Johannesburg – A task team set up by Agang SA founder Mamphela Ramphele has developed a survey in a bid to assess the state of the party.

The party asked people to fill in the online questionnaire “in the interest of the 52 350 people who voted for Agang” in the general elections.

Respondents had until noon on Thursday to complete and submit the survey.

Agang SA said the results of the survey would be used in the task team’s final report, which would be submitted to the reconstituted national executive committee (NEC) and Ramphele on Saturday.

One of the questions in the survey was: “How would you rate the political maturity of Agang SA’s leadership?”.

There were three possible answers – astute, average or immature.

Another question was “How do you rate Dr Mamphela Ramphele as president of Agang SA?”.

Respondents had an option of replying excellent, average or poor.

The questionnaire also asked about respondents’ feelings about the party’s communication with its members and whether people thought it was a good idea that Ramphele had not become Agang’s MP in Parliament.

The party also asked, “Do you think funders received value for their contribution to Agang SA?”.

There were nine questions in the survey.

Ramphele’s exit

Last week, Ramphele announced that she was resigning as leader of the party.

She said her exit from politics was because she wanted to return to working alongside the country’s citizens in civil society.

At the time acting spokesperson John McConnachie said Agang SA had been divided into two factions with the one side aligned with Ramphele and the other calling for her removal as party head.

The party’s two parliamentary leaders, Mike Tshisonga and Andries Tlouamma, were part of the faction who wanted Ramphele out.

The two were served notices of expulsion by the party last week. This came after their alleged involvement in plans to oust Ramphele from the party.

In June, Ramphele and Tshisonga opened separate fraud cases with police over a bank account opened to receive a refund from the Electoral Commission of SA, believed to be around R200 000.

At the time, Tlouamma announced that Tshisonga, who is also the party chairperson, would be acting president.

Tshisonga and Tlouamma were both members of Agang SA’s former NEC.

The former NEC has been replaced by a newly constituted NEC formed by a task team appointed by Ramphele after the elections.

Tshisonga and Tlouamma and the other members of their faction had rejected the legitimacy of the newly constituted NEC.

SAPA

Johannesburg – Two men accused of kidnapping a group of initiates and taking them to a rival initiation school appeared in the Leslie Periodical Court on Monday, Mpumalanga police said.

The matter was postponed to 28 July for further investigations. Mamake Ditsego, 35, and Ntobeko Swartberg, 27 were released on a warning, Sergeant Gerald Sedibe said.

The two face charges of kidnapping, assault and negligent discharge of ammunition.

On Thursday night, they allegedly went to an initiation school in Lebohang township, Leandra, with a firearm. They allegedly held the caretakers at the school at gunpoint and forcefully took 16 initiates to their own school, in the same area.

“In the process they fired a shot, scaring the people to adhere to their demands, and destroyed their property.”

The men were arrested on Friday.

SAPA

Johannesburg – Correctional services will withdraw from Mangaung prison outside Bloemfontein, after taking over management of the privately run prison last year, the department said on Monday.

“Acting national commissioner [Zacharia] Modise said the department had succeeded in stabilising the situation at the centre and in restoring effective control, discipline and rehabilitation programmes,” spokesperson Manelisi Wolela said in a statement.

The department would withdraw in phases by the end of July, having run the prison for 10 months.

According to a report on security company G4S’s running of the prison, there had been violations of its contract with the department and the Correctional Services Act.

The department took over management of the privately run maximum security prison from G4S in October last year. One of the main reasons was a concern for the safety of inmates and staff.

In September, G4S dismissed 330 Popcru members after they refused to return to work at the prison following a strike. During the strike, the facility, which houses nearly 2 000 inmates, was run with limited staff. A riot broke out.

In October a female warder was taken hostage by inmates for 13 hours. A police special task force rescued her unharmed.

A “complex investigation” had been completed and a report was handed to Bloemfontein Corrections Contract, a G4S company. It was given 21 days to reply to the report.

The department would increase supervision of privately run correctional centres in the country to ensure improved compliance with contracts and legislation.

Mangaung prison is one of two privately run prisons in the country. G4S’s 25-year contract with the department reached its halfway mark this year.

SAPA

Johannesburg – Murder-accused Oscar Pistorius was involved in an altercation at a trendy Sandton club over the weekend, his spokesperson confirmed on Monday.

Anneliese Burgess said her client was at the VIP section of the club when he was approached by a man who has since been identified as Jared Mortimer.

“The individual, according to my client, started to aggressively interrogate him on matters relating to the trial,” said Burgess.

The Paralympic athlete is charged with murdering his law-graduate and model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day last year. He claims he mistook her for an intruder when he shot her dead through a locked toilet door at his Pretoria home.

The State, however, claims he shot her following an argument.

Elaborating on Saturday’s incident, Burgess said: “An argument ensued during which my client asked to be left alone. Oscar soon thereafter left the club with his cousin.”

Eyewitness News (EWN) reported that Mortimer claimed Pistorius was drunk and had insulted him and his friends before poking him in the chest. Mortimer said he pushed Pistorius and he fell backwards on his feet and onto a chair.

Bouncers

According to EWN, bouncers intervened and stopped the brawl. Officials from the club – the VIP Room – which is at the Michelangelo Towers in Sandton, have denied the incident.

Spokesperson Perry Mermigas admitted that Pistorius was at the club, but denied that anything out of the ordinary happened.

“We are not aware of this,” Mermigas told Sapa.

“[Pistorius] was there, but there was no altercation and if there had been, we would have known about it,” he said.

Meanwhile, Pistorius regretted visiting the club.

“My client regrets the decision to go to a public space and thereby inviting unwelcome attention,” said Burgess.

Twitter

On Sunday, just several hours after the incident, Pistorius was active on social-networking site, Twitter.

He tweeted a Bible verse, a collage of pictures of his humanitarian work, and an extract from Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning”.

The text reads in part: “… The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.

“In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honourable way – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfilment.”

The verse from the Bible, Psalm 34:18 reads: “The Lord is close to the broken-hearted”.

This was the first time Pistorius had been active on Twitter since the one-year-anniversary of Steenkamp’s death.

Back then he tweeted: “No words can adequately capture my feelings about the devastating accident that has caused such heartache for everyone who truly loved – and continues to love Reeva.”

“The pain and sadness – especially for Reeva’s parents, family and friends consumes me with sorrow. The loss of Reeva and the complete trauma of that day, I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”

Last week, the defence closed its case in Pistorius’s trial in the High Court in Pretoria. Final arguments are expected to be heard on 7 August.

SAPA