Kimberley- An 83-year-old woman who was being treated for a respiratory infection at Mediclinic Kimberley underwent heart surgery when she was mistaken for another patient, Beeld reported on Wednesday.



Mediclinic spokeswoman Denise Coetzee told the newspaper a misunderstanding between two specialists led to Rita du Plessis being operated on, on July 25 this year.

She was in the same ward as another elderly woman and both were patients of the same physician.

“The physician requested the surgeon to take his patient to theatre for a procedure to remove excessive moisture around the heart,” she was quoted as saying.

“Unfortunately, he got confused with their surnames and he gave the wrong patient’s name to the surgeon over the phone.”

Coetzee told Beeld that Du Plessis was not able to give permission for the operation herself and the surgeon had to contact her husband.

During ward rounds, the physician realised his mistake when he saw that Du Plessis was not there and he was told she was in surgery.

Beeld reported that the physician contacted the family to apologise and after the surgery the surgeon called Du Plessis’s family to tell them the operation was a success.

According to the report, the hospital apologised for the confusion and the hospital, the surgeon, and the anaesthetist did not charge for the operation.

Sapa

Johannesburg – Former mineral resources minister Susan Shabangu gave police a “licence to kill” at Marikana in August 2012, the Farlam Commission of Inquiry heard on Tuesday.

Dali Mpofu, for Lonmin miners wounded and arrested during the unrest at Lonmin’s platinum mining operations at Marikana, near Rustenburg in the North West, referred Shabangu to a statement she made in April 2008.

For more http://www.iol.co.za

Johannesburg – The dispute between the SABC, production company MMSV and the fired Generation soapie actors, is being handled in an apartheid manner, renowned actor and playwright John Kani said on Tuesday.



“It carries the residue of an apartheid-style master, servant relationship,” Kani said in Johannesburg.

The dispute between the SABC, production company MMSV and the fired Generation soapie actors, is being handled in an apartheid manner, renowned actor and playwright John Kani said.
For more http://www.iol.co.za

Mbuyiseni Ndlozi says the EFF is demanding that President Jacob Zuma own up to his wrongs.



The protest action of the EFF last Thursday has received mixed reaction from the ruling party, which can be summarised as mere reflections of a basic intellectual bankruptcy. It is a weak understanding of democracy and how it should be protected when under threat.

ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa and secretary general Gwede Mantashe have come out proposing two things over the weekend.

On the one hand, Mantashe is proposing that Parliament must move to Pretoria, something the EFF actually put forward for discussion to Parliament just a day before President Jacob Zuma was decisively told to #PayBackTheMoney.

The EFF did this due to the cost of running state institutions. Parliament being in Cape Town means you actually maintain three houses for Zuma – in Pretoria, Cape Town and Nkandla. Ministers and their deputies must also have houses in both cities. In addition, we have the flights between these cities of not just a minister, but their staff complements as well, weekly, sometimes even three to four times a week.

But Mantashe wants Parliament to move to Pretoria so that police can respond speedily to Members of Parliament who refuse to accept non-answers from the ANC president.

This is the worst manifestation of war hunger that has come from an ANC leader of his stature.

His sense is that those police should have ignored all the laws of the country and physically removed MPs.

Kodwa on the other hand, speaking to Drum magazine, was at pains trying to reconstruct parliamentary practice. Kodwa proposes that it must be possible to expel MPs. Kodwa wants to do to the EFF what he and ANC leadership did to Julius Malema – expel us for asking Zuma to pay back the money as instructed by the office of the public protector.

It looked like a public relations nightmare of catastrophic proportions. If indeed this is their response to the EFF protest, then the ANC is out of ideas. What is of significant interest is not so much the dictatorial turn inherent in their response.

Instead we must ask how the ANC got to this point.

Before answering this question, we must first underscore a few facts: The EFF did nothing unconstitutional on that day because protest is part of a constitutional right; the EFF chose this route because Zuma had so undermined the rule of law and evaded accountability that only protest, and not violence or war, could sharply raise the public demand of the truth; the public protector found that Zuma built a private clinic, a spaza shop, a swimming pool, chicken run and a cattle kraal – all of which have nothing to do with security – using public money. These items cost the people of South Africa hundreds of millions of rand.

Parliamentary procedure, rules and decorum failed to hold him accountable. Above all, Zuma did not even stick to the deadlines of the directives of the public protector’s report. Thuli Madonsela told him to simply repay the money, and an expected lawful response to such a directive is to say when will he be paying the money.

