Daily Archives: April 26, 2014

Toddler bound and gagged: Crèche owner, worker get bail


Johannesburg- The owner of a creche in Rosettenville, where a toddler was bound and gagged, and her employee were granted bail by the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court, The Star reported on Saturday.

Labeeba Truter and Nomthandazo Majeke were granted bail of R3 000 each by Magistrate Paul du Plessis on Friday. The matter was postponed to 19 May.

Du Plessis reportedly warned the women that part of the bail conditions were that Truter could not run any business which involved caring for children and Majeke could not teach any children.

The women have been charged with assault and child abuse following a video of a 21-month-old toddler who was gagged and tied up, went viral.

The Petite Bumper Daycare came under the spotlight three weeks ago when the Daily Sun reported the story of the toddler tied up in a bathroom at the crèche, allegedly by Truter, so that she could watch television.

The child was recorded, allegedly by Majeke, and in the video she tries to free herself by moving around on the floor until she gets stuck between the toilet and the wall.

Truter told Daily Sun she was aware of the incident, but had not reported it to police.

She claimed she was not responsible for the abuse and she did not know it was child abuse.

SAPA

Motlanthe: ANC faces dishonest wealth accumulation challenge


Johannesburg – The dishonest means of accumulating wealth is a challenge many societies including South Africa face through exercising state power, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said.

In a speech prepared for delivery at the University of Oxford on Friday night he said the African National Congress also faced that challenge.

“… An observer cannot miss the point that the exercise of state power throws up its own challenges in all societies. Indeed post-colonial history is choking on such cases, South Africa included.

“This is shown by the huge appetite for the dishonest means of wealth accumulation that has emerged over the twenty years of our exercise of state power.”
Motlanthe said the phenomenon was called “the sins of incumbency”.

“By this I am not suggesting a mechanical view that says we are trapped in a rotten post-apartheid life about which we cannot do anything. Indeed change is possible.”

He said it would take the courage of leadership to come to terms with the malady, in ways that would help the organisation cleanse itself of those conditions.

“It cannot be a matter of wishful thinking, steps have to be taken to bring up a generation of committed cadres with a singular purpose to help move society forward.”
Motlanthe said one of the biggest challenges was the state’s capacity to deliver services to society. Often times government had found itself between a rock and a hard place, he said.

“Government has had to rely on the bureaucratic machinery to implement its programme of social transformation. However, this has not always been easy.

“Democracy is a process. More importantly, democracy is embedded in social conditions, and its thriving presupposes social justice and expanding floor of human comfort.”

Motlanthe said he was confident that South Africans would elevate their experience in a democracy to the level where democratic practice became second nature.-Sapa

Guard of honour for Holomisa


Mahikeng – United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa was well received in Freedom Park near Rustenburg on Saturday.

About 2 000 party supporters dressed in yellow T-shirts ululated and clapped hands as they welcomed him.

Marshals formed a guard of honour as he walked into the tent.

He was in Rustenburg to canvass votes for his party in the 7 May election.

Most of the people living in Freedom Park near Impala Platinum mines were believed to be from his home province of the Eastern Cape.

The large crowd wielding Holomisa election posters had been waiting for his arrival since 11:00.
-Sapa

Zille: ANC does nothing but steal


Cape Town – The ANC did nothing between elections but steal taxpayers’ money, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille told her party’s final rally in Cape Town on Saturday before the 7 May elections.

“We will never allow the ANC to bring corruption back to the Western Cape,” Zille told a mostly coloured crowd at the Bellville Velodrome, before urging them to ensure that the party retained power in the province.

“The ANC talks a lot at election time but they do nothing except steal your money in between elections.”

Accusing the ANC of graft was a refrain from party leaders at the slick rally, as the DA awaits a ruling from the Election Court on the text message it sent to millions of people, stating that President Jacob Zuma stole public money to build his home at Nkandla.

‘A corrupt and arrogant ANC’

DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko told the crowd of several thousand that the R243m spent on improvements at Nkandla should have been used to uplift the poor and described Zuma’s dismissal at ANC rallies of Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s findings that he reaped undue benefit from the project as arrogant.

“These are the laughs of a corrupt and arrogant ANC under President Jacob Zuma,” she said.

“These are the laughs of an ANC in permanent decline… You can only fight corruption by voting for the DA.”

Zille said the controversy summed up the current state of the ruling party.

