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.

Realeka Secondary School obtained position one during the 2016 Provincial School Participatory Education Technique (PET). The event was held at Barolong-Boora-Tshidi Hall in Mahikeng on Friday.

The community safety and transport management department spokesperson, Thabo Sematle said six schools participated in the competition.

“Identification and recommendations made on lack of road signs and potholes found on the Oliver Tambo Street at Letsopa Township in Ottosdal made it possible for the school to win.

“The five team members consist of pupils from Realeka Secondary School identified challenges they experience on daily basis on their way to school. They stated that the dilapidating roads put their lives at risk. The school will represent the North West at the National Competition that will be held later next month in the Limpopo,” Sematle said.

The second position was attained by Mmabatho High School as Marikana High School came third. He added that the winning school took home a whooping amount of R8 000, while second position pocketed R6 000 and third position went home with R4 000.

Speaking on behalf of the school, the jovial Candy Skei, an English and Mathematics teacher at Realeka said hard work, confidence and teamwork have contributed in achieving good results through the competition.

“We are grateful and the results are a clear indication that teamwork pays off. These kids have worked hard for this project. They had sleepless nights and today they are getting their reward,” said Skei.

Community Safety and Transport Management Acting Head of Department, Buti Chuma said the PET was an important programme that uplifts the confidence of learners and develop their level of thinking. He further said it encourages learners to consider other career opportunities.

“This is not just a competition but a programme which develops our children, and avails opportunities for them. With this programme, they are able to consider other career opportunities. From what they have displayed including their solutions to challenges they identified we are confident that we now have future engineers, town planners and architectures,” said Chuma.

He said that it was encouraging that learners were able to identify road safety problems in and around their schools and communities and further present immediate solutions.

“The PET is an educational flagship programme which aims at changing learner’s attitude towards road safety issues by means of participatory education. The programme also aims to encourage learners to be aware of road safety challenges in their community as well as to enhance learner’s presentation skills by ways of presentation sessions,” Chuma said.

During this programme, learners competed with each other by illustrating community safety problems and give researched presentation in form of displaying models and presentations with resources that are provided by the department.

Other participating schools were Monchusi, Itshupeng and Morare high Schools, which received and amount of R2 000 each.

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BY KEDIBONE MOLAETSI

MANTHE Community came out in numbers to celebrate Heritage Day at a local community hall in Mathe village near Taung on Saturday. The event was organised by Tumi Candy Trading Enterprise and other stakeholders.

One of organisers, Boitumelo Motimeng said heritage plays a pivotal role within the society. He said the society needs to safeguard the heritage.

“Our African heritage is under threat because of westernization. We decided to organise this event in remembrance of our heritage. We used to have Taung Cultural Calabash as one of the key proceedings in addressing social cohesion through heritage. However, it seems it is no more hence we came up with this.

Picture: (Gaamangwe Pinase Kgope on the stage sharing her views on Heritage Day)

“We believe that if we go back to basics, we will have a decorous society. Our youth will benefit from the event. We are tackling socio-economic issues that affect the youth through this event. We teach them the importance of heritage and how it can benefit them,” he said.

Motimeng who is a professional nurse said there is a cultural difference across ethnic groups. He added that cultural assortment is what South Africa has as the country.

“We also taught our community about cultural beliefs and what role they play nowadays especially in our health. There are things that were traditionally being applied in the past to address health issues. However, nowadays some of them are outdated.”

Gaamangwe Pinase Kgope also shared the same sentiments. Kgope said heritage can assist in narrowing the huge gap between parents and children.

“Our children are lost and bemused at the same time. However, if we continue to celebrate heritage, we will ensure that they know their identity. We need to know our identity as Africans in order to know where we are going. Engaging with elderly people will also be integral in knowing your identity. By conserving our heritage, we will be securing the future of our next generation,” Kgope added.

Another attendee, Lorato Reetseng said: “Heritage, tradition and culture go hand-in-hand. I believe that heritage can be fundamental also in marriages. You need to know the tradition, the culture and the clan of your in-laws. It will be effortless for you to adapt and understand what is expected from you. So, let us continue to do our utmost on this matter.”

Batlhaping High School pupil, Katlego Khunou said: “I have learnt a lot from this event. As a 16 year-old girl, I’ve already know what is expected from me as a girl child. I learnt a lot and also advice others to partake in events like this. Knowing our heritage and culture is key.”

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THE MARIKANA residents who illegally occupied about 500 completed houses in the R700m Marikana housing projects were given 60 days to vacate those houses. The North West High Court ruled in a favour of Rustenburg local municipality after a court squabble on Monday.

