Johannesburg – Serious crime in South Africa is on the rise again for the first time in 10 years, Agang SA said on Thursday.

“Nearly 20 years since freedom, violent crime is still unacceptably high and it is the poorest, who are often affected worst,” Agang SA political director Moeketsi Mosola said in a statement.

“Failures by the [ANC] government in providing quality education and in creating jobs continue to trap millions in poverty without hope. This is the root cause of crime and it is a betrayal of the values of the struggle.”

Mosola said serious crime could be tackled only by ensuring people did not go hungry, that they could earn money to sustain their families, and that their children could get quality education.

Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa released the 2012/13 crime statistics in Pretoria on Thursday.

Mthethwa said the number of murders had increased by 0.6% in the past financial year.

However, this figure was down 16.6% over the past four years, and 27.2% over the past nine years.

SA deserves better

Mosola said South Africans deserved better and needed a criminal justice system that ensured criminals were caught and prosecuted.

The police should be commended for the difficult job they did and the reduction in other types of crime, but they also deserved better.

He said they deserved better leadership, training, and equipment, and more officers were needed.

“Crime reports should be published at least monthly, enabling the public to be better informed about crime trends, and to be able to hold the police and political leadership accountable,” Mosola said.

Communities and police needed the latest information about crime trends in their area to work together to combat crime, he said.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – The police have failed to reassure people that they are winning the war against crime, the DA said on Thursday after the release of the national crime statistics.

“It is abundantly clear that there has been an increase in major crimes, [and] meagre incremental decreases are hardly solace for those who continue to live in fear,” said DA MP Dianne Kohler-Barnard.

“It is devastating that the murder rate is up for the first time in five years, reversing what had become a most welcome trend.”

She said the DA would study the statistics and conduct a comprehensive analysis.

It would then provide recommendations on what needed be done to reduce crime in South Africa.

“The miniscule 0.4% decrease in sexual offences is highly unsatisfactory, particularly when most rape cases are not reported,” said Kohler-Barnard.

“The high incidence of rape in South Africa is our national shame, and needs to be backed with stronger reporting mechanisms, arrests and convictions.”

She also found it worrying that the statistics released on Thursday morning were up to 18-months-old.

The out of date information did not help people protect themselves as they did not know what to expect in their neighbourhoods, she said.

“The DA will continue to push for a monthly release of crime statistics,” said Kohler-Barnard.

– SAPA

London – The evidence against Shrien Dewani, accused of ordering the murder of his fiancée on honeymoon, would not stand up in a British court, a forensic scientist has told the BBC.

Anni Dewani, 28, was shot in a taxi on the outskirts of Cape Town in 2010.

Professor Jim Fraser told the BBC’s Panorama programme there was “simply a cloud of suspicion… rather than any evidence” against Dewani, a 33-year-old British businessman, who has denied any involvement in the shooting.

Dewani remains in Britain in a mental health clinic where he is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder and is fighting extradition to South Africa.

He has launched a bid to take his case to the Supreme Court after a judge ruled he should be transferred to stand trial.

Fraser told the BBC there were contradictions in the evidence of a witness, who is expected to form a key part of the prosecution case in South Africa, and said the investigation fell short of British standards.

Panorama said it had seen video confessions, CCTV footage, phone records, scientific evidence and pictures of the crime scene.

The Dewanis’ taxi driver Zola Tongo was jailed for 18 years in 2010 after he admitted his part in the killing, and another accomplice, Mziwamadoda Qwabe, also pleaded guilty to murder and was given a 25-year prison sentence.

CCTV footage contradicts statement

The BBC programme examined a statement by Tongo, who having struck a plea bargain is expected to testify in the case alleging that Dewani hired him.

Panorama said the CCTV footage and phone records appear to contradict Tongo’s sworn statement.

On the day Anni Dewani was murdered, the couple had had a late breakfast.

Tongo’s said in his statement that Dewani called him at 11:30, asking to be picked up. But phone records in the police file show no such call took place.

Taylor said: “A single thing that was inconsequential – even a number of things that were inconsequential – wouldn’t worry me.

“But there are really quite a few things here which are plainly untrue.

