The Piet Plessis informal settlements will in few months be turned into a formal settlement when the current housing project is completed. This follows the completion of the first housing project of about 176 houses which were officially handed over by the MEC for Human Settlements Public Safety and Liaison Nono Maloyi, to beneficiaries on Thursday.

The 14.8 Million rand project has changed the face of the informal settlement which was made up of shacks, mud and plastic houses. The department has further appointed another contractor to start with phase two on the project which will see the construction of 200 more houses to other beneficiaries who are still staying in informal settlements in the area. According to MEC Maloyi the project will commence very soon, and will ensure that most locals are employed in the project.

Many residents of the settlement are farm workers who were evicted from neighboring farms while others were from nearby villages. Majority of those who are employed in Piet Plessis are employed by farmers while others survive on communal farming.

Ms Paulina Kgangyame a local resident is one of the beneficiaries of the first phase of the project. She and her children have been staying in a one room house divided by a curtain. Privacy was a dream to her. Today Ms Kgangyame has her own room and sleep peacefully with her grand children. The 72 year old has been surviving on social grants, and has welcomed the generous gesture by government with open heart she said.

“We have been staying in unbearable conditions which greatly compromised our health. We never knew a proper house until now. I would like to thank ANC led government for providing shelter and a home to my family. I never dreamed of having such a beautiful structure because It’s for the first time and could not have managed myself. I thank government for giving my children a home,” said the excited Kgangyamang.

Speaking during the handover MEC Maloyi called on beneficiaries to take care of the houses. He said that government wants to restore their dignity in this critical period when the country is celebrating 20 years of freedom. “It is government’s priority to make sure that you have proper houses and that you are comfortable and safe in them. Enjoy them because together we are moving South Africa forward,” said Maloyi.-TDN
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Johannesburg- Overseas-based goalkeeper, Roxanne Barker has been named interim captain of the Sasol Banyana Banyana squad that will take on Zimbabwe in an international friendly match on Saturday at the Dobsonville Stadium in Soweto. Kick-off is at 13h30. 

Head coach of the Sasol-sponsored South African Senior Women’s National team, Vera Pauw will lead Banyana Banyana for the first time since her appointment last month. Pauw will be aiming to build a formidable squad for the 2014 edition of the CAF African Women’s Championship to be staged in Namibia later this year.

Banyana Banyana will be without the services of current Banyana Banyana captain, Janine van Wyk due a knee injury that will take less than two weeks to recover and Mamelodi Sundowns midfielder Busisiwe Ndimeni, who sustained an injury in the friendly match against the School of Excellence U16 side.

Banyana Banyana completed preparations at the Dobsonville Stadium on Friday morning and the coach said she was looking forward to playing Zimbabwe.

“This match is going to be very important to be playing a competitive game and it will be a test to see how far we have come in terms of having an organized team on the field and playing structured football. We will of course be playing for a win and I want to see the flexibility of the players as it is our starting point but overtime it should become second nature to them. We call on the fans to come to the stadium and support the team on Saturday,” said Pauw.

Interim National team captain, Roxanne Barker said she was excited about leading the Sasol-sponsored Banyana Banyana in the friendly and said it would be a proud moment for her to lead the team against Zimbabwe.

“This is a very important game in showing the coach that we understand the structured type of football she wants us to play. Zimbabwe have not been easy opponents but we want to play for a win and from there see where we need to improve going forward,” said Barker.

Entrance for the Banyana Banyana/Zimbabwe clash is free and will be broadcast live on SABC 2.-TDN
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Klerksdorp- Motorists in the KOSH area in the Matlosana Local Municipality can now renew their vehicle licenses at the Klerksdorp post office.

This was confirmed by the North West MEC for Human Settlements, Public Safety and Liaison on Friday after he officially opened the Post Office Licensing Authority.

MEC Maloyi said the department remains confident that its partnership with the South African Post Office will greatly support the government to achieve its objective of accessible service delivery in particular bringing services closer to the people as envisaged by the constitution.

“Constitution encourages our communities to be served in a sustainable manner in view of promoting social cohesion and economic development.”

