Cape Town – The indictment in the Thandi Maqubela murder trial is to be amended to “better serve” the proper administration of justice, the Western Cape High Court ruled on Thursday.

Maqubela is accused of murdering her husband Patrick Maqubela, who was an acting judge in the Western Cape High Court at the time of his death in June four years ago.

She is on trial with a business associate Vela Mabena.

Both have pleaded not guilty before Judge John Murphy.

Maqubela alone faces two additional charges – forgery and fraud – relating to her husband’s will which she is alleged to have falsified and presented at the office of the Master of the High Court in Johannesburg.

Currently, the indictment alleges that Maqubela and Mabena

caused the death of the judge by suffocating him with a piece of plastic clingwrap placed over his face.

The judge ordered the indictment to be amended so as to allege, in the alternative, that death was caused if not by strangulation then by means unknown to the prosecution.

The judge said the amendment would not jeopardise the two accused in any way.

The amendment would serve the proper administration of justice, he said.

It was the court’s duty to reach the truth of the matter to the best of its ability.

Murphy disagreed with defence counsel Marius Broeksma’s contention that the amendment would render the indictment “vague and embarrassing” Äterminology often used by defence lawyers to have criminal charges “thrown out”.

Murphy said the amendment to the fraud and forgery charges would also not jeopardise Maqubela’s defence.

Instead, it would merely serve to elaborate on the details.

Because of the amendments he would readily grant both the prosecution and defence teams permission to reopen their respective cases to place further testimony before the court.

Any such applications had to be brought before the presentation of closing arguments, the judge said.

The case was postponed to Tuesday.

Sapa

Potchefstroom – A 23-year-old man has been arrested after the murder of an Ikageng, Potchefstroom, man in his home while he was doing laundry, North West police said on Thursday.

The killer apparently entered the victim’s yard and stabbed him in the neck on Wednesday afternoon, Sergeant Kealeboga Molale said.

“The deceased was found lying in a pool of blood by neighbours, who alerted paramedics. He was declared dead on the scene.”

The arrested man would appear in the Potchefstroom Magistrate’s Court on Friday on murder charges.

Sapa

Cape Town – A strange sight greeted commuters on Thursday morning as a naked man was spotted braving the M5 highway in the heavy rain.

According to users on Twitter, the “under-dressed” man was seen strolling along the yellow lane of the highway, near Ottery, at around 8am.

But shock quickly turned into concern for Facebook users on the “Traffic fines, cameras and updates in the Western Cape” page.
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Durban – A 10-year-old girl died while trying to cross Clare Road in Durban on Thursday, paramedics said.

Netcare 911 spokesperson Chris Botha said she was on her way to school when a car struck her at around 07:30.

“When paramedics arrived on the scene they found the girl lying on the road and [she] was unresponsive,” Botha said.

She was taken to hospital and died on arrival.

Botha said details of the accident were unclear and would be investigated by police.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – The DA wants the Eastern Cape legislature to hold an urgent debate about unreliable water supply in Grahamstown, the party said on Thursday.

“A lack of water is not the problem. The town suffers from systemic infrastructure failure due to the lack of maintenance of the archaic pipeline network. The health hazard caused by this situation is unacceptable,” DA MPL Dacre Haddon said in a statement.

Rhodes University said on Wednesday that 42 of its residences had been without water for nine days due to the Makana municipality’s unsuccessful attempts to repair a water pump.

Haddon said he had submitted questions to Local Government MEC Mlibo Qoboshiyane about the town’s water crisis.

He said the municipality was withholding the basic human rights of access to water and a healthy environment from Grahamstown residents.

According to Rhodes University’s dean of students, Vivian de Klerk, a report from the municipality indicated that the planned repairs on the Waainek pump were not successful.

The water was now being diverted from the Fish River scheme to fill certain dams in Grahamstown as an interim measure.

On Wednesday, municipal spokesperson Yoliswa Ramokolo said technicians were working on the problem.

A problem with the water pump’s motor had been fixed.

Now, however, there was a problem with the device that turned the pump on and off, depending on the water level in the tank.

“Maybe by the end of the week the system will be working. At the moment water trucks are giving out water to all affected areas,” Ramokolo said.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Curators have applied for a court order against EFF leader Julius Malema, the SA Revenue Service said on Thursday.

Sars spokesperson Adrian Lackay confirmed that Cloete Murray and Avuwe Ndyamara of Sechaba Trust filed papers last week. They were appointed by the Master of the High Court in Pretoria.

The order, if granted, would compel Malema to answer questions about some of his assets, which the curators believed he could have hidden.

“As a creditor Sars has an interest in the relief sought by the curators before court, as these efforts may eventually contribute to the recovery of outstanding tax by the individual,” said Lackay, confirming a report in The Star.

Murray and Ndyamara were appointed to trace Malema’s assets after Sars obtained a judgment against the former ANC Youth League president earlier in the year, in connection with his outstanding R16m tax bill.

Sars attached some of Malema’s properties to recoup the Economic Freedom Fighters’ leader’s tax debt.

