking tape,” said Dube.

“I walked past them and saw the deceased lying face down. His hands were tied on his back and his legs were also tied. I entered the house and headed straight to the bedroom to search. Msibi entered other rooms also searching for the money.”

Two safes and a firearm were found in a bedroom.

He testified that Nzima then went to the kitchen and shot Manikela.

“We were all shocked after he shot him. Mashabane then came and closed his eyes, saying he was dead. As we were all looking at the dead man, Mashabane escaped,” said Dube.

“We all panicked, climbed in the couple’s Ford Sapphire and escaped.”

Sapa

Kimberley-Conditions at the Postmasburg Hospital shocked Public Protector Thuli Madonsela so much on Tuesday that she described it as one of the worst she had seen.

Madonsela was visiting the Northern Cape as part of her national stakeholder dialogue program.

“The state of the hospital is quite disappointing,” she said in a statement.

However, she commended the personnel as “incredible people” who were working in the conditions found.

The 45-bed hospital only has one doctor after two resigned two months ago. The hospital has a 95 percent bed utilisation figure.

The single doctor, who was almost never off duty, has seven professional nurses and 11 enrolled nurses, who work on eight-hourly shifts.

One nurse is on duty at night.

Health officials told Madonsela plans were in place to appoint two more permanent and a few sessional doctors but they were struggling to attract health care professionals.

One of the reasons was lack of staff quarters. The doctor was staying in a converted garage.

The province was also waiting for the return of about 50 doctors, who went to study in Cuba.

Some would be deployed to the area.

Madonsela said her office would help provincial authorities to work out plans to address the Postmasburg hospital problems and oversee the implementation thereof.

The Public Protector also met with residents of the Tsantsabane municipality (Postmasburg) on health, poverty and general service delivery issues.

Residents told her about problems with mine bosses and land, friction with land reform groups, problems with the municipality in regard to tenders and staff recruitment’s and other service related issues.

Madonsela would be in the Kimberley area on Wednesday and Thursday.

Sapa

Cape Town – Disgraced former communications minister Dina Pule was reprimanded and suspended by Parliament on Tuesday for the scandal that saw her boyfriend benefit from state funding.

Speaker Max Sisulu told Pule she betrayed her oath of office and brought Parliament into disrepute, after the ANC moved for the adoption of a damning report by an ethics panel. It was unanimously supported by all parties.

“Your direct contravention of the provisions of section 96 (ii) of the Constitution by allowing your position to be used to improperly benefit your permanent companion shows indifference to our Constitution, which is unacceptable,” Sisulu told Pule.

He said she had shown “complete disregard” for the privileges members of Parliament enjoyed and the trust the public placed in them.

Sisulu confirmed that Pule would be excluded from parliamentary debates and meetings for 15 days from Wednesday and fined a month’s salary as an MP.

Parliament would also hand the report to police and prosecuting authorities for further investigation.

The penalties are the strongest Parliament could impose after the ethics committee found Pule wilfully misled it about her romantic relationship with Phosane Mngqibisa, who accompanied her on numerous official trips abroad.

Apology

Pule rose from her seat in the back-benches and offered a brief apology.

“I want to say to this house that I gave the best I could do to do my job, and that if in the course of me doing my job I made a mistake, I am sorry, I apologise.”

ANC MP Ben Turok, who co-chairs the ethics committee, told the National Assembly he was dismayed at Pule’s attitude during the five-month investigation into how financial benefits flowed towards Mngqibisa, and his company.

“Throughout the hearings it was clear that there was collusion between Honourable Pule and some senior officials in presenting a false version of her activities.”

Turok has stated that the ethics panel would have imposed tougher penalties still on the former minister, who sought to deny her relationship with Mngqibisa, had the parliamentary code made provision for those.

He told MPs it was imperative that the code be reviewed speedily. This process had been in the pipeline for years, but had not yet been completed.

“We asked for this on several occasions and we ask for it again – a speedy revision of the code of conduct. We also recommend that the penalties for transgressions be increased.”

He termed the investigation “a long, drawn out affair” and lamented that three people, including a communications department official who had testified, “had been subjected to bullying to try to get them to reverse their testimony”.

Sacked from Cabinet

The panel found that Pule failed to declare that Mngqibisa benefited materially from the sponsorship of last year’s information and communications technology event, the ICT Indaba, which her department hosted in Cape Town.

Pule was sacked from her portfolio in a Cabinet reshuffle in July. Her sanction by Parliament also includes being told to correct her incomplete declaration of interests.

