Pretoria – The mineral resources department will pull out of negotiations in the platinum wage dispute if parties do not come to an agreement next week, Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi said on Saturday.
“On Monday all the parties [mine bosses and Amcu] will be coming back,” he told reporters in Irene, south of Pretoria.
“I am pulling out on Monday if they do not find each other. If they do not find each other I wish them and South Africa luck.”
Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) members at Lonmin, Impala Platinum and Anglo American Platinum downed tools on January 23 demanding a basic monthly salary of R12 500.
They have so far rejected the companies’ offer that would bring their cash remuneration to R12 500 by July 2017.
The strike has cost the employers R21.2bn in revenue and employees have reportedly lost R9.4bn in earnings.
Last week Ramatlhodi set up a inter-governmental technical team to help resolve the wage dispute.
SAPA

Johanensburg – President Jacob Zuma sent condolences to the Mbeki family following the death of their 98-year-old matriarch, Epainette, on Saturday.

“Words are not adequate to explain the sad loss of this mother of our nation,” Zuma said in a statement.

Epainette Mbeki, 98, died in East London, Eastern Cape.

She was the mother of former president Thabo Mbeki and the wife of the late African National Congress and SA Communist Party stalwart Govan Mbeki.

“We wish to express, on behalf of government and all South Africans, our deepest condolences and the nation’s solidarity with the Mbeki family at this hour,” said Zuma.

“May her soul rest in eternal peace.”

The Thabo Mbeki foundation also sent its condolences.

“Gogo Epainette, a humble servant of the people, will be remembered for her selfless dedication to the upliftment on the communities she served,” chairperson of the foundation’s board Dr Brigalia Bam said.

“To gogo Epainette, we say thank you for serving as a shining example of what it means to be a servant leader and may we forever draw our inspiration from the teachings of so gentle a soul.”

National Freedom Party leader and newly appointed Deputy Science and Technology Minister Zanele kaMagwaza-Msibi said Mbeki would be remembered as a teacher, community worker and entrepreneur who taught the people in the Eastern Cape how to work for themselves in order to be independent.

“MaMbeki as she was affectionately known will be remembered as an independent thinker, an independent struggle icon who was not afraid to speak her mind,” kaMagwaza-Msibi said.

“Her critical approach to things was a lesson that people of South Africa have to use their minds to think independently but at the same time be constructive when dealing with matters affecting human coexistence and empowerment.”

She said Epainette Mbeki was a role model for all women.

SAPA

Cape Town – South Africa’s policy of race-based affirmative action is “killing babies” and must be scrapped, the country’s Institute of Race Relations said Friday.

The institute, which spoke out against racial discrimination under apartheid, said black empowerment policies had seen unqualified people appointed to positions where their incompetence hit poor and vulnerable communities.

It pointed to the deaths of three babies aged between seven and 13 months in Bloemhof in North West province this week, apparently caused by drinking contaminated tap water. Scores of others were also hospitalised.

“The Bloemhof municipality ‘lost its capacity’ to maintain the sewer plant,” the independent think-tank said in a statement quoting its Chief Executive Frans Cronje that accompanied its paper entitled “Killing Babies”.

“There is no doubt that the officials responsible for these deaths were appointed, at least in part, on grounds of race-based affirmative action and that a direct causal link therefore exists between the policy and the deaths.”

Cronje said that in all the commentary on the deaths there was no mention of affirmative action, because that would “cross the barrier of political correctness forced on our country by the ideology of race-based empowerment”.

The governing African National Congress implemented affirmative action when it came to power 20 years ago to redress the injustices of apartheid, under which the black majority were denied access to political and economic power.

But the IRR said the policy had created a “very small black elite” that used the system to perpetuate its own advantage over “the masses of desperately poor people”.

The ideology was “a veil behind which to conceal corruption and incompetence”.

South Africa needs to break down the barrier of political correctness that has shielded affirmative action and talk about alternatives, Cronje said.

These could include Economic Empowerment for the Disadvantaged, a policy being developed by the institute.

“This policy seeks to use socio-economic status to prioritise access to the building blocks of economic advancement, such as education, employment and entrepreneurship.”

Coupled with rapid rates of economic growth, this would allow poor people to pull themselves out of poverty and into the middle classes, the institute said.

Sapa-AFP

Johannesburg – Public servants should not expect bribes, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Friday.

