Johannesburg – President Jacob Zuma is aware of developments in the NPA, the Hawks and SA Police Service (SAPS), his spokesperson said on Tuesday.

“With regards to the Hawks, the minister of police has informed the president that he has to act on certain reports alleging wrongdoing on the part of some senior officials,” Mac Maharaj said in a statement.

He was referring to the suspension of Gauteng Hawks head Shadrack Sibiya and the unit’s national head Anwa Dramat.

The two were allegedly involved in the rendition of five Zimbabwean suspects in 2010.

“Minister [Nathi] Nhleko has assured the president that he would ensure that due process is followed when dealing with the matter,” Maharaj said.

Nhleko and Justice Minister Michael Masuthahad assured Zuma they were addressing concerns about the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and SAPS.

Last week, the NPA said it had issued a summons for Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions (DNDPP) Nomgcobo Jiba to appear in court on 21 April on charges of fraud and perjury.

This related to her failed attempt to lay murder and racketeering charges against suspended KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Major General Johan Booysen.

Booysen, who was head of the now-disbanded Cato Manor serious and violent crimes unit, had been charged, along with his former colleagues, of running a criminal enterprise.

At the end of February last year, KwaZulu-Natal High Court Judge Trevor Gorven condemned a decision by Jiba to prosecute Booysen, saying the charges did not meet even the barest of minimum requirements.

NDPP Mxolisi Nxasana told reporters last week he was concerned about national police commissioner Riah Phiyega‘s involvement in the summons served on Jiba. He said he had received a call from Phiyega stating that the summons on Jiba had not been properly issued.

Johannesburg – Nearly half of all school pupils in Gauteng walk to school, Statistics SA said on Tuesday.

According to its national household travel survey for Gauteng, 42.5% of pupils walked all the way to their school.

A total of 22.4% used taxis, while 21.2% were passengers in a car or truck.

“Only, 2.3% of learners used trains as their mode of travel in the province.”

Those who attended higher education institutions were more likely to use a car or truck, as the driver (32.5%), and taxis (32.2%) to reach their destination.

According to the survey, around 3.2 million people attended educational institutions in Gauteng, ranging from pre-school to higher education facilities.

Those in metropolitan areas (83.7%) were more likely to attend institutions than those living in urban (14%) and rural areas (2.3%).

Regarding the province’s working population, around 85.2% of workers were found in metropolitan areas, with 13% in urban areas.

Around 43% of workers in Gauteng used public transport as their main mode of transport to work, whereas around 44% used private transport, and 12.2% walked to work.

“Out of about two million workers who used public transport, the majority used taxis (70.9%), followed by those who used trains (17.2%) and those who used buses (12%),” Stats SA said.

There were around 313 000 households with at least one bicycle in working order in Gauteng, and 23 000 of those owned more than three bicycles and lived in metropolitan areas.

Around 39% of households had access to or owned cars, and 4.4% had access to a company car.

Nearly 40% of people aged 18 years and older had a driver’s licence. The City of Tshwane (42.7%) had the highest proportion of people with driver’s licences.

The non-availability of buses (12.5%), reckless driving by taxi drivers (10.3%), and taxis being too expensive (9.5%) were the three leading transport-related problems faced by households in Gauteng.

Around 58.4% of households that used taxis complained about the behaviour of taxis drivers, followed by the facilities at taxi ranks (58.1%).

Of the households that made use of buses, 43.6% were dissatisfied with facilities at bus stops and 38.3% with overcrowding on buses.

Johannesburg – The presidency has received the report by the Farlam Commission of Inquiry into the violence at Marikana, it said on Tuesday.

“President Zuma is currently in Algeria on a state visit and will prioritise the consideration of the report on his return,” spokesperson Mac Maharajsaid in a statement.

“The president wishes to thank the chairperson of the commission, Judge Farlam, and commission members advocate Bantubonke Tokota SC and advocate Pingla Hemraj SC as well as all witnesses who participated in the commission.”

The commission investigated the deaths of 44 people during strike-related violence at Lonmin’s platinum mine in Marikana, near Rustenburg, North West.

Thirty-four people, mostly striking mineworkers, were shot dead in a clash with police, over 70 were wounded, and another 250 arrested on August 16 2012.

Police were apparently trying to disarm and disperse them. In the preceding week, 10 people, including policemen and two security guards, were killed.

Cape Town – The National Prosecuting Authority has filed its answering affidavit reviewing the decision to drop more than 700 charges of corruption and racketeering levelled against President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday.

The Democratic Alliance said that the contents of the NPA’s affidavit shows no substantive reason why the charges were dropped in the first place, and called for the charges to be reinstated without further delay.

The DA said that the NPA’s reason for dropping the charges against President Jacob Zuma was that “McCarthy manipulated the Zuma prosecution for an ulterior motive on the instruction of Ngcuka and others close to Mbeki” in order to help Mbeki to retain control of the ANC ahead of its Polokwane elective conference in 2008.