ANC Chief Whip Stone Sizani welcomed the steps taken against her and said he hoped it would discourage transgressions by public servants.

“The ANC has consistently condemned and demonstrated intolerance towards impropriety, both in the public and privates sectors, as it corrodes our society’s moral fibre.

“We are, therefore, confident that Parliament’s decision today [Tuesday] against the former minister will go a long way in discouraging improper conduct, and ensuring public representatives execute their public responsibilities strictly by the book,” he said in a statement.

– SAPA

Durban – KwaZulu-Natal Premier Zweli Mkhize on Tuesday called for an end to politically motivated crime.

“We can’t allow any more deaths that are linked to this tension that is associated with the election processes. It really takes the province of KwaZulu-Natal back,” said Mkhize.

Speaking at a provincial government meeting, he said the recent killings of a number of councillors in the province needed to be dealt with.

He welcomed the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC) investigations into how over 1 500 people were on the voters roll in Ward 22 of the Abaqulusi municipality but were not resident in the ward.

“There have been some very negative tendencies. People must respect the electoral processes and they need to act in such a way that the elections must always be a reflection of the integrity of the process and the structures involved.

“Tampering with any of the election processes, the voter registration, is unacceptable.”

He said interference in the voter registration process and deaths related to inter-party rivalries and intra-party rivalries needed to be addressed.

He hoped the two-day meeting would offer a solution to end the violence.

Political killings

A number of members of the IFP, the National Freedom Party (NFP), and the ANC have been killed in the past year.

The most recent death was ANC councillor Makhosonke Msibi in Ulundi earlier this month.

The Abaqulusi Ward 22 by-election was postponed for a second time this month after the Constitutional Court ordered an investigation into voter registration in the ward.

Former ANC councillor Andre Lotter had claimed the IEC had not sufficiently investigated how the extra 1 525 people came to be on the roll.

An initial by-election date of 24 April was abandoned after Lotter obtained a court order.

The IEC was then ordered to investigate whether names had been fraudulently added to the voters roll.

Last month IEC chairperson Pansy Tlakula said 1 525 people were removed from the roll and transferred back to their original wards, as it could not be proved that they ordinarily resided in Ward 22.

The meeting aims to review the provincial government’s performance over the past year.

– SAPA

Cape Town – Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi on Tuesday insisted the report into alleged misspending at Nkandla remains secret to protect President Jacob Zuma’s security.

Nxesi was again pressed on Tuesday to release it to Parliament’s public works portfolio committee – even with those parts dealing directly with security excised – but told MPs to be patient.

They should await Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s report into security upgrades costing R206m at Zuma’s homestead in the KwaZulu-Natal hamlet, he said.

“It is insensitive to request a document which deals with the security of the head of state. It is as simple as that,” he said.

“So my argument is let’s wait for the public protector and the parliamentary processes to take their own course… let’s wait for those reports and then once they come, let’s deal with those issues.”

Nxesi confirmed that the report – which contains the findings of a government task team’s investigation into spending at Nkandla – was handed to Speaker Max Sisulu.

The minister has recommended that it be given to Parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence for scrutiny.

‘Relentless cover-up’

On Tuesday he reminded MPs that all political parties were represented on that committee.

Nxesi was asked for the report by DA MP Anchen Dreyer, who has accused the government of a “relentless cover-up” of what transpired at Nkandla.

Dreyer also asked whether the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) had received a presidential proclamation enabling it to probe spending at Nkandla, following recent reports that it had been waiting in vain for more than six months.

Nxesi side-stepped the question, saying the president, not public works, had to issue such a proclamation.

“That question cannot be asked to this one, because it is not us who are signing that. Proclamations are dealt with at another level. That question can be asked at that level, not from us.”

He pointed out that the department had been co-operating with Mandonsela, who recently conducted an in loco inspection at Nkandla.

She said in July her report was 99% ready.

“On this particular matter, even the public protector has been able to say these departments have been co-operating in terms of this information.”

The cost of the upgrade has caused public outrage, which grew worse in June when Nxesi told Parliament that the report had been classified.

Deputy Public Works Minister Jeremy Cronin has said the findings indicated over-charging by contractors.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – A man is suspected to have committed suicide after shooting two people in Vanderbijlpark in Johannesburg, Gauteng police said on Tuesday .

Gerhardus Derrick shot dead Stephanus Labuschagne and wounded his wife Sunnet at a local soap factory in Vanderbijlpark on Tuesday morning, Lt-Col Lungelo Dlamini said.

