Cape Town – A task team has been set up to monitor the Vrygrond Taxi Association’s conduct after being accused of route invasions and intimidation, Western Cape Transport MEC Donald Grant said on Wednesday.

The province’s regulatory entity recently suspended the association administratively for three months, after inquiries last June and in April.

This, amid an increase in taxi-related crimes and a spate of violent shootings and killings.

Grant said the suspension would only be reconsidered if the association adhered to a number of conditions.

These conditions included not extorting money or interfering with the legal operation of any taxi association or member in the Vrygrond area in Cape Town.

It also had to co-exist with the Retreat Taxi Association and the Steenberg Taxi association and not prevent their members from using the Vrygrond taxi rank.

A task team, made up of taxi association members and city and provincial officials, would monitor their conduct.

“Failure to comply will result in more drastic action being taken by the office of the Provincial Transport Registrar [again, in terms of the legislative framework],” Grant said.

Both Grant and Cape Town transport mayoral committee member Brett Herron were concerned by the recent increase in taxi crimes.

Since April, the city’s metro police had been deployed to the area to assist the SA Police Service in clamping down on unlicensed operators and illegal behaviour.

Both said while they took their role in the taxi industry seriously, it fell to disputing operators to work out a way forward and end taxi violence.

SAPA

Pretoria – Police use excessive force during the deadly strike in Marikana, North West, the Farlam Commission of Inquiry heard on Wednesday.

“The reason police should fire is to stop the threat. It’s not about killing someone,” public order policing expert Gary White said.

Police fired 327 live rounds of ammunition at striking Lonmin miners on 16 August 2012. White said he watched the video of the shooting but could not see what police were shooting at as there was smoke.

“If you can’t see what you are firing at, what’s the point of shooting?”

He said in a number of police statements there was no explanation of what officers were firing at.

White said he was aware there was evidence of shots being fired at police, but they could have run away.

The law was clear, lethal fire should be used as last resort, he said.

White criticised police for not having a written plan to deal with strikers in Marikana.

Earlier he testified about a confrontation police had with strikers carrying traditional weapons near a railway line at Marikana on 13 August 2012. Two policemen were killed and one was wounded after strikers refused to disarm.

“If the intention was to disarm and disperse, the operation needed to be planned,” White said.

If the strikers were carrying traditional weapons, he suspected they would not voluntarily put them down.

White said there was no plan as to how the crowd should be disarmed and dispersed. There was also no plan about what to do if the strikers refused to disarm.

White said he was shocked police had so little information.

“I would have expected that there was intelligence to tell who the group was and their intention… how likely they were going to be violent towards the police,” he said.

The commission is investigating the deaths of 44 people during strike-related violence at Lonmin’s platinum mining operations in Marikana.

Thirty-four people, mostly striking mineworkers, were shot dead in a clash with police, over 70 were wounded, and another 250 arrested on 16 August 2012. Police were apparently trying to disarm and disperse them.

In the preceding week, 10 people, including two policemen and two security guards, were killed.

SAPA

Pietermaritzburg – A woman who arranged her mother-in-law’s murder was jailed for life in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday.

Judge Nompumelelo Hadebe said that mother-in-law Sindile Alphina Pearce, 64, died at the hands of her daughter-in-law Lillian Phebome Pearce, 41, a government clerk.

Lillian recruited a hitman, Mvikelwa Khanyile, 29, who was also jailed for life.

She said the aggravating factors outweighed the circumstances that would allow her to deviate from the prescribed life sentence.

The State alleged that Lillian Pearce arranged the hit on her mother-in-law as she believed she was sowing division between her and her husband.

Khanyile obtained a firearm and recruited Bheki Ndlovu to execute the plan.

In April 2011 assassins went to Sindile Pearce’s home. She was lured to a window where she was shot.

She died of chest wounds.

SAPA

Johannesburg – SA needs to wake up to the serious consequences which affirmative action could bring about, the Institute for Race Relations (IRR) said on Wednesday.