“From today motorists can renew their vehicle licenses at this Klerksdorp post office, which translates in reducing long queues in traffic authorities. We must emphasise that this is a remarkable achievement and a positive milestone by our government.” said MEC Maloyi who further outlined that the department will soon expand the services to Klipgat, Letlhabile and Jerico posts offices.

The South African Post Office Board Member, Buhle Mthethwa said their mission is to deliver services in partnership with government. “We are proud to at the post office to serve our communities and deliver excellent service in partnership with government.

To achieve the best possible standard of service, we and the Department will offer this service in areas where high numbers of vehicles are registered. We will also select post offices in areas where public service facilities are in great demand,” said Mthetwa.-TDN
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Pretoria – Oscar Pistorius on Friday told his murder trial he never looked at Reeva Steenkamp before he rushed to confront a suspected intruder and fired the shots that killed her.

Pistorius testified that he “whispered” to his girlfriend to ring the police, in the belief that she was still in bed, but kept his gaze away from her to the passage door.

“I said to Reeva get down and phone the police. I didn’t wait for a response … My whole being was fixated on this person I thought was in the bathroom,” Pistorius said.

Prosecutor Gerrie Nel, cross-examining Pistorius for a third day, said it was hard to understand why the paralympian sprinter failed to make sure that his lover was safe.

“You were right next to her in a situation of danger but you did not take the time to talk to her,” Nel said incredulously.

“A reasonable person would have looked where Reeva was to see if she was safe … but you just grabbed a gun.”

Instincts

Pistorius, who risks a life sentence for premeditated murder, maintained that he had simply obeyed his instincts, and believed the right thing to do was to put himself between Steenkamp and harm.

But Nel said Pistorius had invented a version of events that could allow him to claim that he did not know that Steenkamp was inside a locked toilet cubicle in his home when he shot and killed her through the door.

“You had to come up with a version to explain why you got to the bathroom innocently … your version is a lie.”

According to Pistorius, he got out of bed in the early hours of Valentine’s Day last year to bring two electric fans closer to the couple’s bed and toss a pair of jeans over a hi-fi display light that was bothering him.

In the process he heard a sliding window in his bathroom slam shut and panicked, scrambling for his 9mm pistol.

‘Screamed to Steenkamp’

Nel contends that Pistorius had been emotionally abusive to his girlfriend of four months and killed her after an argument.

On Friday, Nel painstakingly took Pistorius through his movements in the early hours of that morning and paused when the athlete said that as he stood facing the locked door with his firearm, he screamed to Steenkamp to call the police.

It was impossible that Steenkamp did not respond at this point from inside the locked cubicle, Nel told the court.
“She is three metres away from you and she never uttered a word. There is no way you can convince the court she stood there saying nothing.”

He rubbished Pistorius’s suggestion that Steenkamp would have been too scared to make a sound.

“She wasn’t scared of anything except you.”

Contradictions

Nel then asked whether Steenkamp screamed while he fired the shots that blasted through the door and hit her in the hip, arm and head.

Pistorius began crying softly and said no, prompting Nel to point out that he was contradicting earlier testimony that, at that point, he could hear nothing because his ears were ringing from the gunshots.

“How can you exclude the fact that she screamed if you could not hear?” Nel said.

“Your version never happened and you have to keep up with an untruth that is why you are making these mistakes. Your mistakes are as convincing as your evidence,” he said.

“You thought an intruder came in through your bathroom window, walked into your toilet and closed the door. It is so far-fetched.”

Pistorius: Police moved objects

Earlier, Nel had argued that the fans had never been moved, because if Pistorius had placed them where he claimed, they would have blocked his path.

Neither could the jeans be on top of a duvet on the floor.

Pistorius has countered that the police moved these objects around before taking the photographs serving as court exhibits, leaving Nel to ask sarcastically whether he was suspecting a conspiracy.

The seasoned prosecutor has set about dismantling the sympathetic picture Pistorius’s expensive legal team has sketched of the athlete as a man rendered vulnerable by his disability, and filled with remorse for shooting the woman he loved.

Pistorius testified this week “I was besotted with her” but Nel said transcripts of text messages the couple exchanged showed that he was indifferent to Steenkamp’s feelings and never assured her that he loved her.

He argued that Pistorius cared only about himself and frequently cried on the stand not because he felt remorse but found himself in trouble.

