South Africans are said to be critically under insured for death and disability. This is according to the latest Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (Asisa) Life and Disability Gap study.

The gap between existing cover and the actual need for it widened to R24 trillion this year. The average South African is 60% under insured for both death and disability cover. That translates to a shortfall of R700 000 for life cover and R1.1 million for disability, this gap widens as income increases.
For more http://www.sabc.co.za

There are kids out there who might achieve greatness if they were given the best nutrition, equipment and coaching, says Christopher Nicholson.

Durban – How much of our sporting talent, more especially soccer skill, is wasted because of a lack of opportunity in South Africa? In soccer, our Fifa ranking at present is 61, although we have slumped to 87 in 2012 and had risen to 19 in 1996.
For more http://www.iol.co.za

Mbombela – The driver whose truck collided with a goods train, killing 24 farm workers in Mpumalanga last July, will be sentenced in February.

George Mandlazi, 33, who has been found guilty on 24 counts of culpable homicide and one of negligent driving, appeared in the Nelspruit Circuit of the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday for argument in sentencing, a Sapa correspondent reported.

His lawyer Melanie Erasmus asked the court to postpone the case to February to enable her to prepare for sentencing arguments and to collect supporting statements from victims.

On Tuesday, Mandlazi admitted to driving negligently and unintentionally causing the deaths of 24 farmworkers on 13 July 2012, when his truck collided with a goods train going from Emalahleni to Maputo, Mozambique, at a level crossing.

At the time, the truck was ferrying 47 seasonal farm workers between Malelane and Hectorspruit.

Nineteen of them died on the scene. Five died on their way to hospital, and 23 were injured.

The State accepted his plea and withdrew charges of murder and attempted murder.

Judge Nomsa Khumalo postponed the case to 10 February. Mandlazi’s bail of R3 000 was extended.

After the postponement, one of the survivors of the accident, Julius Ndukuya, said he held no grudge against Mandlazi, but wanted justice to be served.

“As I’m sitting in this court, I was waiting for the sentencing and hear what the accused wants to say.

“I don’t hate him, but the truth is people died there and I now can’t work or walk well… I get sick all the time, especially when it’s cloudy.

“That is why I want justice to be served for all of us, the ones who died and myself and the other people who survived,” he said.

– SAPA

Cape Town – A woman accused of defrauding the Raya Hotel Group, owners of the Capetonian Hotel in Cape Town and the Balmoral Hotel in Durban, appeared in court on Wednesday charged with multiple counts of alleged fraud and one of money laundering.

Myona Creighton, 31, was the group’s assistant accountant.

An attempt at plea negotiations with the State collapsed in September, and in Wednesday’s proceedings defence counsel Saliem Banderker requested details of the charges.

Creighton appeared in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court, before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg, who warned her to appear in court again on 19 November.

Creighton was responsible for the payment of the group’s creditors, and was based at the group’s Cape Town head office.

She had to present cheques for payment to the group’s management for signature.

Prosecutor Simon Leope alleges that she either deleted or changed the details of the payees of cheques, after payment had been authorised by management.

It is alleged that the cheques would then be made payable to fictitious persons, and the proceeds channelled into Creighton’s personal bank accounts.

To “cover her tracks”, Creighton would allegedly record the correct cheque details on a management payment schedule, but intercept and destroy bank-processed cheques as they arrived back from the bank.

Leope alleges that in this manner, Creighton eliminated evidence of her manipulation, and misappropriated the money.

He further alleges that she concealed the payments and used fictitious names to hide the true nature of the fraudulent payments.

Creighton faces 250 counts of fraud involving R10 263 813, and one charge of money laundering.

– SAPA

Cape Town – Slain prostitute Hiltina Alexander was last seen getting into a white bakkie, the same car as that of her murder accused, her friend Colin Jacobs told the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday.

Jacobs, 26, was the first witness to testify in the trial of 48-year-old Johannes Christiaan de Jager.

De Jager has pleaded not guilty to raping and killing Alexander on 18 May 2008 and to killing Charmaine Mare in January 2013. He admitted that he dismembered Mare’s corpse in a state of panic after an accidental fatal fall.

Jacobs said he and his brother were walking to a bar in Parow, Cape Town, when he bumped into Alexander. She got into a silver BMW and joined them a short while later in the bar, where she bought them a beer.

They later made their way home along Voortrekker Road. She mentioned she had one condom left and whistled when she saw a white bakkie driving past.

A man got out of the bakkie and went into a shop. He came out soon after.

“Tina walked with him across the street to the bakkie. He got in and she walked around. Tina gave me a hand sign that she’ll be coming back again,” Jacobs testified.

He said she never returned and they eventually went home. He later went to her ex-boyfriend’s house and he mentioned that she could be in Pollsmoor Prison because he also had not seen her.

Her body was found on 19 May 2008, but a detective only informed him a week later.

At that stage he was a suspect and decided to look out for the bakkie.

He saw it outside a workshop on his way to gym one day. He phoned the detective to make his way to the scene.