“Public servants should not expect to be paid a bribe for executing the tasks that they are paid a salary for,” he told delegates at the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) special congress in Benoni, on the East Rand.

He called on them to serve the country with pride and dignity at all times.

“We need to recognise that we wear a badge of honour to serve our people.”

Ramaphosa said a good public service was needed for government to effectively implement the National Development Plan.

“Workers in the public service should work hard and inspire young graduates to take up careers in the public service,” he said.

Sapa

Port Elizabeth – An undertaker who ordered staff to saw off the legs of a corpse because it was too tall to fit into a coffin, has appeared in court charged with mutilation.

Ronel Mostert, who ran a funeral parlour in Grahamstown, appeared in Grahamstown Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday after one of her employees blew the lid on a three-year-old secret.

Mostert allegedly ordered staff “to get an angle grinder and cut off the legs” because the 33-year-old “man was too tall to fit into the coffin,” according to court documents.

The employee, Siphamandla Dyasi, claimed the incident had been haunting him and so he decided to come clean.

“I still hear the sound of the angle grinder in my head. I could not take it anymore,” he said in written testimony. “For all these years I have had difficulties sleeping.”

He alleged that Mostert had threatened them with dismissal if he told anyone about incident.

The remains of the man have been exhumed as part of the police investigation. They showed burn marks where the legs had been sawn off.

Police told AFP more allegations of corpse mutilation at Mostert’s Siyakubonga Funeral Services had surfaced since the case began last month.

The case has been postponed until June 27 for further investigation.

Sapa-AFP

North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo has applauded the life sentences that two men accused for the murder of a Tshwane Metro Police official were given by the North West Division of the High Court seating in Ga-Rankuwa this week
“The two life sentence that 31-year-old Jabu Javas Basaya and one that his accomplice, 26- year-old Lucky Edwin Baloyi received  should sent a strong message to criminals that there is no place in our society for those who attack and kill law enforcement officers,” Premier Mahumapelo said.

“We commend police for the swift reaction and teamwork that resulted in the speedy arrest and successful conviction and trust that the family of the deceased official finds closure in the knowledge that justice was served,” Mahumapelo added.  

According to police, the convicted pair was arrested shortly after shooting at three Tshwane Metro Police officials at a vehicle check point along Molefe Makinta Highway two years ago and robbing one of them of his service pistol.

“The officials returned fire and that led to injury of one of the accused who was admitted to hospital. A metro official who was wounded in the fire exchange was rushed to Legae Private Clinic where he later died,” Colonel Sabata Mokgwabone said.

“A joint intensive search by Ga-Rankuwa, Mabopane, Hebron, and Tshwane Metro police officials led to the arrest of one of the suspects shortly after the incident” Mokgwabone said.

Basaya was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, twenty years for armed robbery, 3 years for each of five counts of attempted murder and 6 years for unlawful possession of firearm and ammunitions.  

The court also sentenced Baloyi to 25 years imprisonment for murder, 10 years for armed robbery, 6 years for each of 2 counts of attempted murder, and 3 years for possession of unlicensed firearm and ammunitions. Sentences will run concurrently.         

The conviction of the duo follows that of the murderers of Warrant officer Othisitse Ganenang of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations (the Hawks) who were last week sentenced to a total of 170 years in the North West High Court.-TDN
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By Obakeng Maje
Madibeng- The residents of Madibeng were left in the dark with no electricity in the cold weather after Tshwane municipality pulled the plug.

Democratic Alliance said the municipality defaulted on paying their electricity bill valued at R40 million arrears.

The Democratic Alliance spokesperson Tiaan Kotze said they will write to the Co-operative Government and Traditional Affairs Minister Pravin Gordhan and ask for his intervention in the Hartbeespoort electricity crisis.

Electricity in the area was cut off again by the Tshwane Municipality on Thursday after the Madibeng Municipality failed to pay its account which is R40 million in arrears.

“The Tshwane Municipality confirmed that they had pulled the plug after battling for weeks to get a response from Madibeng about the outstanding debt. A notice for the power cut was issued last week” he said.

DA said this is totally unacceptable and Madibeng municipality is quick to disconnect electricity when its residents just falls R400 in arrears  while the municipality fails to pay its own bills.

“This maladministration will no longer be accepted. I will write to Minister Gordhan and ask for his intervention to save Madibeng residents from future power cuts” Kotze said.-TDN
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