“This is not an investigation that would meet the standards in this country.”

Taylor has advised the British interior ministry, or Home Office, on a number of high-profile cases.

– AFP

Pretoria – Plans are afoot to suspend the CEO of the Holy Cross Hospital in the Eastern Cape and its nursing manager, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said on Thursday.

He was announcing the findings and recommendations of a probe sparked by a report by the Eastern Cape Health Coalition titled “Death and Dying. An Investigation into the collapse of a healthcare system”.

“It is my intention that the CEO should be suspended with immediate effect,” Motsoaledi told reporters in Pretoria.

“It is [also] my intention that the nursing services manager should also be suspended with immediate effect pending the full investigation.”

Motsoaledi did not name them.

He intended reporting them to the SA Nursing Council, since they were both nurses by profession.

Further recommendations were that disciplinary measures be taken against the hospital administrator.

Motsoaledi’s investigators found gross mismanagement at the hospital, which was investigated along with other hospitals in the OR Tambo district, after the release of the coalition’s report.

The district is in one of the 11 pilot districts for the National Health Insurance initiative.

In its report the coalition, which includes Section 27 and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), called for drastic action to rebuild the province’s health care system.

Mismanagement of funds

It detailed stories of patients being unable to get help at hospitals and clinics because of a lack of medication.

It identified mismanagement of funds as an underlying problem, finding that the department overspent on its staffing budget by more than R1bn in 2011/2012 because of above-inflation salary increases and poorly-managed employee benefits.

“I assure you the matter of mismanagement of funds is being dealt with and is receiving the attention it should be. We are doing something about it,” Motsoaledi said.

Asked if he would take on the provincial leadership in the health department, Motsoaledi said his hands were essentially tied.

“There is no minister in the country that can appoint MECs. They are appointed by the premier. So I work with them.”

More than R1bn would be spent upgrading the Eastern Cape’s healthcare system.

“In this case, we are implementing 287 projects covering new additions, upgrades, renovations and maintenance works in 132 facilities,” said Motsoaledi.

He said 159 of these projects were in the construction phase, and the rest were at developmental phase.

The projects included the building and refurbishment of eight nursing colleges.

– SAPA

Cape Town – Thousands of correctional services officials were themselves “corrected” in the past three years, according to Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele.

In a written reply to a parliamentary question, tabled on Thursday, he said more than 12 000 disciplinary hearings involving prisons staff were held between 2010 and 2013.

The hearings involved cases of both serious misconduct and “less serious” cases, though not all of the latter were preceded by an investigation.

Ndebele said that during the past financial year (2012/13), the department recorded 3 765 disciplinary cases.

According to a table included with the reply, the outcomes of 3 294 of these included that 167 officials were dismissed, 497 were given written warnings, 12 were demoted, and 156 were suspended without pay, as an alternative to dismissal.

According to Ndebele, the difference between the number of cases heard and the number of outcomes, was due to some employees being involved in more than one disciplinary case and/or facing several charges that resulted in more than one sanction in the same hearing.

The table in the reply shows that the bulk of last year’s cases resulted in the officials found guilty receiving “corrective counselling”, or a verbal or written warning.

It does not indicate how many of the cases were for serious or for less serious misconduct.

According to the reply, the total number of disciplinary hearings held in 2011/12 and 2010/11 was 4 171 and 4 247 respectively.

According to correctional services’ website – which declares 2013 to be “the year of the correctional official” – the department has 41 591 staff.

– SAPA

The Farlam Commission of Inquiry into 44 deaths during unrest at Marikana last year has been postponed until Wednesday.

“In the past 10 days we have discovered through the evidence leaders that there must be info that was not disclosed by the police that seeks to suggest that the information was withheld to try and portray a certain approach to the commission in relation to what has been discovered,” commission spokesperson Tshepo Mahlangu said.

Previously, evidence leader Geoff Budlender, SC, asked that the commission be postponed to allow his team to examine the police evidence.

In Lt-Col Duncan Scott’s version on a computer hard drive containing the police’s evidence, “some documents have been added and some files we haven’t seen before”, Budlender told the commission.

