Binder, Moto3, San Marino MotoGP 2015

North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo congratulated Brad Binder, a 21 year-old from Potchefstroom in Tlokwe Local Municipality on his incredible achievement of winning the Moto3 World Champion title. The competition was held in Aragon, Spain, over the weekend.

Binder, a motorcycle racer, did not only win the race by finishing second, but rose to stardom in the world of MotoGP by becoming the first South African rider to win a Grand Prix title in 36 years.

“This win shows that indeed good things always come to those who wait and work hard towards realising their dreams. I wish to, on behalf of the North West Province community, extend our extreme excitement and fervent support to this little master, who is living his passion for sport”, expressed Premier Mahumapelo.

The ecstatic Mahumapelo encouraged young sports fanatics to draw inspiration from sport personalities like Binder, saying his determination and continuing successes are enough to tell a good story in the context of Rebranding, Repositioning and Renewal of the North West Province.

Last year, he was second heading into the final lap before crashing out in an incident he made sure he didn’t repeat this year, as he finished in second place to ensure that he won the world title in style.

In July this year, two dancers from Mahikeng also won World Championships of performing art competition held in Los Angeles in the United States.

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Picture: North West Provincial Government Spokesperson, Brian Setswambung

BY KEDIBONE MOLAETSI

NORTH West provincial government will host a workshop in quest to develop strategies to improve the quality of departments and public entities’ Annual Performance Plans and Annual Reports for improved service delivery.

North West provincial government spokesperson, Brian Setswambung said the primary aim of the workshop is to address key challenges experienced by departments in drafting quality Annual Performance Plans. He said this will also includes issues relating to shareholder management of public entities, reporting on performance information with a view to developing a sustainable implementation plan that will improve service delivery.

“The targeted participants for the workshop include board members, CEOs, HODs, programme managers and other strategic national departments across the planning, monitoring and evaluation value chain,” Setswambung said.

The workshop will be held at Mmabatho Palms on Thursday at 9am.

BY KEDIBONE MOLAETSI

A 34 year-old man has been arrested in connection with the murder of a four-year-old Nomthandazo Talakase in Huhudi Location, Vryburg. Nomthandazo’s body was found on Monday last week in the bushes near Monoto-mosetlha Informal settlement in Huhudi location.

North West police spokesperson, Col Sabata Mokgwabone said they have arrested one suspect.

“The arrest came after the police made a follow up on information that the man was a possible suspect in the case.  He was arrested at Huhudi location on Saturday.

“There is a resident of Huhudi and not related to the victim.  He is expected to appear in the Vryburg Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday. Nomthandazo’s body was discovered by a boy who was hunting. He then alerted his elders who informed the police,” Mokgwabone said.

He said the police found the body with a missing left hand.

The North West Provincial Commissioner, Lieutenant General Baile Motswenyane commended the investigating team for their hard work as well as the community for their cooperation.

She said that the police will work hard to ensure that ruthless suspects such as this one are brought to book.

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BY KABO LETLHOGELA

The North West Provincial Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Education has resolved to call Moretele local municipality to account on the difficult conditions of Mphebatho Library in Dertig village near Makapanstad.

This follows the committee’s oversight visit to the library where it discovered that Mphebatho library does not comply with the relevant library services’ norms and standards.

The culture, arts and traditional affairs officially handed over the library project to the municipality for construction at R4.5 million and general administration after completion in March 2012.

Amongst some of challenges found at the library were unavailability of ordinary library services such as reference services, free public internet connection, educational material, audio materials, outreach programmes, one photocopying machine was not functional due to lack of internet connection and toners.

The chairperson of the committee, Boitumelo Moiloa said: “Lack of maintenance and serious water and sanitation problems as ablution facilities are not working. There is no electricity and building certificate to confirm that the library meets the norms and standards and there are continuous electricity cuts due to improper wiring, serious staff shortages as the six staff personnel are always overloaded with work without any incentives.”

Moiloa said they find the conditions at the library appalling and unacceptable for library usage by the learners and community.

“Whoever is responsible for the library services in the municipality must explain how our people can cope with the dreadful conditions at the library where there is no public internet access; air-conditioning; water and sanitation and security services and how the staff and community are not adequately supported as they are demoralised.

“The conditions that the staff operates in are very inhumane and dangerous for their lives. Lot of services are not provided such as public internet access services; book preservation; the security system and there is no air-conditioning yet there are no consequences.

The library cannot operate without clean water and toilets as it provides a very important facility to the community which includes learners and students for various education and recreational reasons,” she said.

Moiloa added that there was also no maintenance plan for the building which experiences flooding during rainy days and in some instance where a ceiling collapsed thus damaging study materials and electricity,” said Moiloa.

The Head of the Library Rirhandzu Chuma said they have made many pleas to the municipality to no help.

“We are working under unsafe and hazardous conditions where the municipality is not assisting us with anything including implementation of the proposed business plan and rely on the community to maintain the library. Part of our proposed business plan was requests of pit toilets and clean water due to water and sanitation challenges but it fell on deaf eyes.

“In the case of fire, we will have a serious problem as the fire extinguishers expired in 2013 and were never replaced. There are municipal water tinkering services in the area but we can’t access them due to unclean water tanks. We use our own money to access internet; buy water and cleaning material as the maintenance budget is not enough,” said Chuma.