Citizens resort to protest when a person as powerful as the president has undermined all avenues of accountability and the law itself.

Zuma, as president, has a duty to comply and protect the constitution. The painful reality that day was that the ANC failed to provide leadership or direction. And its failure is not necessarily manifested by Baleka Mbete as the presiding officer, or even by the Sergeant of Arms from whom the EFF refused to take instructions, but by the culture of undermining the rule of law steeped in ANC officials in government.

The ANC has created itself as a group of people who cannot be held accountable, where they have turned the systems of accountability toothless against its key leaders.

This is why Zuma came to Parliament, the highest legislative gathering in South Africa, still carrying the same attitude. Unfortunately for him and the ANC, this time they found a different opposition.

Together with the office of the public protector, the EFF gave South Africa a wake-up call. The EFF said no one must think of themselves as beyond the scrutiny of the people.

Zuma will face protest from the EFF benches each time he comes and does not tell us when is he paying back the money. Zuma is not above the law.

* Mbuyiseni Ndlozi is the spokesperson for the Economic Freedom Fighters.

** The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Independent Newspapers.
For more http://www.iol.co.za

Johannesburg – A weekend report on the State Security Agency employing the children of ministers and politically connected people is misleading, government said on Tuesday.

“It was quite misleading for the newspaper to report on few children, compared to the size of the enrolment at the [State Security] academy,” spokesperson Phumla Williams said in a statement.

“All citizens have the constitutional right to apply for any employment, as long as they meet the requirements – even if it is within the public service.”

She said the report by the Sunday Times was mischievous because it insinuated that the agency had become an employment agency for the children of ministers and other high-profile officials due to political nepotism.

“This report actually misleads the public and creates an impression that most of the students attending the academy are the children of politicians. In fact, this faceless report is far from the truth,” Williams said.

The newspaper reported that according to an intelligence document, the children of Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe, Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete were hand-picked for the intelligence academy.

An unnamed insider told the publication there was no recruitment process that allowed the agency to choose the best candidates.

The Sunday Times did not respond to a request for comment.

SAPA

Mbombela – An Mpumalanga man accused of raping his 5-year-old niece was handed a suspended sentence after his mother unintentionally contaminated evidence.

The man, 43, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim, was sentenced in the Nelspruit Regional Court on Tuesday.

He was arrested in 24 January 2011 after his brother’s child reported she was raped on 23 January.

He pleaded not guilty to rape, but was found guilty of sexual assault after Magistrate Erwin Sithole told the court the charge had changed to sexual assault.

He said the accused’s mother unintentionally tampered with evidence by using her fingers when examining the child’s private parts.

Sithole sentenced the man to four years’ imprisonment, which was suspended for five years.

He said the accused’s name would be placed in the register of sexual offenders.

SAPA

Mbombela – An Mpumalanga man accused of raping his 5-year-old niece was handed a suspended sentence after his mother unintentionally contaminated evidence.

The man, 43, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim, was sentenced in the Nelspruit Regional Court on Tuesday.

He was arrested in 24 January 2011 after his brother’s child reported she was raped on 23 January.

He pleaded not guilty to rape, but was found guilty of sexual assault after Magistrate Erwin Sithole told the court the charge had changed to sexual assault.

He said the accused’s mother unintentionally tampered with evidence by using her fingers when examining the child’s private parts.

Sithole sentenced the man to four years’ imprisonment, which was suspended for five years.

He said the accused’s name would be placed in the register of sexual offenders.

SAPA

Cape Town – A study by data provider Lightstone has shown that the price of vehicles varies from province to province – and that buying your new or used car in one of South Africa’s ‘economic powerhouse’ provinces can be a wise move, financially speaking.



It may be worth your while to look for a better deal where the market is more competitive or the model you are looking for is more plentiful.
For more http://www.iol.co.za

Johannesburg – The ANC does not want to see Public Protector Thuli Madonsela vacate her office before the end of her term but she must do her job correctly, party secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Tuesday.

“We don’t want to remove the public protector, we want the public protector to do her work correctly and behave correctly,” Mantashe told reporters in Johannesburg.

“We have no interest in removing her. She must finish her term but she must not abuse that term.”

Mantashe said there was a sense that Madonsela was abusing her office and was always trying to get the attention of the media by saying things that were not in any report or being investigated anywhere.

“That is what we are talking about. That is why we are not attacking the public protector or her office but we are attacking the behaviour that is wrong,” he said.

Mantashe then turned his attention to the leaking to the media of Madonsela’s reports. He said the leaks could not be attributed to divisions within the ANC.