He said the police team had been co-operative, but that the process of going through the evidence “could take some time”.

The commission, sitting in Centurion, is investigating the deaths of 44 people during strike-related unrest at Lonmin’s platinum mining operations at Marikana, near Rustenburg in the North West last year.

Police shot dead 34 people, almost all of them striking mineworkers, while trying to disperse and disarm them on August 16, 2012. Ten people, including two police officers and two security guards, were killed in the preceding week.

President Jacob Zuma established the commission shortly after the unrest.
For more http://www.sabc.co.za

Analysis of annual crime statistics, released today by Police Minister, Nathi Mthethwa, indicates that the least safe province to live in in South Africa is the Western Cape, followed by the Free State.

SABC News Online created a map that uses a combination of the crime stats released today and the Census 2011 population data to show the number of contact crimes per 100 000 inhabitants of each province in South Africa, from worst (darker shades) to best (lighter shades).

This map reveals that the most dangerous provinces to live in in South Africa – where your chances of being a victim of contact crime are the highest – are the Western Cape and the Free State, and you’re safest in Limpopo.

Contact crimes are defined by SAPS as: murder; sexual crimes; attempted murder; assault with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm; common assault; common robbery; and robbery with aggravating circumstances
For more http://www.sabc.co.za

Pretoria – There must be information police have held back in the inquiry into 44 deaths during labour unrest at Marikana last year, the Farlam Commission said on Thursday.

Spokesperson Tshepo Mahlangu said this had been discovered in the past 10 days.

The commission had, therefore, postponed its proceedings until Wednesday next week.

“In the past 10 days we have discovered through the evidence leaders that there must be info that was not disclosed by the police, that seeks to suggest that the information was withheld to try and portray a certain approach to the commission in relation to what has been discovered,” Mahlangu said.

Previously, evidence leader Advocate Geoff Budlender, asked that the commission be postponed to allow his team to examine the police evidence.

In Lieutenant Colonel Duncan Scott’s version on a computer hard drive containing the police’s evidence, “some documents have been added and some files we haven’t seen before”, Budlender told the commission.

He said the police team had been co-operative, but that the process of going through the evidence “could take some time”.

The commission, sitting in Centurion, is investigating the deaths of 44 people during strike-related unrest at Lonmin’s platinum mining operations at Marikana, near Rustenburg in the North West last year.

Police shot dead 34 people, almost all of them striking mineworkers, while trying to disperse and disarm them on 16 August 2012.

Ten people, including two police officers and two security guards, were killed in the preceding week.

President Jacob Zuma established the commission shortly after the unrest.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – The murders of two elderly women in Lenasia this week is disturbing, Gauteng Community Safety MEC Faith Mazibuko said on Thursday.

“Such an act of criminality does not only rob the families and their grandchildren of their beloved ones but demonstrates cowardness,” she said in a statement.

“This case should receive the highest attention by the criminal justice system.”

On Wednesday, the bodies of two elderly women were found in a house they shared in Lenasia extension 11.

Gauteng police spokesperson Kay Makhubela said a relative found the women, aged 70 and 75.

“One of the old ladies, who was full of blood, was found in the sitting room. The other was found dead in a bedroom,” he said at the time.

The motive for the killings was unknown and the weapon used had not yet been identified.

Both women suffered head wounds, and one had strangulation bruises.

“We cannot rule out that there might have been rape, but that will be determined by the investigation,” Makhubela said.

Mazibuko urged people to contact police if they had information about the crime.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Specialised police units played a part in reducing South Africa’s crime, civil rights group AfriForum said on Thursday, after the release of the annual national crime statistics.

“It is clear… that specialist units contributed sizeably to the reduction and combating of priority crimes in the past financial year,” AfriForum community safety head Reg Crewe said in a statement.

Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said, among other things, sexual offences decreased by 0.4% during the 2012/13 financial year.

The results showed that 609 people were sentenced to 826 life sentences for sexual offences.

“The Family Violence, Child Protection, and Sexual Offences Unit (FCS) accounted for 499 of these convictions,” said Crewe.

It was time government listened to the people and implemented specialised units everywhere, he said.

– SAPA