By Obakeng Maje
Hartbeesfontein- North West police are investigating a case of inquest after a 71 year-old man was allegedly razed in a blazing fire on Friday at Oblate Farm, near Hartbeesfontein.

Sergeant Kealeboga Molale said the man stayed alone in a shack while his family reside in a main house in the same yard.

“A 71 year-old man allegedly took a paraffin lamp to his room and sent his good-byes to his wife. The family was woken up by neighbours who saw the fire. The man was burnt beyond recognition and his shack was reduced to ashes” Molale said.

Police investigation continues and no foul play is suspected.-TDN
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Johannesburg – Twenty-six people have been arrested in Gauteng for intimidation, public violence and malicious damage to property as police monitor the metals and engineering strike, police said on Friday.

The 26 were arrested in connection with crimes committed over the past three days, police spokesperson Lungelo Dlamini said.

Of these, 19 people were arrested in Elandsfontein on the East Rand after protesters, believed to be strikers in the metals and engineering industries, broke the gate of a business.

When police arrived, the crowd stoned their vehicles. Police used rubber bullets to disperse them.

In a separate incident in Benoni on Thursday, around 2 000 striking workers forced their way into a company and damaged equipment and computers. The damage was estimated at several million rand.

In Wadeville, also on the East Rand, nine people were arrested for allegedly breaking windows at a business premises.

“Although it is a protected strike and employees are allowed to picket, acts of violence will not be tolerated and police are ready to take action,” Dlamini said.

Majority union in the metals and engineering industries, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) embarked on an indefinite strike on Tuesday.

Several smaller unions have joined the strike.

Numsa is demanding a one-year bargaining agreement, including a 15% wage increase, a R1 000 housing allowance, and the scrapping of labour brokers.

On Thursday, the biggest employers’ organisation, the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of SA (Seifsa), tabled a three-year wage offer of between eight and 10% for different levels of workers in the first year.

The first category of worker was offered seven percent in 2015 and 2016, while the others were offered nine percent in the second year, and eight percent in the final year.

The National Employers’ Association of SA (Neasa) has offered eight percent, subject to an agreement for entry-level workers’ wages to be lowered and measures to make the industry more flexible.

Violence and intimidation

Neasa CEO Gerhard Papenfus said the employers’ demand relating to entry-level wages was aimed at boosting job creation.

He said around half of companies affected by the strike had reported violence and intimidation.

Seifsa also complained that some of their members had reported damage to property and violence accompanying the strike.

The federation’s CEO Kaizer Nyatsumba has written to national police commissioner Riah Phiyega twice, calling on police to prepare for a potentially violent strike.

Phiyega’s spokesperson Solomon Makgale confirmed on Friday that the letters had been received.

“The law makes provision for protest but clearly stipulates that such protest cannot be violent,” he said.

Seifsa has expressed concern that Numsa refused to sign a peace accord, and the matter has been referred to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.

Numsa was not available for comment on Friday.

In a statement on Thursday, however, spokesperson Castro Ngobese denied Numsa members were behind the crimes.

“Numsa condemns the spurious accusations being made by employers that our striking members are involved in acts of intimidation and vandalism.”

Responding to Seifsa’s letters to Phiyega, Ngobese said the union rejected this as an attempt to involve organs of state in the strike.

“Seifsa should not open unhealed wounds. Workers have not forgotten their comrades were slaughtered in Marikana by the police,” he said in a statement at the time.

Marikana shooting

On 16 August 2012, 34 people, mostly striking mineworkers, were shot dead at Lonmin’s platinum mining operations in Marikana, North West, in a clash with police. Police were apparently trying to disarm and disperse them.

Earlier on Friday, the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry condemned strike-related violence and called on the police to arrest the perpetrators.

“The high economic costs and severe infringement on the rights of South African citizens indicate that government must intervene to avert anarchy,” CEO Neren Rau said in a statement.

Communications Minister Faith Muthambi said in a statement that the government condemned the violence attributed to Numsa members.

“While South Africans have the constitutional right to protest, intimidation and violence against those not participating in the strike will not be accepted,” she said.