Jacobs testified that he asked who the owner of the bakkie was and De Jager was called.

He said De Jager recognised him and wanted to lock the workshop up, so he grabbed the bakkie’s keys to make sure he would not drive away.

Police called

De Jager apparently took out a gun and Jacobs gave the keys back to him. Police arrived on the scene and took control of the situation.

He said officers found an earring under a mat in the bakkie, which he recognised as belonging to Alexander.

During cross-examination, Jacobs said he could not remember whether it was a Saturday or Sunday night he last saw his friend.

He also changed his testimony from making one statement to making two statements to police.

Lawyer Sakkie Maartens asked whether he had been Alexander’s pimp, to which he replied no.

He said they had been having a sexual relationship.

The cross-examination continues on Thursday.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – KwaZulu-Natal police appealed on Wednesday to the owner of a herd of goats, found hidden in a forest in Donnybrook, to come forward and claim his animals.

“A Donnybrook farmer was driving past a pine plantation on 28 October when he noticed 15 goats that had been tied with ropes and hidden in the forest,” police spokesperson Jay Naicker said.

“He contacted the Donnybrook SA Police Service, who arranged for the goats to be fetched and taken to the animal pound in Howick.”

Naicker said police had not received reports of stolen goats in the area, and nobody had come forward to claim the herd of horned herbivores.

He said the recovery of the goats illustrated the cohesive nature of the Donnybrook community.

“The successful recovery of the goats is indicative of the fact that a healthy relationship exists between the Donnybrook farming community and the broader Donnybrook community as well as the Donnybrook SAPS.”

– SAPA

Johannesburg – From early next year Johannesburg authorities will allow the installation of security devices on tombstones, in a bid to curb theft, officials said on Wednesday.

Alan Buff, who oversees the city’s cemeteries said a deal has been entered into with a private company that will install microchip transmitters into tombstones.

The system is designed to detect movement and trigger off sirens.

“Then we will be able to immediately locate the area where a tombstone has been moved and we will be able to track it down,” Buff told AFP.

“It’s like your car tracking device,” he said.

An SMS will be sent to the family of the deceased to notify them of any tampering with the tombstone.

“Obviously there’s a lot of emotional connotation that goes with it,” said Mark Pringle director of Memorial Alert, the company that has the patent for the world’s first tombstone security technology.

The system will detect even the slightest of movements, such as the shifting of a vase.

Families of the deceased can choose to install the alarm, at an as yet undisclosed cost.

“We have keep affordability in mind,” said Pringle.

The city’s 36 public cemeteries currently have perimeter sensors and are patrolled by security guards, yet on average between 15 and 20 marble or granite tombstones are stolen a month.

Along with the new technology, it will also be possible for families to take out insurance against theft and vandalism of tombstones.

Pringle said theft from cemeteries was not only unique to South Africa but was a worldwide problem.

– AFP

Pretoria – The mother of pregnant teenager Zanele Khumalo, who was strangled in her bed, collapsed in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday.

This happened shortly before her daughter’s former boyfriend was convicted of murder and rape.

Busi Khumalo wailed hysterically and had to be helped out of court after collapsing during acting Judge Johan Kruger’s judgment.

Kruger found the father of Zanele Khumalo’s unborn child, 26-year-old Thato Kutumela, guilty of murdering and raping her at her parents’ home in Garsfontein on 21 April 2011.

Kutumela was also found guilty of stealing his former girlfriend’s nightclothes and underwear to hide the fact that he had raped her.

He did not testify, but claimed in his plea explanation that they had consensual sex that morning and that she was alive and well when he left.

He initially claimed in the magistrate’s court that he was at work all day.

Khumalo’s naked body was discovered under a blanket on her bed when her parents arrived home from work.

They rushed her to hospital, but she had already been dead for about six hours by then.

A pathologist testified that the 18-year-old girl’s heart had stopped because of intense pressure to her neck. She was five months pregnant at the time of her death.

Turbulent relationship

Kruger said the couple had a turbulent relationship, which included Khumalo suffering a wound on the back of her head and her father barring Kutumela from their house after he apparently assaulted her and took her cellphone.

They had exchanged several long phone calls in the early hours of the morning before her death and she, thereafter, refused to answer three further calls from Kutumela.

It was clear from the evidence that Khumalo went to her house to finish “unfinished business” that morning, but that she refused to open the gate for him.

Several witnesses saw Kutumela at Khumalo’s house that day and a neighbour saw him slipping into the kitchen while she was talking to Khumalo.

Kruger said Kutumela had not been invited to the house that morning, but had clearly planned his trip, even phoning a colleague to say that he would be late.

He had tried to cover his tracks by wearing a blue work suit similar to those worn by workers at the complex and falsifying the time of his arrival at work no less than three times.

He also erased all signs of telephone conversations from Khumalo’s cellphone and later claimed he was not there at all.

He entered the complex with an empty looking backpack, but left with it bulging.

Findings

Kruger found that no other person than Kutumela had been at Khumalo’s house that day and that the only reasonable inference was that he had murdered her, taking her nightclothes with him, which must have shown signs that he had raped her.