“Stephanus was shot in the head and died on the spot, his wife sustained a flesh wound in the head and was rushed to hospital,” said Dlamini.

“After the shooting it is suspected that the Mr Derrick drank some tablets and fled from the scene in an Isuzu bakkie. Police chased him until R59 towards Meyerton where he stopped and died in his vehicle.”

The motive for the killings is still unknown.

Sapa

Pretoria – South Africa’s military force design was very modest in 1998, a senior SA Navy officer told the Seriti Commission of Inquiry on Tuesday.

“From the look of it, it was a very modest force design in terms of the size of the country,” Rear Admiral Alan Green said in Pretoria.

“Now whether there is a threat or not, as long as there’s a mandate for us to have a national defence force… It is the role of that department to indicate how it intends achieving that and that’s what the department did.”

The execution of this, however, relied on funding which was not determined by the defence department.

Green was testifying on the rationale of the multi-billion rand arms deal and the utilisation of the equipment acquired.

He was the first witness to testify in the initial phase of the commission’s public hearings into the strategic defence procurement package.

President Jacob Zuma appointed the commission in 2011 to investigate alleged corruption in the 1999 arms deal.

Spending

Evidence leader Tshepo Sibeko asked Green about comments made that South Africa did not need to spend so much money on arms as it was not at war at the time.

Green said anything less than the core force that was decided on would have made it difficult to expand on if the need arose.

“When we say there’s no clear threat, I don’t believe we should be nave of the possibility of a threat arising in the medium term,” he said.

“Therefore, we need to have a core force.”

He said capabilities, especially submarines, could not be developed in the medium term.

“It’s a long-term programme, we’ve had experience of that. We knew how long it took us to establish our submarine capability, the greatest deterrent in the maritime environment.”

The large ship capabilities with the frigates also took a long time. It was a developmental process. People needed to be trained, said Green.

A platform needed to be developed for future growth.

He said a defence posture was meant to be a deterrent.

“By having a vessel in the harbour, one is executing the deterrent factor.”

It was easier to “ramp up” the army than the navy or air force.

“Had we expressed that force design as is… We would have had no capability, whatsoever, to defend and protect,” said Green.

– SAPA

Cape Town – The defence closed it case on Tuesday in the Western Cape High Court trial of Thandi Maqubela, accused of killing her husband, acting Judge Patrick Maqubela.

Maqubela is charged with murder, forgery, and fraud.

On the latter two charges she allegedly forged her deceased husband’s signature on his will and fraudulently presented it at the Johannesburg office of the Master of the High Court.

Her co-accused, her business associate Vela Mabena, is charged only with murder.

At Tuesday’s proceedings before Judge John Murphy, Marius Broeksma, for Maqubela, presented the testimony of his client’s brother Zuko Ndlebe.

Ndlebe corroborated Maqubela’s earlier testimony that a police official based in Johannesburg tried to extort money from the deceased.

He also corroborated evidence that cars had been seen on two different occasions at the judge’s Sandton, Johannesburg, home, and that both cars sped away when Ndlebe approached.

Broeksma told the court that Ndlebe was the final witness to testify for the defence.

Maqubela’s body was found in his luxury Bantry Bay apartment on 6 June 2009.

The State alleges the judge was suffocated on his bed on 5 June, the day before his body was found.

Murphy recently ordered the indictment changed to state that he was murdered by placing a piece of plastic clingwrap over his nose or “by any other means unknown to the State”.

Randall Titus, for Mabena, closed his case on Tuesday without leading Mabena’s evidence.

Closing argument is to be presented on 7 October.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Four people were shot dead and a fifth wounded in a car in Midrand, Gauteng police said on Tuesday.

All the victims were passengers in a Toyota Tazz the shooter was driving, at the intersection of Jupiter and Whisken roads in Crowthorne in the early hours of Monday, police spokesperson Lungelo Dlamini said.

“The suspect apparently had an argument with one of the passengers and fatally shot him. He also fired shots at three other passengers, a man and two women.”

The victims were aged between 16 and 30.

Another passenger, a 30-year-old woman, was wounded.

Police believed they were returning from a party in Olievenhoutbosch.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Tension and political intolerance between Agang SA and ANC members have been blamed for the brutal attack on a Limpopo ANC councillor at the weekend.

Unknown men assaulted Polokwane councillor Lesetja Legodi with iron rods before stabbing him in the head at his Solomondale village outside Polokwane.

Legodi, who confirmed the incident, was ambushed while walking home from a night vigil on Saturday.
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