“Nkandla is just a symbol of what the ANC has become. It is a party that is seeking to get as much as it can for itself and its leaders,” she told reporters.

“Jacob Zuma deploys his loyal cadres into every top job. He looks after them and they… look after him.”

Zille condemned the ruling on Friday by the Independent Communications Authority of SA’s (Icasa) complaints and compliance committee upholding a complaint by the police on a DA election advert that contains a photo of a police officer shooting rubber bullets.

“It really is an incomprehensible ruling to me. We’re going to seek a review,” she said.

“The bottom line is we cannot accept that this president should stand, if you take material that is freely available in the public domain and prevent a political party showing it because it has an impact, then we are right in the realm of censorship.”

‘Every single DA vote’

Earlier, after singing and dancing as sparklers were set off, Zille reminded supporters that the DA had won the Western Cape by a whisker in 2009, securing just more than 50% of the vote.

“We need every single DA vote to come out on 7 May and keep the Cape blue,” she added.

Zille said it was essential that the DA retain power in the Western Cape to show the rest of the country that it governs better than the ANC.

Retaining the province was a step towards claiming others and eventually governing South Africa.

“Every week is a step closer to Pretoria,” she said.
-Sapa

Life sentence for NWest wife murderer appropriate –Premier Modise


North West Premier Thandi Modise has welcomed the life sentence imprisonment imposed on a man who murdered his wife by dousing her with petrol and setting her alight as appropriate. The North Gauteng High Court on Friday concluded that the act committed by Godfrey Mamabalo of Letlhabile was cold, cunning and remorseless.

“Justice has been served with the removal of the heartless murderer from society. We trust that the family finds closure to what was a horrendous act that had left us numb with shock,” Premier Modise said.
In welcoming the sentence, Modise reiterated her call for communities to unite against the scourge of gender based violence and urged men who are insecure in their relationships to seek urgent counselling and professional help instead of resorting to violence which results in dire consequences for all parties involved.
She emphasised that the prevention of violence against women should be supported by real men who understand it to be key to achieving gender equality for women to fully enjoy their freedom and democracy.
Forty-six-year old Mamabolo was sentenced by Juge Ellem Francis for murdering his wife Gladys, attempting to murder his three-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son, and breaching a protection order in February last year.Mamabolo was found guilty of murder despite his claims that his wife’s death was an accident after a candle and container with petrol accidentally fell over in his lounge while they were shoving each other during an argument.
 

Francis said Mamabolo, a paramedic, was a defenceless hard-working woman who did not deserve to die an agonising death.

 

The judge accepted the evidence of the couple’s domestic worker, Mmaletsatsi Matshona, that she saw Mamabolo wearing only her panties, on her knees with her arms above her head, begging her husband for forgiveness while he poured petrol over her. Matshona escaped by breaking a window moments before the house was engulfed in flames.

 

The couple’s son had testified that he saw his father pour petrol on the bedroom floor and saw his mother catch fire while she was running down the passage.

 

Despite being on fire, she managed to call her children to the bathroom where she made them sit in a tub of water. Neighbours rescued them through a bathroom window after breaking the burglar bars.

 

Mrs Mamabolo’s brother, Ronnie Masilo, testified that he had to intervene when his brother-in-law threatened to kill his sister with a spanner at her workplace the day before her death.

He took his sister to the police station where she obtained a protection order to stop her husband from assaulting, threatening, and insulting her. The order was served on Mamabolo hours before he attacked his wife.

 

Francis said it was clear Mamabolo set his wife alight because he was furious about the protection order and suspected her of having an affair.

 

Mamabolo’s mother cried after sentence was passed, and her brother Ronnie said he was “super happy” with the sentence.-TDN
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DA ordered to remove ‘cop scene’ on their ad


The photo used in the DA’s televised election advert was misleading, police said.

“In fact, the advertisement’s footage is inaccurate and misleading as the two people shown in the image were never killed or shot at and no live ammunition was used,” SA Police Service spokesperson Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale said yesterday.

The SA Police Service welcomed the Independent Communications Authority of SA’s (Icasa) ruling late yesterday that its complaint about the DA’s advert was valid. Icasa ordered the DA to remove the offending part from the advert.

The televised advert shows the DA’s Gauteng premier candidate Mmusi Maimane standing in front of a mirror, talking about the current state of the country. At one point he states that “the police are killing our people”. This is accompanied by a photo of a police officer firing rubber bullets at close range at two unarmed people.
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