Ajax Cape Town have announced that Khama Billiat’s proposed deal to Mamelodi Sundowns is off.

The two clubs agreed terms for the transfer of the Zimbabwean attacked last week, but the Urban Warriors have now decided to pull the plug.

“Eight days ago Ajax Cape Town and Mamelodi Sundowns agreed on terms for the transfer of Billiat to the Pretoria based outfit, subject to the player agreeing on personal terms with the club,” Ajax director Ari Efstathiou is quoted on the club’s Facebook page.

“We agreed to extend the time limit for the transfer to take place, however no agreement was reached at the set deadline. The deal is now considered cancelled.”

That will be music to Orlando Pirates’ fans ears, with the Buccaneers seemingly the player’s preferred destination in any case.

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Cape Town – Portable toilet tanks used in protest action for flush toilets, are being stolen at night while residents sleep, DA MP Masizole Mnqasela has alleged.

This was supported by Mayco member for utility services Ernest Sonnenberg, who said the city had received reports from contractors about missing portable toilet containers. But the group that organises these protests has denied stealing the containers.
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Durban – Two men have been arrested in connection with the murder of a shop owner in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Thursday.

The men were taken into custody on Tuesday evening after a man was shot dead at his shop in Anton Lembede Street, said Colonel Vincent Mdunge.

Apparently he had multiple wounds and he was taken to hospital where he was dead on arrival.

The men, 34 and 35, were caught on the N3 near Berea Centre after a police chase.

Police recovered six cellphones and a car, said Mdunge.

“It has also been established that one of the suspects was wanted in Pretoria in connection with the murder of his brother.”

They would appear at the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Friday.

Sapa

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