When Pistorius became emotional on Friday, Nel asked why.

“Because I lost the person I cared about. I don’t know how people don’t understand that,” Pistorius said, his voice shaking.

The trial continues on Monday.
SAPA

Cape Town – All of the SABC’s TV channels on MultiChoice’s pay-TV platform suddenly went dark on Friday evening – with SABC1 (DStv 191), SABC2 (DStv 192), SABC3 (DStv 193) and SABC News (DStv 404) all suffering a complete blackout.

The connections were all restored by 19:20 on Friday night.
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Pretoria – Reeva Steenkamp used to pray for Oscar Pistorius, the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria heard at his murder trial on Friday.
“She prayed with me,” he told the court as prosecutor Gerrie Nel questioned him about the Christianity aspect of their relationship.

She also prayed to “be a better person”.

She prayed for his performance at athletics meetings where the double-amputee was a star-performer on his carbon-fiber prosthetic “blades”.

He confirmed Nel’s description that she always prayed for the “small things”.

Nel said that he found the way Pistorius had given evidence on Thursday “very interesting” and commented that Pistorius’s response of the way Steenkamp prayed “now cut my cross-examination in half”.

Nel immediately cut to juxtaposing Pistorius’s testimony of his fear of crime caused by his first hand experiences and experiences of people close to him, to no sign of official reports to police of these crimes.

He wanted to know, for example, why he did not report the theft of a television set from his house after a trip.

Pistorius said he did not report the theft because he was not insured and did not think there would be any point.

He did not park his car in his garage at his home in Pretoria because he did not think anyone would steal anything from it, he replied to Nel’s question.

He has testified to incidents such as helping a man who had been attacked on the road and being followed home.

Reporting crime

The only crime reported at a police station was: “I had a case against the SA Police Service for wrongful arrest in 2009,” he said.

He added that he also reported the theft of watches from his house “by the police” after Steenkamp was shot.

“Did you ever report crime at a police station?” asked Nel.

“No, I did not My Lady.”

His friend Justin Devaris, who said he had connections with the police, organised a meeting with the Hawks when he said he was assaulted in December 2013.

Pistorius shot Steenkamp through a toilet door at his home.

In his bail application he said he had a heightened sense of fear of crime when he fired the shots thinking there was an intruder in the house. He is charged with murder.

Pistorius is also charged with three contraventions of the Firearms Control Act, one of illegal possession of ammunition and two of discharging a firearm in public.

He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013.

On 30 September 2012 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

SAPA

Johannesburg – Oscar Pistorius’s emotional apology to the family of his dead girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, drew the most attention during his murder trial at the High Court in Pretoria this week.

This was according to information from media monitoring group, Data Driven Insight (DDI).

“I wake up every morning and you’re the first people I think of, the first people I pray for,” the paralympic athlete told the Steenkamps shortly after entering the witness box on Monday.

“I can’t imagine the sorrow and emptiness I’ve caused,” he said.

Pistorius’s apology generated around 23 912 articles within the hour that it was delivered, said the DDI.

Pistorius shot Steenkamp through a locked bathroom door at his Pretoria home on Valentine’s Day last year.

He alleged he had mistaken her for an intruder.

DDI said in the 24 hours ending at 14:00 on Friday, one of the topics that generated most online conversations was based on Pistorius’s conversation with presiding Judge Thokozile Masipa.

This was after Pistorius caved in after State prosecutor Gerrie Nel accused him of delivering evidence that differed to that he gave in his evidence-in-chief.

“It was a mistake… I’m tired, My Lady,” Pistorius replied in a monotone voice, keeping his eyes on Masipa.

She cautioned Pistorius that he “should be all here” and should tell the court if he was too tired to proceed.

Another topic of interest came about when Nel accused Pistorius of lying to the court.

The stern prosecutor was reprimanded by Masipa.

“You don’t call the witness a liar, not while he is in the witness box,” she said to Nel.

Globally, the United States gave the trial the most publicity, followed by Australia, the United Kingdom and then South Africa.

The data was compiled from 6.2 million social media platforms which included blogs, forums, social networks and commentary.

It also included data from 60 000 global online newspapers, 2 000 South African print publications and 66 radio and television stations.

SAPA