Daily Archives: May 14, 2014

Lekwa-Teemane municipality under investigations after sporadic protests


Mahikeng – North West MEC for Local Government and Traditional Affairs Manketsi Tlhape has delivered on her promise of dealing and putting to rest concerns raised by Lekwa-Teemane residents.  

The Department has in terms of Section 106 (1) (b) of the Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000, appointed an audit forensic investigating firm namely Greentime Management Consulting to conduct investigations on allegations of maladministration, fraud, corruption or any serious malpractice at Lekwa Teemane Municipality.

The firm is expected to complete their investigations within two weeks, after which it will present its findings to the Department within a week thereafter. 

MEC Tlhape said the firm has already been introduced to the municipality on Friday 09 May 2014. “Their terms of reference are to interview any person in the municipality deemed pertinent to provide information and to request and seize documents relevant to the investigation. We are looking forward to the completion of the investigation because we want to put this matter to rest. We will adhere to the agreed time within a week of completion of the investigation the audit firm will make recommendations and submit a report to my office” said MEC Tlhape.

Amongst others the firm will investigate the lease agreements or sale of municipal farms, allocations of stands and alleged undertaking by the Mayor to allocate 1000 units, malpractice in allocation of RDP stands, the International Angling Tournament and other current projects arranged through Local Economic Development – LED unit, investigate nepotism in appointment of staff and contractors, the awarding of sewerage tender, mentioned labour cases in the municipality and to provide progress report on a criminal case of corruption against Mayor, Municipal Manager and other municipal employees.

The investigations at Lekwa Teemane local municipality follows violent protests in Boitumelo near Bloemhof and Christiana last month which saw houses belonging to the Mayor, her relatives, councillors and police officials torched.

These violent protests also saw the N12 road between Kimberley and Johannesburg barricaded with burning tyres and stones thrown at passing cars and trucks.-TDN
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Amcu strikers defy call to return to work


Johannesburg – About 5 000 striking mineworkers gathered at Wonderkop Stadium in Marikana, near Rustenburg in the North West, on Wednesday, refusing to return to work.

Members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) sang resistance songs and carried knobkerries and umbrellas.
Many had blankets around them.
They appeared to be defying a call by employers to return to work.

Lonmin [JSE:LON] warned that it might implement restructuring that could lead to a loss of jobs if striking mineworkers failed to return to work on Wednesday.

The company set May 14 as the deadline for employees to end the almost four-month-old strike.
“The only thing that could take us underground is R12 500”, said union member Tievo Nkomo.

He said accepting the current offer would mean they were on strike for four months only to receive R500.
“This is not what we strike for. The only thing we need is R12 500. I find it difficult that the employers could not understand our demand, which is clear,” said Nkomo.

The companies – Lonmin, Impala Platinum [JSE:IMP], and Anglo American Platinum [JSE:AMS] -offered Amcu a settlement on April 17. They tabled a wage increase offer of between 7.5% and 10%.

The proposed offer would have seen the minimum cash remuneration for entry-level underground workers rise to R12 500 a month, or R150 000 a year, by July 2017.

On Wednesday, union members were bussed into the stadium and were waiting for Amcu leader Joseph Mathunjwa to address them later in the day.

Security was tight around the mining area. Five police vans were stationed around the stadium and a Nyala armoured vehicle belonging to mine security was seen.
Another group of workers had gathered in Marikana West waiting for buses to transport them to the stadium.

The strike has cost the companies about R14bn in revenue and workers have lost over R6bn in earnings.
During a similar strike in August 2012, 44 people died.

Ten people, including two policemen and two security guards, were killed in the week before 34 people were shot dead in a clash with police on August 16.

A commission of inquiry into the 44 deaths has been hearing evidence on events and policing at the time of August 2012 shooting.
SAPA

Pistorius to undergo mental evaluation


PRETORIA – Judge Thokozile Masipa has this morning granted an application by the state to have Oscar Pistorius committed to an institution to have his mental health evaluated.
This morning’s ruling means Pistorius will spend 30 days at a psychiatric facility undergoing a full mental evaluation.
For more http://www.ewn.co.za

Premier Modise appeals to mining houses and AMCU to act responsibly to avoid violent confrontations     


Rustenburg- Parties involved in the 16 weeks wage dispute in the platinum belt should to act responsibly to avoid violent confrontations at all costs,North West Premier Thandi Modise said on Wednesday.