The statement follows Madonsela’s claim that a letter she had written to President Jacob Zuma was leaked by a senior ANC official to the media.

Madonsela reportedly wrote to Zuma last week about the spending of R246m on security upgrades at his Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal homestead.

In her letter, she cautioned Zuma he was second-guessing her recommendations that he should repay part of the money spent on features unrelated to security, such as a swimming pool, cattle kraal, amphitheatre, and visitors’ centre.

In his reply to her report on Nkandla, Zuma indicated Police Minister Nathi Nhleko needed to determine if he should pay back any of the R246m.

Madonsela wrote in her letter: “I am concerned that the decision you have made regarding the police minister gives him power he does not have under law, which is to review my decision taken in pursuit of the powers of administrative scrutiny I am given… by the Constitution.”

Madonsela said on Monday that she had reason to believe a senior ANC official leaked her letter to the media.

Mantashe countered: “The office of the public protector leaks every report she writes and blames that on the divisions within the ANC.”

Leaking to the media

Mantashe said it had become the norm that all public protector reports would be leaked to the media before she had even released them.

“I know that every report she has been involved in… I’m going to read about it in the newspaper before it is released.

“That can never be because of divisions in the ANC. We deal with our own divisions but the public protector’s office must be watertight. You can’t leak information and blame the ANC divisions,” he said.

Mantashe and his deputy Jesse Duarte continued hammering the issue of leaks and Duarte questioned the manner in which the explanations for the leaks were given, but individuals not named.

“Each leak is glibly explained away. Who is that senior official who leaked the letter? There is nothing unfortunate about the leaks, they are timed and deliberate,” Duarte said.

Duarte and Mantashe questioned the timing of the leaking of the letter and the heckling of Zuma in Parliament by members of the Economic Freedom Fighters, after the EFF asked when Zuma would pay back the Nkandla money. Proceedings had to be stopped for the day and riot police were called in.

“A leak at the same time when the EFF undermines the people of SA is too much of a coincidence,” said Duarte.

Mantashe called on Madonsela not to get involved in politics and to stop behaving like a political institution.

He said the public protector should get out of the political space and leave political parties to sort themselves out.

On the defensive

Madonsela then took to twitter to defend herself against the barrage of attacks by the pair. She stood her ground and questioned how accountability was weakening democracy.

“Can someone please say how exactly is the deepening of accountability a weakening of parliamentary democracy… Let’s face th truth. What’s embarrassing the country is attempts to subvert the rule of law & not administrative scrutiny [sic],” she said.

Madonsela said if everyone respected the Constitution and the law, there would be no crisis in the country.

She said politicians should stop interfering with her work.

“Administrative scrutiny is a reality if our constitutional democracy. It’s not a political exercise & Politicians should stop interfering [sic],” she tweeted.

Madonsela said the country was in trouble when politicians meddled in the investigation processes, leaked documents then cried foul.

The EFF on Tuesday denied any link to the leaking of the letter and their heckling of Zuma.

Spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said the ANC was trying to detract attention from the Nkandla issue.

“The ANC has lost the public relations war and now they have to concoct a story to defer the issue that is on the table, which is Nkandla,” he said.

Ndlozi accused Zuma of being the one who leaked the document to the media.

“If there is anyone with a history of leaking information it is Jacob Zuma to distract the public’s attention as we saw with the Mzilikazi [waAfrika] story,” he said.

In his book, waAfrika claims that Zuma leaked information about Bulelani Ngcuka being a former apartheid spy.

Ndlozi called on the ANC to stop attacking Madonsela’s office.

“We condemn in the strongest way the continuing intimidation and war that has been declared on the public protector,” he said.

SAPA

Mahikeng- The Premier of the North West Province Mr Supra Mahumapelo will on Thursday present the 2014/15 budget speech for the Office of the Premier before the Provincial Legislature. 

During his presentation, Premier Mahumapelo is expected to amongst others announce plans to set in motion the rebranding, repositioning and renewal strategy for the province, as well as measures to be put in place in building a coherent government with accountability and good governance.

As part of the day’s programme, Mahumapelo will also inaugurate members of the Premier’s Advisory Committees on Economy, Mining and Infrastructure at the Provincial Legislature.

The inauguration ceremony and the presentation of the Premier’s budget vote speech will be held as follows:

Date: Thursday, 28 August 2014

Venue:  North West Provincial Legislature

Time: 07h00

Inauguration of the Premier’s Advisory Committee members

09h00 – Presentation of the Budget Vote Speech
-TDN
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