He had viciously grabbed Khumalo by the throat and throttled her so that she lost consciousness and offered no resistance when he raped her.

“The scenario is one of a vicious and cold-blooded attack on the deceased, leaving no doubt that he had forced himself on her, raped her and viciously throttled her.

“His is not the conduct of an innocent man visiting his lover.

“From the very outset he attempted to move incognito and cover his tracks.

“His conduct was cunning and designed to mislead. It bears the signs of a planned mission with the intent to kill,” Kruger said.

The judge ordered that Kutumela remain in custody until Thursday, when his advocate will oppose the State’s request to withdraw his bail.

‘An end to a dark period’

Khumalo’s father, Themba Khumalo, who is the chief of media liaison at the water affairs department, told reporters he was relieved that the pain and uncertainty of two-and-a-half years had come to an end.

“We prayed every evening for a conviction. The verdict puts us at the end of a very dark period.

“We know Zanele is no longer feeling the pain she felt that night and that she’s at peace with herself.

“She visits us in our dreams to say that she is at peace.

“I feel pity for his [Kutumela’s] family because when our children are punished, we feel it.

“It’s a case of a man brought up in a proper family, but losing his way,” he said.

He warned teenagers to be careful when they chose who to love, and to do research and more research to establish their boyfriends’ backgrounds.

Zanele Khumalo’s sisters Lindi and Confidence said the court’s ruling gave them closure about their fun-loving sister’s death.

Lindi said she hoped Kutumela would be “gone forever” and get life imprisonment. Confidence said she had always known in her heart Kutumela was guilty.

“Even though he’s in jail his family still have him. My sister would have turned 21 last Sunday and it was sad to have to celebrate her coming of age without her,” she said.

– SAPA

Pretoria – The mechanical engineer accused of murdering a group of joggers in Midrand by ploughing into them with his car, has admitted to drinking a few beers that day, the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.

State prosecutor Mervyn Menigo told the court the State and defence had reached an agreement and that Sibusiso Langa admitted he used alcohol and had “a couple of beers” on the day of the accident, 22 October 2011.

Langa, 46, on Monday pleaded not guilty to five charges of murder, one of attempted murder, and one of driving under the influence of alcohol.

Reneilwe Lesenyeho, 31, Gaolojwe Isaac Tlale, 37, Moroesi Margeret Mokoatsi, 35, Given Mills, 30, and Nomvula Regina Dumako, 35, died and Abegail Stengile nearly died – when Langa allegedly crashed into them as they were jogging next to Lever Road in Midrand.

The State alleges Langa was under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time. All of the victims died of multiple blunt force injuries.

The trial continues.

– SAPA

Kimberley – A statement by the teenage accused in the Griekwastad farm murder trial was not in line with evidence found at the scene, the Northern Cape High Court heard on Wednesday.

“It is not consistent from the evidence at the scene of the crime,” police crime scene and blood spatter expert Captain Marius Joubert said.

Judge President Frans Kgomo is hearing evidence in Kimberley in the trial of a 17-year-old youth accused of murdering Northern Cape farmer Deon Steenkamp, 44, his wife Christel, 43, and their daughter Marthella, 14.

They were shot dead on their farm Naauwhoek, near Griekwastad, on 6 April 2012.

Joubert submitted that the blood stains on a T-shirt apparently worn by the boy had multiple transfers of blood marks.

“It is not consistent with one action,” he said.

He told the court there was no sign of movement where the girl was found.

“I reject the paragraph in the [youth’s] statement.”

Joubert concluded his testimony that Marthella Steenkamp defended herself against an attacker outside the house and not inside.

Before Joubert’s evidence-in-chief, the family members present were again warned about the type of evidence to follow.

“It will be one of those days that will not be pleasant,” said prosecutor Hannes Cloete.

Blood trail

Joubert told the court the 14-year-old girl left a trail of blood through the kitchen on her way to the telephone.

He said the blood from the gunshot wound to her chest had flowed down her body, her right leg and arm, and right hand, and had dripped onto her feet, indicating she was upright when that happened.

He submitted to court the drip, flow and smear blood spatters from the back door through the scullery and into the kitchen.

The girl’s DNA was linked to all these spatters.

He showed photographs of where the girl, covered in blood, leaned against the kitchen counter. The blood trail went around the counter to the telephone.

It seemed as if the girl had stopped between the counter and the wooden dining room table, halfway to the phone.

There was a collection of blood spatters on the floor and a bloody handprint on the dining room table.

“The spatters are concentrated in one area. The victim must have stood for a while and left blood to collect,” Joubert said.

The court heard on Monday that Marthella Steenkamp was shot once in the chest and three times in the head.

Referring to a blood smear found near her father Deon Steenkamp, Joubert said it was probably created by a forearm which had moved inwards towards the body.

“Possibly by the victim to make himself comfortable… pulling in [his] arm.”

Joubert will be cross-examined by the youth’s defence team on Thursday.

The trial continues.

– SAPA