“Resorting to threats of dismissals, court actions and mobilising for intensified intimidation and violence against non-striking workers and those who wish to return to work instead of reaching a settlement to end the strike will only serve to exacerbate the already volatile situation that demands urgent responsible action by all parties to avert another Marikana,” Premier Modise said.
Modise called on traditional leaders and community leaders in the platinum belt not succumb to pressure to drag their communities into the wage dispute as it remains  a matter between mining houses and AMCU.-TDN
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Miners oppose Amcu bid to block SMS campaign


Johannesburg – Platinum producers Lonmin [JSE:LON], Impala Platinum [JSE:IMP] and Anglo American Platinum [JSE:AMS] will oppose a court application by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) over its direct communication with striking employees.

In a joint statement on Wednesday, the three companies said its efforts to end an almost four-month-long strike was not in contravention of regulations or agreements.

“The producers reject claims made by Amcu that any of [its actions] contravene the Labour Relations Act, recognition agreements or employees’ constitutional rights,” it said.
The companies would ask the court to endorse their communication efforts to find a resolution.

Sake-Beeld reported that Amcu had applied for an urgent court interdict to stop the mines from communicating a new wage offer directly to workers.
The application was filed in the Labour Court in Johannesburg on Monday.

Amcu wants the court to stop the companies from directly contacting some 70 000 workers.

The mines have been communicating directly with their employees for the past two weeks to convince them to accept a new wage offer made in April.

This came after the employers’ talks with Amcu leaders deadlocked.
Amcu argued in court papers that the SMS campaign and pre-recorded phone messages to workers from the companies breached the recognition agreement with the mining union. The court will hear the application on Tuesday, according to the newspaper.
Amcu members at the three companies in Rustenburg and at Northam in Limpopo downed tools on January 23 demanding a basic monthly salary of R12 500. The strike has cost the companies about R14bn in revenue and workers have lost over R6bn in earnings.

Lonmin warned that it might implement restructuring that could lead to job losses if striking employees failed to return to work on Wednesday.

The companies offered Amcu a settlement on April 17. They tabled a wage increase offer of between 7.5% and 10%.

The proposed offer would have seen the minimum cash remuneration for entry-level underground workers rise to R12 500 a month, or R150 000 a year, by July 2017.
SAPA

Returning miners blocked by Amcu


Marikana – About 1 000 stick-wielding strikers gathered outside Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine in South Africa on Wednesday, preventing workers from breaking the longest and costliest bout of industrial action the sector’s history.

Some of the protesting strikers, clad in the green shirts of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), told Reuters they were there to block anyone from reaching the shafts.

The rival National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said its members are unable to return to work because of Amcu intimidation. Four people have been murdered around the platinum mines in the last four days although police have made no arrests.

“The miners cannot get to work because the intimidation is very high,” Sydwell Dokolwana, NUM’s regional secretary on the platinum belt, told Reuters.

London-listed Lonmin [JSE:LON] had been aiming for a “mass return” of workers in a bid to end a crippling 16-week strike that has also hit rivals Anglo American Platinum [JSE:AMS] and Impala Platinum [JSE:IMP].

North West police on Wednesday morning began escorting buses to mines on the platinum belt as some striking miners returned to work.

A police spokesperson told the eNCA television channel that officers were out in force and were on hand to escort those who wished to return to the mine gates.

“Buses and vehicles taking them to work will receive a police escort to make sure they are protected,” police spokesperson Brigadier Thulani Ngubane said.
“We are escorting buses that are transporting workers to work – those who want to go back to work – and protecting people,” Ngubane said.

“Everything is in place. Police are out and about doing their work.”

The companies have been taking their latest wage offer directly to Amcu’s members after wage talks with the union collapsed three weeks ago.