The NPA argues that this was an abuse of power by former president Thabo Mbeki, former NPA head Bulelani Ngcuka, and Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy.

The DA said that there was no new evidence that Ngcuka influenced McCarthy’s decision-making, or that Mbeki put pressure on Ngcuka, and that the NPA made their claims based on speculation and conjecture by not providing any evidence to support the allegations.

“In any event, it is not for the NPA to decide not to prosecute based on its own conclusion that this matter or any matter is fraught with undue political influence. The decision to prosecute was based on the facts, not the timing of the service of the indictment,” said senior DA MP James Selfe.

He said that it is up to the NPA to argue the merits of its case in court and that a judge has to decide whether political interference compromised the case.

The DA said that the President might not be guilty of corruption, but must, like any other citizen, have his day in court, and that the DA will proceed with its court action to declare the decision to drop the charges against Zuma be set aside.

Cape Town – The Thabo Mbeki administration nonchalantly used the National Prosecuting Authority as a political tool against Jacob Zuma,Willie Hofmeyr said in the authority’s court response to the DA’s application for a review of the withdrawal of corruption charges against the current president.

In his 50-page affidavit Hofmeyr, the head of the Asset Forfeiture Unit and a deputy national director of public prosecutions, writes that upon hearing the so-called spy tapes, acting NPA headMokotedi Mpshe was shocked at the extent of collusion around the case.

“Mpshe was shocked at the cavalier tone and light-hearted manner in which [Leonard] McCarthy and [Bulelani] Ngcuka appeared to regard the NPA as merely a political tool to be placed at the disposal of the Mbeki administration.”

Hofmeyr added that McCarthy, at critical points in the investigation against Zuma, discussed it with former intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils and took direction from him.

“As far as I was concerned, Kasrils was a confidant with whom McCarthy could discuss strategy about the Zuma prosecution. I believe he also served as an intermediary between McCarthy and Mbeki.”

The affidavit is the first part of the NPA’s long-awaited answer to the DA’s argument that dropping the charges against Zuma six years ago, shortly before the 2009 elections, in a move that eased his path to the presidency, was irrational on Mpshe’s part.

Spy tapes

It was filed in the early hours of Tuesday morning, after a court-imposed deadline of midnight had lapsed.

The documents play up the content of the spy tapes – wire-tapped conversations between McCarthy and Ngcuka, who were respectively head of the Scorpions and former head of the NPA when the decision to press ahead with the case against Zuma was taken.

At issue in their conversations was the timing of the indictment, and whether it should happen before or after the African National Congress’s Polokwane conference in December 2007, where the rivalry between Mbeki and Zuma came to a head.

“Correctly or incorrectly, they believed that Mbeki’s chances of defeating Zuma would be strengthened if the prosecution were to be delayed.

“Ultimately, McCarthy ensured that the prosecution was delayed. He did so for one reason only, to bolster Mbeki’s chances of successfully defeating Zuma,” Hofmeyr states.

After Mbeki lost the presidency of the ANC to Zuma, McCarthy acted “with haste” to finalise Zuma’s prosecution. McCarthy told Ngcuka he wanted to charge him by December 21 2007 and ordered prosecutor Billy Downer to bring most of the prosecution team back from leave.

Hofmeyr added that McCarthy instigated the Operation Browse Mole report as another means of undermining Zuma, and that political interference by the Mbeki government in the NPA’s affairs had reached proportions that shocked senior managers at the authority.

He went on to say it was a “lame excuse” that Vusi Pikoli, Ngcuka’s successor as NPA head, was suspended because of a breakdown in relations between him and former justice minister Bridget Mabandla.

“Pikoli was suspended because he refused to bow to pressure from Mbeki.”

Affidavit ‘hyped’

James Selfe, the chair of the Democratic Alliance’s federal executive, on Tuesday described Hofmeyr’s affidavit as “very hyped”.

He said the documents filed in the case, in which Mpshe and Zuma are respondents, nowhere counter the DA’s argument that the criminal case against Zuma had been sound.

“If anything their affidavit substantiates the strength of the case against Zuma,” he said.

“If they are saying the timing of the charges was at the behest of Mbeki, my answer would be ‘so what’? They take 159 pages to tell us that.”

Selfe said the DA believed Mpshe should have let the matter proceed to court and allowed a judge to decide whether the conversations captured in the spy tapes rendered the case fundamentally flawed.”

Kasrils told Sapa that Hofmeyr had said nothing he had not explained before.

“I knew McCarthy professionally; had a few meetings with him at his request in the run-up to Polokwane and after, never advised whether DPP should charge Zuma or not.”

He dismissed Hofmeyr’s suggestion that he was a conduit between McCarthy and Mbeki: “Pure conjecture.”

“He would be hard put to prove that in any court of law. Presumptions are invariably about attempting to build a case to suit one’s purpose, aren’t they? ”