“South Africa is a democratic country where concerns ought to be addressed within the framework of the law.”

The government called on employers and trade unions to work together to reach an amicable and speedy resolution.

Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant is expected to meet Seifsa and Numsa later on Friday, following her meeting with Numsa on Monday, spokesperson Mokgadi Pela said.

SAPA

Johannesburg – Electricity supply to Pimville and Nancefield in Soweto, Johannesburg, has been restored following cable thefts, Eskom said on Friday.

“The power was restored on Thursday, 3 July 2014 at approximately 23:40 after replacing the damaged cables,” Eskom’s Gauteng spokesperson Reneiloe Semenya said in a statement.

Residents went on the rampage on Thursday morning following disruptions, and damaged cars as they protested.

About 15 cars were burnt and seven damaged by the angry protesters.

Police had to intervene to allow Eskom technicians to fix the cables.

“Eskom would like to thank the police, local councillors and the local authority for working with us throughout the incident yesterday in Nancefield and Pimville until supply was restored,” Gauteng general manager Peter Sebola said.

Police spokesperson Kay Makhubela said the situation was calm on Friday.

SAPA

Cape Town – An advertisement showing a child being fed scraps like a dog has sparked huge controversy, the Cape Argus reported on Friday.
For more http://www.news24.com

Johannesburg – The media plays a big role in holding authorities accountable in a constitutional democracy, the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) said on Friday.

“These latest comments infringe on freedom of speech,” said FF Plus communications spokesperson Anton Alberts.

“It is an over-reaction on the side of government because the media in South Africa plays a big role as watchdog for the public and to call authority structures to order.”

On Thursday, acting SABC chief operations officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng proposed that journalists have a licence to practise like those in the medical and law professions.

He said journalists who acted unprofessionally should be stripped of their licences.

“You know when you are a journalist, you are a professional journalist. If you don’t have ethics and principles and you mislead on your reporting, like lawyers… if you commit any mistake they take your licence,” he was quoted as saying by the SABC.

“We should do the same thing with journalists. That is what we need to do if we want to build South Africa.”

He was speaking at the annual Joburg Radio Days at Wits University in Johannesburg.

Press ombudsman

Alberts said a press ombudsman was established, as part of self-regulation, to prevent unfair and unreasonable journalism.

The ombudsman can be used instead of regulating the media externally.

“There are various examples in just the past couple of weeks alone about the effectiveness of the press ombudsman,” he said.

Earlier on Friday, the SA National Editors’ Forum said Motsoeneng’s statement revealed his ignorance about journalistic practice in a democracy.

“It is unfortunate that the remarks come from a high-ranking official of the public broadcaster, one of the biggest media houses in the country. The proposal is at odds with freedom of speech which is enshrined in the Constitution,” Sanef said in a statement.

In February, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela released a report “When governance and ethics fail” which found Motsoeneng’s SABC appointment irregular. Among other things, his salary increased from R1.5m to R2.4m in one year.

She found he had misrepresented his qualifications – that he passed matric – to the SABC, and recommended that he be replaced.

SAPA

Johannesburg – Twenty-six boys have died since the start of the winter initiation season because of botched circumcisions, the traditional affairs department said on Friday.

“The total number of young boys that have lost their lives since the start of the initiation season has risen to 26,” said Deputy Traditional Affairs Minister Obed Bapela.

“Twenty-one initiates are from the Eastern Cape, four from Mpumalanga, and one from the Western Cape.”

On Thursday, 104 boys were admitted for dehydration, septic circumcision, gangrene, and other related injuries.

Bapela will visit the Eastern Cape next week to assess the areas that have recorded a high number of deaths.

Seven people have been arrested for operating illegal initiation schools in the Eastern Cape.

“The government cannot watch as our children are dying in numbers. This must come to an end,” Bapela said.

SAPA

Cape Town – ANC MPs on Parliament’s justice portfolio committee on Friday accused the public protector of political posturing and suggested her powers should be reviewed.

“We have seen the office of the public protector taking certain postures, both in the media and in the country and even outside the country, about government when she herself is part of government,” Bongani Bonga said.

