The appointment of Professor Mashudu Davhana- Maselesele as the first woman rector of the North West University(NWU)-Mahikeng Campus should be celebrated as yet another milestone against patriarchy which is often given a cultural halo and identified with customs and personalities of different communities, North West Premier Thandi Modise said on Monday.

In congratulating Professor Maselesele, Premier Modise said that her appointment which follows closely on the appointment of Professor Dan Kgwadi as Vice Chancellor of the NWU should accelerate and deepen transformation within the higher education institution.“As reflected by the strides that the university has made despite the challenge of slow pace of transformation, 20 years of our democracy has advanced us towards non-racialism and non-sexism.” Modise said.

Modise said that she is encouraged by Professor Maselesele’s NWU-Mahikeng Campus vision 2020 which responds to the National Development Plan and provincial priorities identified in the Provincial Development Plan and among others seeks to reposition the institution to serve as an engine for rural development for the province and the country.In her inauguration message delivered on Friday, Maselesele said that the campus has an ethical and moral responsibility to ensure that the programmes that it offers address the needs of communities.

She said that the campus will focus more on its Professional Degree programmes to ensure that it addresses the scarcity of skills in the country.Veterinary programmes, B Comm Law, Agric Engineering, Honours in Chartered Accountancy, Primary Health Care to facilitate the process of re-engineering PHC, Nursing Education and Health care Management are some of the new programmes that are planned for establishment, the Professor said.

Maselesele also highlighted that the campus together with its sister campuses is also pursuing the possibility of training of Medical doctors and is has commenced with negotiations with the National Department of Transport in preparation for introduction of Transport Engineering programme.
“We do not want programmes that will only add to the numbers of unemployed youth in this country” she emphasised.

In his inauguration and official opening of the academic year address, 
Vice Chancellor Kgwadi said that universities have an enormous responsibility to contribute towards government’s National Development Plan and 2030 vision and should embrace their role in transforming society.Professor Kgwadi said that universities cannot contribute towards transformation when
they are not themselves convincingly transformed.“I am convinced from concerns in a number of reports about our transformation that if our ‘evolutionary’ approach is not accelerated we will be faced with a revolution at some point,” he stressed.

In congratulating the campus rector,
Campus Student Representative Council Acting President Tsohana Mokhothu said that the current epoch is the epoch where women leaders have come to the fore, grabbing the bull by its horns and leading.

Mokhothu cited the first female Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Her Excellencies Dr. Nkosazana-Dlamini Zuma, President Helen Johnson of Liberia, President Joyce Banda of Malawi and Premier Thandi Modise among women who have made a difference on the continent, in their respective countries and in their communities.

She said that Modise had made the Premier’s Office
more responsive and the North West Province actively developing at a faster rate than it was before.Six females were among the 8 first year students who were awarded merit certificates and laptops at the inauguration ceremony for outstanding performance and obtaining between 4-10 distinctions during the 2013 academic year.-TDN
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Johannesburg – The governing ANC and its scandal-tainted leader Jacob Zuma are expected to secure a landslide victory when voters cast their ballots on Wednesday, but with the party’s trajectory in serious doubt.

Zuma, whose first five-year term in office has been plagued by corruption, mismanagement and often deadly social unrest, made a final nostalgia-tinged pitch to voters on Sunday, promising more economic power for disadvantaged people.

The ANC has won every general election since 1994 by a landslide and is expected to win by a wide margin this time round too. And the party that controls the legislature picks the president.

According to a recent Ipsos poll the ANC is set to garner 63% of the vote, just three percentage points less than in 2009.

Zuma an Achille’s heel

During the campaign the ANC has benefited from the outpouring of grief over the death Nelson Mandela as well as celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the first all-race elections.

But the ANC’s current leader has proved to be an Achille’s heel.

Opposition parties have pummelled Zuma over the R246m in taxpayer money used to “upgrade” his private home, Nkandla.

“The ANC has become arrogant because they believe that the voters will carry on voting for them, whatever they do,” said Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille at a rally on Saturday.
“Well, they are in for a big shock on Wednesday.”

Zille’s party is predicted to increase its share of the vote by nearly six percentage points to 22% and to do well in major urban centres.

But most voters appear ready to put the party they know before the president they mistrust.

On Sunday 90 000-plus jubilant and defiant ANC supporters packed FNB Stadium in Soweto in a pre-election show of force, during which Zuma at times appeared to be an afterthought.

There were no humiliating boos like Zuma suffered in the same stadium during Mandela’s memorial service in December, but the 72-year-old president’s lengthy speech got a lukewarm response, with tens of thousands filing out of the stadium as he spoke.

Bloodied but victorious

With corruption scandals, poor public services and a stumbling economy the ANC will emerge from the election victorious but bruised.

Low turnout is likely to inflate the ANC’s share of the vote, which is likely to fall for a second consecutive election.

Former stalwarts like Ronnie Kasrils, a leading ANC veteran, have gone so far as to publicly ask voters not to back the party that liberated them.

Both the DA and Julius Malema’s firebrand Economic Freedom Fighters are likely to continue to tap into voters’ anger that 20 years of democracy have not improved their lot.

South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries on earth and sees an estimated 30 demonstrations a day against appalling public services.

ANC leadership battle

An ANC leadership battle may also be in the offing.

Under South Africa’s constitution, Zuma’s second term would be his last and he risks becoming a lame duck as would-be successors jockey for position ahead of a 2017 elective party conference.

Zuma’s promise of more action to redistribute economic power away from the elite is unlikely to inspire investors already rattled by social unrest and more populist rhetoric.

Malema’s party is expected to get around 5% of the vote at its first attempt after promising to nationalise industry and give poor blacks land currently owned by whites.

“A lower-than-expected majority for the ANC would probably be regarded positively by markets, as it may jolt the party into reforming itself internally over the coming years,” said Shilan Shah, an economist with Capital Economics.-Sapa

Johannesburg – A woman was killed, and her two children were seriously injured in a car accident on the R102 in Verulam, outside Durban, on Sunday, paramedics said.

“Reports from the scene [indicate] that a car collided into the side of a family vehicle on the R102 at the Verulam traffic lights,” Netcare 911 spokesperson Chris Botha said.

The woman was flung from her car and was found lying under another car. She was declared dead on the scene.

Her children were treated on the scene before being taken to hospital.

The cause of the accident would be investigated.

SAPA

Johannesburg – Mamelodi Sundowns soccer player Punch Masenamela was involved in his own faked kidnapping, the Hawks said on Sunday.

The elite police unit’s spokeman Paul Ramaloko said that last weekend, the SA Football Association and Masenamela’s wife had reported that the defender had been kidnapped and a ransom of five million rand demanded.

“We immediately pursued it,” said Ramaloko.

“We used our technological cellphone tracking device to trace his location.”

Ramaloko said the soccer player was found at a hotel on the East Rand.

“It didn’t appear to us that he was kidnapped… He was safe.”

Ramaloko said that Masenamela would not be charged in this case because he had not been the one to report the incident to the police. – Sapa