Johannesburg – The correctional services department will oppose an urgent court application by one of the Waterkloof Four, Christoff Becker, to have his parole re-instated, the department said on Wednesday.

“The department has submitted papers in reply to court,” spokesperson Manelisi Wolela said.

At the beginning of April, Becker was transferred to the Kokstad Maximum Security Prison in KwaZulu-Natal due to misconduct.

Wolela said at the time Becker was transferred from the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre (Pretoria Central) to Kokstad.

Correctional services established a disciplinary committee after a cellphone was discovered in Becker’s cell during a search.

On 16 February, Becker and Frikkie du Preez were re-arrested after footage of them allegedly drinking alcohol and using a cellphone at the Kgosi Mampuru Prison emerged.

The video, reportedly taken on a cellphone, was posted on YouTube. It showed Du Preez and Becker drinking, and using a cellphone in jail.

‘Nonsensical reasons’

Earlier in February, Becker, Du Preez, Gert van Schalkwyk, and Reinach Tiedt were released after being jailed for beating a homeless man to death in Pretoria in 2001.

Beeld newspaper reported on Wednesday that Becker’s application would be heard on Friday at the High Court in Pretoria.

Becker, 27, said in court papers that his re-arrest in February was for nonsensical reasons, five days after being released on parole.

He said he was at home on 16 February when Rapport newspaper carried an article about him and Frikkie Du Preez, who allegedly held a party in prison where alcohol was used.

Becker, Du Preez, and two other prisoners were in his cell at the time, the newspaper reported.

In court papers, Becker denied that alcohol was used at the party, which was video-recorded. He also said the pictures of Johnnie Walker and J&B in the video were in fact pictures of a computer’s screen saver.

He wanted the parole board to set aside the decision to revoke his parole, be moved back to Pretoria from Kokstad prison, and be released on parole on the same conditions he was released in February.

Becker also sought to have his re-arrest and detention declared unlawful, and for the department to pay for his legal bill.

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Johannesburg – Afrikaans will be the medium of instruction at Fochville High School following a settlement between the school and the Gauteng education department, Afriforum said on Wednesday.

The civil rights group’s deputy CEO Alana Bailey called it a “victory for the right of learners to be educated in their mother tongue”.

The department was not immediately available for comment.

Afriforum and the Federation of Governing Bodies of SA Schools (Fedsas) had supported the parents and the school through its legal process, she said.

“The department has to acknowledge the right of learners to mother tongue education and the advantages thereof… [It] did not hesitate to abuse the children and use them as pawns in their ideological struggle against Afrikaans.”

Bailey said those involved in the fight to keep Afrikaans as the medium of instruction had done well to ensure the children were not disadvantaged.

In 2012 the department forced the school to accommodate 42 English-speaking pupils, even though there were alternative schools in the area.

The school was unable to do so due to a lack of space and facilities, Bailey said.

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Bloemfontein – Police fired rubber bullets and used stun grenades to disperse striking Metsimaholo municipality workers in Sasolburg, Free State police said on Wednesday.

“The workers threw stones at the municipal building during Wednesday morning,” police spokesperson Sellwane Mapamela said.

Strikers damaged the municipal building and a nearby clinic.

Workers began striking this week over salaries and benefits.

Some services such as refuse removal had suffered.

Mapamela said the situation was calm on Wednesday afternoon.

Police were on the scene.

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Bloemfontein – Northern Cape Premier Sylvia Lucas on Wednesday tried to convince Kuruman residents to allow children to return to school, her spokesperson said.

“The premier met with traditional leaders in the region today,” Lucas’s spokesperson Bronwyn Thomas-Abrahams said.

“The schools have nothing to do with service delivery and the community is adversely affecting the futures of the children,” she said.

Fifty-five schools in the John Taolo Gaetsewe region, which is the bigger Kuruman area, had been closed due to intimidation and threats.

A group of locals calling themselves the Road Forum forced schools to close about three weeks ago, in protest at the state of roads in the area.

Of the 55 schools affected, eight are high schools.

Thomas-Abrahams said after discussions with school principals in the region over the weekend, it was decided to open the high schools on Monday.

“It was to enable the provincial education department to start with its intervention programmes at the schools.”

On Monday, five of the eight high schools opened their doors for pupils, but they closed soon afterwards due to threats to the safety of teachers and children.

Northern Cape education spokesperson Sidney Stander said Lucas was personally looking into solving the situation.

There were similar disruptions at schools in Kuruman, Olifantshoek and Kathu for several months in 2012, also due to protests at the poor state of roads and lack of municipal services.

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Cape Town – A task team has been set up to monitor the Vrygrond Taxi Association’s conduct after being accused of route invasions and intimidation, Western Cape Transport MEC Donald Grant said on Wednesday.

The province’s regulatory entity recently suspended the association administratively for three months, after inquiries last June and in April.

This, amid an increase in taxi-related crimes and a spate of violent shootings and killings.

Grant said the suspension would only be reconsidered if the association adhered to a number of conditions.

These conditions included not extorting money or interfering with the legal operation of any taxi association or member in the Vrygrond area in Cape Town.

It also had to co-exist with the Retreat Taxi Association and the Steenberg Taxi association and not prevent their members from using the Vrygrond taxi rank.

A task team, made up of taxi association members and city and provincial officials, would monitor their conduct.