“So we will not promote as the portfolio committee a situation where the public protector will make political views,” he added.

“I think we should warn the public protector to desist from making certain views that are political in nature because of the integrity of the office she is leading… That office takes postures that seems to be taking a political party line.”

The comment drew support from several ANC colleagues and firm objections from the opposition, with the African Christian Democratic Party’s Steve Swart asking chairperson Mathole Motshekga to rule it out of order.

“Broad allegations like this are totally unacceptable and I would ask you to rule that it is unparliamentary,” he said.

Motshekga suggested that the details of what Bonga implied were “public knowledge” and dismissed a call by the DA’s Marius Redelinghuys that Bonga be made to withdraw the remark as the committee could issue no warning to Madonsela unless it had resolved to do so by vote.

Madonsela later described Bonga’s remarks as “worrying”.

She was briefing the committee on her office’s R199m budget and asked for its backing for an increase, noting that it had originally asked Treasury for R300m for the current financial year.

Madonsela said her staff’s caseload was such that investigators had initially refused to sign performance agreements, citing impossible targets, and only did so after threats of disciplinary action from management and further pleas from her.

Last year 333 employers handled 35 029 cases.

Madonsela said the “undue litigious approach” of some government offices was eroding funding, with some R10m going on legal costs in cases where her findings were taken on review by the state.

“We need money for legal fees,” she said.

In later comments to the media, she voiced her frustration at widespread refusal by the government to implement her recommendations.

“We are increasingly spending a fortune on litigation, and our view is a lot of that litigation is not necessary because the Constitution provides for co-operative governance.”

Court application

Madonsela and her chief executive officer, Themba Mthethwa, revealed that an urgent court application brought in November by the ministers of the security cluster to secure more time to comment on the interim Nkandla report, and then subsequently withdrawn, cost the public protector’s office an initial R1.2m, of which only half was recovered from the state.

She confirmed that she had reluctantly accepted funding from German development institution GIZ for training courses, which drew a protest from Bonga.

“The issue of sourcing out funds from the Germans and the Americans… I think it is a problem. You can’t detect when a counter-revolution is started, because you don’t know those funders, what is their interest,” he said.

Speaking to the media after the briefing, Madonsela said she would not use donor funding for internal processes but matters had reached a “crisis point” and she had reasoned that “it is just a question of allowing the institution to fall apart or to get funding”.

Madonsela’s relationship with the justice portfolio committee has been increasingly fraught in the past 18 months, but appeared to reach a new low on Friday when Motshekga called for her powers to be reviewed.

He veiled it in a suggestion that Chapter 9 institutions were duplicating each other’s work, and that this was adding to her office’s excessive caseload.

“I think the powers of these institutions, including yours, should be reviewed to avoid this costly duplication.”

Madonsela swiftly pointed out that her powers could only be changed by changing the Constitution.

To this Motshekga responded that he had not intended a Constitution change.

SAPA

Johannesburg – Free State Premier Ace Magashule should immediately fire the province’s health MEC Benny Malakoane, the DA said on Friday.

“It is alleged that MEC Malakoane interfered with ICU admission procedures at the Dihlabeng Hospital in Bethlehem,” DA spokesperson in the Free State Roy Jankielsohn said in a statement.

“He abused his power and privilege to force the hospital to make an ICU bed immediately available in order to admit an ANC-connected individual.”

Jankielsohn was referring to an article published in the Mail & Guardian which stated that other patients waiting to be admitted to the ICU were dropped in order to make space for the ANC man.

An unnamed doctor quoted in the article claimed that hospital staff were told to make space for the ailing man because Malakoane had promised the man’s family that he would admitted to ICU.

The ANC man was admitted to the unit, despite the fact that he did not qualify as he was in the last stages of a chronic condition and unlikely to recover.

Jankielsohn said this was unacceptable, especially because the province’s health facilities were struggling to feed, operate, medicate or properly attend to its patients.

“We reported the provincial department of health and MEC Malakoane to the SA Human Rights Commission last week, requesting it to investigate human rights violations perpetuated against the people of the Free State,” Jankielsohn said.

The provincial health department could not immediately be reached for comment.

SAPA