She said the library is also struggling with storage of books and equipment as external stakeholders such as University of South Africa and community members are committed to donate books and library material.

Moiloa said the department should urgently address some of the challenges such as water and maintenance; internet connections, electricity and air-conditioning ,and provide a detailed report on the status of libraries in the province in seven (7) working conditions. She also requested the Head of Library to submit a comprehensive report on all the challenges faced by the library.

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In the early hours of Sunday morning at Kong nightclub in Johannesburg, DJ Black Coffee apologised for slapping AKA’s road manager.

According to The Juice, the incident happened at the DSTV iRock festival in Limpopo that took place over the weekend.

In the video Black Coffee apologised saying “I am not that guy” before playing the late Mandoza’s song Nkalakatha.

The DJ seemed forgiven as the crowd began to cheer and dance when the song came on.

Source: http://www.drum.co.za

BY REGINALD KANYANE

MEC for health department in North West province, Dr Magome Masike has said they were excited at the news of a successful first ever heart operation in the province.

The heart operation was done at the new theatre that was recently opened at Ferncrest Hospital in Rustenburg. The theatre is a partnership initiative between the North West Department of Health and Netcare.

“The patient Sarel de Beer presented to the surgical department at Tshepong Hospital with a threatened limb due to an embolic phenomenon. It was open heart surgery for an atrial myxoma, which is a benign growth within one of the chambers of the heart called the atrium.

“This tumor or growth had to be removed as it was affecting the hearts valve functioning. The patient heart was opened to remove the growth. To do this the patient was put on a heart bypass machine to keep his blood circulation going whilst the cardiac surgeons worked to excise the myxoma,” Dr Magome Masike said.

He said the patient was ferried to Rustenburg on Wednesday for operation.

“The success is a testimony to the fact that the province has managed to recruit and retain the best specialists. We will continue to work hard to retain them. We will also recruit more and address the chronic challenge of health professionals especially the specialists.

“It took more than 6 years for us to be here today. When we started negotiations with Netcare, I had in my mind the urgent need to save the lives of our people which are more important than anything else. I said we needed state of the art facilities to deal with emergencies because if someone is stabbed in the heart you need to attend to it immediately to save that person’s life,” Masike said.

He further said: “I also want to send special congratulations to Dr Jithan Koshy who tirelessly and quietly worked with the hospital and the provincial management to get the Service Level Agreement signed and led all the arrangements for yesterday’s surgery.

“The Netcare management team and our Head of Clinical Services Dr Andrew Robinson also deserve special mention for the contribution they made. It was all a team effort and proves that working together we can achieve a lot in our quest for delivery of quality health care services to our people,” he said.

The clinicians involved in the operation were Dr Babu Kurian, Dr Kekana (the Cardiac Surgeon) and Dr Ngobeni (the Anaesthetist).

The patient is currently in stable condition and is kept for observation.

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BY KATLEGO MOKAILA

According to the National Water Act of 1998, Item 6(1) of schedule 3 allows the Water and Sanitation Minister to limit the use of water if he/she believes that, on reasonable grounds, a water shortage exists within a certain area.

The constant watering of gardens, car washes and filling up of swimming pools especially in the summer season should stop because the higher the consumption the closer we are to water restrictions. Currently provinces such as Gauteng have imposed water restrictions and this is just a wakeup call to other provinces that are in actual fact in more serious drought.

In South Africa, most affected communities and households either receive free basic water or they can afford paying for water, but despite different backgrounds, they still misuse water.

The Department of Water and Sanitation constantly creates awareness about saving water. Irresponsible water use can only be brought to an end by behavioural change. This is what Minister Mokonyane is always preaching, “More than ever, we need a behavioural change to wise water use,” she says.

Of course pre-paid water meters can limit water consumption but also monitoring water meters is important to ensure you don’t end up with a high water bill. They say charity begins at home and that is why water wise awareness among children and those at home is important, that way even the recreational water toys which require a constant stream of water will not be preferred by children if they know they are wasting water.

Water is worth every cent because it is expensive, so please let’s not waste it.  Monitoring our water consumption in the kitchen, toilet, bathroom and garden will lead to less water bills. The use of grey water to flush the toilet and water the garden can limit the number of times you use fresh water to flush your toilet.

Unmetered yard stand pipes are now abused by the public and this does not contribute to wise water use. Instead of using the water for consumption, the water is now being used for gardening or car washes, all the signs of wasting water. Water conservation is meant to prevent water wastage and loss.

At home, avoid flushing the toilet unnecessarily. Dispose of tissues, insects and other such waste in the trash rather than the toilet. The Drop-the-Block campaign promotes water use efficiency and entails placing a plastic block into a toiletcistern, and saves water by displacing up to 2 litres of water per flush. One important point sometimes ignored, is that all tenants in the flats and rental cottages should report all significant water losses (broken pipes, open hydrants, errant sprinklers, abandoned free-flowing wells, etc.) to the property owner or learn basic plumbing tips.

*This is Water and Sanitation department provincial spokesperson, Katlego Mokaila’s personal views. The newspaper does not necessary agree nor disagree with the personal opinion. The subject will remain the writer’s views.