“Failure to comply will result in more drastic action being taken by the office of the Provincial Transport Registrar [again, in terms of the legislative framework],” Grant said.

Both Grant and Cape Town transport mayoral committee member Brett Herron were concerned by the recent increase in taxi crimes.

Since April, the city’s metro police had been deployed to the area to assist the SA Police Service in clamping down on unlicensed operators and illegal behaviour.

Both said while they took their role in the taxi industry seriously, it fell to disputing operators to work out a way forward and end taxi violence.

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Pretoria – Police use excessive force during the deadly strike in Marikana, North West, the Farlam Commission of Inquiry heard on Wednesday.

“The reason police should fire is to stop the threat. It’s not about killing someone,” public order policing expert Gary White said.

Police fired 327 live rounds of ammunition at striking Lonmin miners on 16 August 2012. White said he watched the video of the shooting but could not see what police were shooting at as there was smoke.

“If you can’t see what you are firing at, what’s the point of shooting?”

He said in a number of police statements there was no explanation of what officers were firing at.

White said he was aware there was evidence of shots being fired at police, but they could have run away.

The law was clear, lethal fire should be used as last resort, he said.

White criticised police for not having a written plan to deal with strikers in Marikana.

Earlier he testified about a confrontation police had with strikers carrying traditional weapons near a railway line at Marikana on 13 August 2012. Two policemen were killed and one was wounded after strikers refused to disarm.

“If the intention was to disarm and disperse, the operation needed to be planned,” White said.

If the strikers were carrying traditional weapons, he suspected they would not voluntarily put them down.

White said there was no plan as to how the crowd should be disarmed and dispersed. There was also no plan about what to do if the strikers refused to disarm.

White said he was shocked police had so little information.

“I would have expected that there was intelligence to tell who the group was and their intention… how likely they were going to be violent towards the police,” he said.

The commission is investigating the deaths of 44 people during strike-related violence at Lonmin’s platinum mining operations in Marikana.

Thirty-four people, mostly striking mineworkers, were shot dead in a clash with police, over 70 were wounded, and another 250 arrested on 16 August 2012. Police were apparently trying to disarm and disperse them.

In the preceding week, 10 people, including two policemen and two security guards, were killed.

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Pietermaritzburg – A woman who arranged her mother-in-law’s murder was jailed for life in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday.

Judge Nompumelelo Hadebe said that mother-in-law Sindile Alphina Pearce, 64, died at the hands of her daughter-in-law Lillian Phebome Pearce, 41, a government clerk.

Lillian recruited a hitman, Mvikelwa Khanyile, 29, who was also jailed for life.

She said the aggravating factors outweighed the circumstances that would allow her to deviate from the prescribed life sentence.

The State alleged that Lillian Pearce arranged the hit on her mother-in-law as she believed she was sowing division between her and her husband.

Khanyile obtained a firearm and recruited Bheki Ndlovu to execute the plan.

In April 2011 assassins went to Sindile Pearce’s home. She was lured to a window where she was shot.

She died of chest wounds.

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Johannesburg – SA needs to wake up to the serious consequences which affirmative action could bring about, the Institute for Race Relations (IRR) said on Wednesday.

The appointment of unqualified people, along with failure to fill key posts when the only available candidates are white, One of the reasons for this, said the IRR in its latest @Liberty policy bulletin.
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Johannesburg – The economy is unlikely to go into recession, even after a 0.6% contraction in the first quarter, as data pointed to a rebound in the mining and manufacturing sectors, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene said.

“At this point, signals are that growth in the second quarter will be slow but positive,” Nene said in a written response to parliamentary questions emailed to Reuters on Wednesday.

Nene said many of the brakes on growth, including protracted labour strikes and electricity constraints, were of a supply-side nature and therefore fiscal measures would not be sufficient to boost economic growth.

Reuters

Cape Town – The National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) on Wednesday condemned a call by a DA MP that the NYDA leadership should be fired.

“The NYDA wishes to express its shock at the empty, ignorant and irresponsible comments made yesterday in Parliament by Johanna Steenkamp, a fly by night ‘young leader’,” NYDA chairperson Yershen Pillay said in a statement.

He was responding to 27-year old Steenkamp’s maiden speech during a youth month debate in the National Assembly on Tuesday.

Steenkamp said the NYDA was squandering money while the country’s youth remained trapped in poverty.

“For the record, following the appointment of the new NYDA board by His Excellency President Jacob Zuma in March 2013, the new board set on a mission to reposition the NYDA and to make it more relevant and responsive to the needs of young people,” Pillay said.

The new vision entailed restoring credibility to the NYDA.

“As part of supporting this vision the new board put in place a number of flagship programmes including the NYDA entrepreneurship grant programme aimed at assisting young people who either want to start or expand their small businesses,” Pillay said.

“To date 589 youth owned enterprises have been supported with grant finance amounting to more than R25m in the past year alone.”

The NYDA helped 236 young people, mostly from rural areas, through the R20m Solomon Mahlangu scholarship fund.

“We have a long way to go as a country if these are the kind of irresponsible and ignorant ‘leaders’ we are going to produce,” Pillay said.

“As the NYDA we will continue to intensify our work relating to leadership development and social cohesion and possibly try to educate detractors like Ms Steenkamp.”
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