The strike has halted 40% of normal global output and dented the country’s already sluggish growth. It has cost the companies about R14bn in revenue and workers have lost over R6bn in earnings.
Lonmin warned that it might implement restructuring that could lead to a loss of jobs if striking mineworkers failed to return to work on Wednesday.
The company set May 14 as the deadline for employees to end the almost four-month-old strike.
Fears of friction between strikers and miners wishing to return to work arose when Amcu objected to employers approaching miners with their wage offer directly in a bid to end the strike. On Monday, police said three miners were killed and six others stabbed while on their way to work.
A 60-year-old miner had been stabbed to death, another miner died after being set alight, and a third mineworker and his wife were strangled to death.
SAPA

Dladla and Chiefs start contract talks


Kaizer Chiefs and Josta Dladla will soon restart contract talks following the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport decision to clear him of any wrongdoing.
The 34-year-old tested positive for Methylhexaneamine after the Soweto Derby back in October of last year, and was banned from playing once the results were made public earlier this year.
For http://www.soccerladuma.co.za

Former police spokesperson back in court


Durban – Former KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Vincent Mdunge, who is accused of fraudulently presenting a fake matric certificate when he joined the police, is expected to appear in the Durban Regional Court.

He faces three charges of fraud.

Two of Mdunge’s fraud charges relate to his presentation of the alleged fraudulent certificate to the SA Police Service when he joined the police in 1987.

He resigned last year, after the allegation surfaced in September, and was arrested in October.

The third fraud charges relates to his presentation of the alleged fraudulent certificate to the University of South Africa to obtain admission for a course to obtain a National Diploma in Police Administration.

In March a provincial education department official told the court that the department had no record of a matric certificate for Mdunge, and the one Mdunge claimed was his had been “tampered unlawfully”.

SAPA

World’s oldest sperm found in Australia


Sydney – The world’s oldest and best-preserved sperm, dating back 17 million years, has been unearthed in Australia, scientists said on Wednesday.

The sperm from an ancient species of tiny shrimp was discovered at the Riversleigh World Heritage Fossil Site, an area in the far north of the state of Queensland where many extraordinary prehistoric Australian animals have previously been found.

They include giant, toothed platypuses and flesh-eating kangaroos.

Mike Archer, from the University of New South Wales School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, who has been excavating at Riversleigh for 35 years, said the sperm was an exciting find.

“These are the oldest fossilised sperm ever found in the geological record”, he said.

The sperm are thought to have been longer than the male’s entire body, but were tightly coiled up inside the sexual organs of the fossilised freshwater crustaceans, known as ostracods.

“We have become used to delightfully unexpected surprises in what turns up there”, he added of Riversleigh.

“But the discovery of fossil sperm, complete with sperm nuclei, was totally unexpected. It now makes us wonder what other types of extraordinary preservation await discovery in these deposits.”

A research team led by Archer collected the fossils in 1988 and sent them to John Neil, a specialist ostracod researcher at La Trobe University in Melbourne, who realised they contained fossilised soft tissues.

He drew this to the attention of several European specialists, including Renate Matzke-Karasz from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and Paul Tafforeau from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France.

A microscopic study revealed the fossils contained the preserved internal organs of the ostracods, including their sexual organs.

Within these were the almost perfectly preserved giant sperm cells, and within them, the nuclei that once contained the animals’ chromosomes and DNA.

The researchers estimate the sperm are about 1.3mm long, slightly longer than the shrimp.

Archer said that about 17 million years ago the site where the fossils were found was a cave in the middle of a vast, biologically diverse rainforest.

“Tiny ostracods thrived in a pool of water in the cave that was continually enriched by the droppings of thousands of bats”, he said.

His UNSW colleague Suzanne Hand, a specialist in extinct bats and their ecological role in Riversleigh’s ancient environments, said the steady rain of droppings would have led to high levels of phosphorous in the water.

This could have aided mineralisation of the soft tissues.

“This amazing discovery at Riversleigh is echoed by a few examples of soft-tissue preservation in fossil bat-rich deposits in France”, she said.

“So the key to eternal preservation of soft tissues may indeed be some magic ingredient in bat droppings.”
AFP

Pilferers’ paradise at Newlands?


Cape Town – A return to the starting line-up for Deon Fourie, most probably in the place of injured Scarra Ntubeni at hooker, may well be a blessing in disguise for the Stormers against the Force at Newlands on Saturday (17:05 kick-off).

Throwing in to the lineout is an erratic string to Fourie’s bow, which is probably something that thwarts any Springbok aspirations in the slot, but he is a tigerish and tireless presence in general play … and will need to be a livewire once more given that the Stormers’ Super Rugby opponents this weekend are led by a man with some “killer stats” at present in the form of captain and flanker Matt Hodgson.
For more http://www.news24.com