In May his incomplete mansion in Sandton, Johannesburg, was sold on auction for R5.9m. His farm in Limpopo fetched R2.5m at an auction in June. Several of his household goods were auctioned off earlier this year.

Malema’s lawyer Tumi Mokwena could not immediately be reached for comment.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Too little has been done in response to the killings of 44 people in Marikana, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa said on Thursday.

“Despite the hard work, dedication, and perseverance of many, we are a long way short of where we would like to be,” Cape Town Archbishop Thabo Makgoba said in a statement.

“We could also have worked harder to promote a national climate in which others too would have been encouraged to do more and act with greater urgency, and not only in Marikana.”

He called for employers to provide decent living wages and working conditions, before creating social responsibility programmes that tended to address symptoms not causes.

People’s lives and needs should be placed before politics and power, he said.

Friday marks the first anniversary of the shootings at Lonmin’s platinum mine in Marikana, North West.

Thirty-four miners were killed on 16 August when police fired at them while trying to disperse them from a hill where they had gathered.

Ten people, including two policemen and two security guards, were killed in unrest during the preceding week.

“Let us persevere in prayer, for those affected by the tragic events of last year, the bereaved, the injured, all who have been traumatised,” Makgoba said.

– SAPA

Kimberley – Despite the negative outcome of the Northern Cape 2011/12 audit report, some progress has been made, the ANC in the province said on Thursday.

Northern Cape African National Congress secretary Zamani Saul said the report showed improvement at the Unsombomvu and Francis Baard district municipalities.

Deputy Auditor General Kimi Makwetu released the 2011/12 consolidated report on local government audit outcomes this week.

He said the progress of municipalities and public entities towards clean audits had been slow, which was a cause for concern.

Interventions

The Northern Cape report indicated audit opinions of 10 municipalities were not included for the review period.

It stated the root causes for poor audit outcomes in the Northern Cape had been ignored by those responsible.

Although none of the municipalities reported on were able to obtain a clean audit, three municipalities – Frances Baard, Siyanda District Municipality and Kareeberg Local Municipality – were financially unqualified.

Makwetu said these municipalities stood a reasonable chance of moving to the clean audit category should they address some issues.

Saul said the provincial co-operative governance department had already started to help municipalities in distress before the report was released.

“The interventions are ongoing in those municipalities and we expect an improvement in the next financial year,” Saul said.

Earlier, Congress of the People spokesperson Pakes Dikgetsi said the local government situation would not improve unless the ANC removed “cadre deployment”.

“Unfortunately, the ruling party, with its policy of cadre deployment, prides narrow party political gain at the expense of clean governance,” he said.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Government should show commitment to the inquiry into last year’s Marikana shootings by paying the fees of the lawyers representing miners, the IFP said on Thursday.

It was a travesty of justice that the lawyers were still without funding, Inkatha Freedom Party secretary general Sibongile Nkomo said.

Dali Mpofu, representing miners wounded or arrested in the shootings, has taken the State to the Constitutional Court, asking that it pay for his legal team at the Farlam Commission of Inquiry.

He made a similar request in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria several weeks ago, but this was dismissed.

Nkomo said: “This seriously calls into question government’s commitment to this enquiry and whether they really want answers as to what went wrong on that fateful day.”

Government had committed itself to the commission, yet was reluctant to help those who participated.

“We need to understand government’s failures [at Marikana] and chart a way forward that will ensure that this tragedy never occurs again.”

Friday marks the first anniversary of the shootings at Lonmin’s platinum mine in Marikana, North West.

Thirty-four miners were killed on 16 August last year, when police fired at them while trying to disperse them from a hill where they had gathered.

Ten people, including two policemen and two security guards, were killed in unrest during the preceding week.

– SAPA

Pretoria – The apartheid-era Bantu education system was much better than the current education regime, a Wits academic said in Pretoria on Thursday.

“It was far better in terms of quality than the education that our kids are receiving nowadays. That is where the problem is,” Rabelani Dagada, a lecturer at Wits Business School, told a debate on affirmative action.

“Affirmative action should be about empowerment. The best way to empower is not to take from those who have and give to those who don’t have. It won’t work.”

Dagada said South Africans could only be empowered through proper education.

“After 20 years of democracy, the education levels have plunged. It’s worse than the so-called Bantu education. The best way to do transformation, empowerment is to provide quality education.”

Former foreign affairs minister Pik Botha said South Africa, under the ANC’s leadership, had moved away from former president Nelson Mandela’s principles. He said the country’s affirmative action policies were mainly hurting the black majority.

“How much further down must all of us go before we say this is enough now? Our education is far behind, it is the worst in Africa, [but] it has the highest per capita expenditure.”

Botha said Zimbabwe’s education system was better than South Africa’s.

“When is this going to change? At state hospitals black patients must wait for three years for an operation.”

Botha said when Mandela became president, he was careful not to lose skilled white people.

“He said we must not lose the proficiency of the whites. They must not leave the public service, but they should help us to train people to achieve that same proficiency,” said Botha.

“They have now removed all those people.”

– SAPA