The appointment of unqualified people, along with failure to fill key posts when the only available candidates are white, One of the reasons for this, said the IRR in its latest @Liberty policy bulletin.
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Johannesburg – The economy is unlikely to go into recession, even after a 0.6% contraction in the first quarter, as data pointed to a rebound in the mining and manufacturing sectors, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene said.

“At this point, signals are that growth in the second quarter will be slow but positive,” Nene said in a written response to parliamentary questions emailed to Reuters on Wednesday.

Nene said many of the brakes on growth, including protracted labour strikes and electricity constraints, were of a supply-side nature and therefore fiscal measures would not be sufficient to boost economic growth.

Reuters

Cape Town – The National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) on Wednesday condemned a call by a DA MP that the NYDA leadership should be fired.

“The NYDA wishes to express its shock at the empty, ignorant and irresponsible comments made yesterday in Parliament by Johanna Steenkamp, a fly by night ‘young leader’,” NYDA chairperson Yershen Pillay said in a statement.

He was responding to 27-year old Steenkamp’s maiden speech during a youth month debate in the National Assembly on Tuesday.

Steenkamp said the NYDA was squandering money while the country’s youth remained trapped in poverty.

“For the record, following the appointment of the new NYDA board by His Excellency President Jacob Zuma in March 2013, the new board set on a mission to reposition the NYDA and to make it more relevant and responsive to the needs of young people,” Pillay said.

The new vision entailed restoring credibility to the NYDA.

“As part of supporting this vision the new board put in place a number of flagship programmes including the NYDA entrepreneurship grant programme aimed at assisting young people who either want to start or expand their small businesses,” Pillay said.

“To date 589 youth owned enterprises have been supported with grant finance amounting to more than R25m in the past year alone.”

The NYDA helped 236 young people, mostly from rural areas, through the R20m Solomon Mahlangu scholarship fund.

“We have a long way to go as a country if these are the kind of irresponsible and ignorant ‘leaders’ we are going to produce,” Pillay said.

“As the NYDA we will continue to intensify our work relating to leadership development and social cohesion and possibly try to educate detractors like Ms Steenkamp.”
SAPA

Cape Town – South African TV viewers are fuming because they can’t find the Afrikaans TV news bulletin on SABC television – and they can’t because it doesn’t exist.
For more http://www.news24.com

North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo is to outline priorities of his administration and programme of action for radical socio-economic transformation in his State of the Province Address (SOPA) to be delivered as from 9:00 from the Mmabatho Convention Centre in Mahikeng on Friday. 

“We are encouraged by the enthusiasm of citizens and the suggestions they have made towards SOPA which point to great expectations and the partnership that the we can count on in accelerating the speed and quality of service delivery and implementing programmes to tackle unemployment, inequality and poverty,” said an upbeat Premier Mahumapelo ahead of his inaugural SOPA to be delivered under the theme “Together to move the North West Forward” 

The programme of action to be announced by the Premier is among others also expected to reflect on changing the image of the province, putting citizens at the centre of development and de-conventionalisation to speed up the provision of quality services and infrastructure development. 
-TDN
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By Obakeng Maje
Wolmaransstad- One suspect has been arrested for attempted rape and theft, says North West police.

Colonel Sabata Mokgwabone said a 22 year-old girl was allegedly walking home on Saturday along with her boyfriend.

Police said two men pounced on them and threatened a boyfriend.

“The perpetrators allegedly ordered a boyfriend to flee for his life and forcefully took his girlfriend to the nearby stream” Mokgwabone said.

The argument erupted between both men as who will go first. The police said both men argued and fought and their will-be-victim asked help from her knees.

“An 18-year-old boy was arrested on Sunday after the cellphone allegedly belonging to the girl found in his possession. He was also on a bail for another rape case and remanded in custody” police said.

Police investigations continue.-TDN
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