  However this did not deter the illegal occupants as they say they are ready to defy the court ruling.

 The Marikana illegal occupants’ representative, Napoleon Webster said they will never vacate the houses as they belong to them.

“These houses belong to us and no one will force us out. We know that we lost the case, but we have filed for an appeal. We will go to back to court on October 21. The judge did not adhere to our call, so we are adamant that this time we will win. The judgment was biased and we will never budge,” Webster said.

Rustenburg local municipality spokesperson, Thapelo Matebesi said the municipality finds itself in an adverse position. Matebesi said they have to deal with more than 24 informal settlements and a huge backlog of housing provision in its jurisdiction.

“To mitigate this challenge, as per the prescripts of the Housing Act, the municipality has taken all the reasonable and necessary steps within the national and provincial policy framework. We have provided our residents with decent accommodation as done during the process of integrated development planning in the recent years.

“Lawful beneficiaries were identified through extensive consultation with the community. The illegal occupation and pending threats of intensified illegal occupation continue to cause the delay for the completion of the project,” Matebesi.

Human settlements and local government department spokesperson, Be Bole said they will wait for an appeal before taking any drastically measures against the illegal occupants.

“We hope Marikana illegal occupants will respect the court ruling. The court ordered them to vacate the area. Those houses were built for rightful beneficiaries,” Bole said.

The illegal occupants occupied the housing units which were part of 2600 houses implemented by the North West department of Local Government and Human Settlement in conjunction with Lonmin Platinum mine.

The houses were officially handed over in January by North West Premier, Supra Mahumapelo. The units are built on the 50hacter portion of land donated by Lonmin.

The project includes 535 RDP houses, subsidised rental flats and 34 financed linked individual subsidised programme houses.

The North West legislature’s Portfolio Committee on local government and human settlement said workers had an impression that the development were built for them.

Portfolio committee chairperson, Motlalepula Rosho said: “The challenge was that when the land was donated to the government, the workers were not formally informed about the development. They were not informed that they will not just get houses because they work for the mines.”

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BY KEDIBONE MOLAETSI

FOUR Schools in Mahikeng benefitted from a R2.6 million investment. Thanks to MTN Foundation. MTN Foundation SA senior manager in Information Communication Technology, Angie Maloka said they selected Letsatsing High, Barolong High, Mococeng High and Lapologang Secondary Schools.

Maloka said the schools were identified by the North West department of education and sport development based on their strategy analysis and needs.

“The foundation donated multimedia centres that consist of 20 seater computer laboratories, compujectors, printers, data projectors and interactive whiteboards.  All computer hardware comes with the approved curriculum that has been digitised for ease of use and access for both teachers and learners. 

“This will improve quality of learning and teaching. The identified schools will be significantly improved. We are grateful with our partnership which culminated in the donation of multimedia centres,” she said.

 Maloka added that this forms part of the Public Private Partnership. 

 MTN Foundation SA General Manager, Kusile Mtunzi-Hairwadzi shared the same sentiments.

“Our partnership with government is a very practical and efficient one.  It allows both parties to capitalise on their capabilities and infrastructure to the benefit of the community and learners. MTN SA Foundation harnesses the company’s leading innovations in telecommunications to provide learners and teachers with tools to create a better life for them through education.

“Government uses their vast knowledge and understanding of the education system. It needs to guide us regarding where the facilities are needed and what type of intervention is required,” Mtunzi-Hairwadzi said.

 “We have also hand over 40 seater media centre to Mmabatho Nursing College. This forms part of the MTN SA Foundation’s 2016 e-Health programme. We have seen number of nursing colleges across the country being provided with a fully-kitted multimedia centres. The centre is kitted with hardware that is health and nursing specific,” she said.

North West MEC of Health department, MEC Dr Magome Masike said: “The department highly appreciate and value the contribution of the MTN SA Foundation. They play a pivotal role in developing and advancing the transformation agenda of government. MTN SA Foundation has seen it necessary to align with government’s call for public private partnerships in tackling our various service delivery programmes. 

“As department, we welcome this contribution to the learning environment of our learners who are in desperate need of these kinds of resources. This multi media centre will play an important part in addressing some of the challenges of development.”

Mmabatho Nursing College Principal of Multi-Campuses Mamotale Montshioa said: “The content and access to it will make all the difference in the pass rate.  The graphic and visual content makes understanding the human body so much easier.  Students now have access to content that visually demonstrates the inner and outer workings of the human body and all its components.”

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