Our Voice - The Voice of a Nation in dire need.

Last newsletter of the year.

2009-12-19T12:01:00.001+02:00

Last bulletin of the year.
For contact details for other ratepayers, please go to CONTACTS on the
NTU/NBU website www.ntu-sa.net
Please pass this on to all interested and affected parties.
Number 26
December 17, 2009

During this year one thing has become very clear: ratepayers
associations are the only organizations that are effectively combating
the non-existence of service delivery. The laws regarding local
government are fair and equitable. But municipalities are not abiding
by these laws. On the one hand, citizens are expected to pay rates
and taxes, and are punished if they don't. On the other hand, local
governments are expected to be transparent and inclusive and
accountable, and there has been no evidence of that this year from any
municipality. It is easy to collect a debt, not so easy to demand
responsibility. This last year has shown that ratepayers need to
become a lot more active in order to make sure that this one-sidedness
doesn't become the norm.

For instance, new legislation sets out remuneration for ward
committees, but also sets out their duties. There should be no
remuneration without performance. Ratepayers should decide if ward
committees are working or not. Do ratepayers work with the ward
committees or do they demand that they be replaced? If anyone would
like to start a debate or seek consensus on this, this forum is
available for that purpose.

• Electricity tariff hikes: Alan Smaldon has compiled an objection
letter and you can contact him to ask how you can lodge a complaint:
asmaldon@chillibyte.com
• The ratepayers of Kirkwood, in the Eastern Cape, got a court
interdict to remove their municipal manager, who had been dismissed
for fraud and then re-instated by the ANC council. The costs of the
action are to borne by the municipal manager. So – it CAN be done!
If you would like to find out how the Kirkwood Ratepayers managed it,
contact Louise at kowiegrand@intekom.co.za
• FEKRRA (Kouga and Jeffrey's Bay) is growing with the addition of
Humansdorp. The issue here is misuse of taxpayers' money.
• The Tshwane Metro council has been found guilty of contempt of court
after they failed to reconnect the electricity of a resident who has
declared a dispute.
• The Louis Trichaardt ratepayers have applied to the municipality to
become external service providers in order to clean up the sewage
works that are discharging raw sewage into nearby rivers.
• Nersa has published the approved electricity charges for each
municipality. This is a list of what your municipality should be
charging you for electricity. The list cannot be loaded onto the
website as it is the wrong format, but it can be obtained by sending
me a mail.
• Residents of Heilbron won an interdict against the council to
prevent electricity cut-offs in the case of disputes, but the legal
costs (for the council to pay) have run to almost R100 000. This is
money that could have been far better spent in fixing things rather
than fighting the residents in court.
• The Special Investigating Unit (SUI) will be investigating all 24
municipalities in the North West, where local government has all but
collapsed. The main culprit is named as the ANC cadre deployment
system, which has stripped municipalities of all skills and experience
and given jobs to party loyalists. This is the first investigation of
its kind. It might be an interesting precedent for other regions.
• In Durban, I reported the municipality to the office of the Public
Protector, as I have been trying in vain for eighteen months to get an
explanation of the 'interim' charges on my Metro Bill. All my
numerous letters have been ignored, and my services have been
disconnected four times. And all I want is an explanation! I
received an acknowledgement of my PP complaint after two months. I
will be taking this up next year so watch this space.
• The Kroonstad municipality is R32 million in arrears with Eskom.
The ratepayers want to know what has happened to the money that was
paid by residents to the council for electricity. No answer yet from
the Premier's office.
• Good news from Dullstroom is that the municipality is working
together with ratepayers to solve problems, and the co-operation is
having great success.
• A resident of Johannesburg has called a dispute with her
municipality because her rates went from R60 per month to R1 555, an
increase of more than 2 000 per cent. According to her complaint, her
rates should be closer to R134 per month. At the time of writing,
there is no further news about the outcome of the dispute.
• Judging by the number of alarming news reports, pollution of our
water sources has reached crisis proportions. Even the government has
noticed, although their response has been to appoint committees and
working groups, and not actually to do anything about the pollution.
The NTU has an active water committee and appears to be the only body
that is concerned with direct action. Details for the water committee
are on the website.

If you would like to be placed on this mailing list, please send a
reply to nikimoore@7th-Avenue.co.za

Have a good end-of-year break, and we look forward to picking up the
cudgels again in 2010!

Remarks from CBS Sunday Morning - Ben Stein

2009-11-06T22:50:00.001+02:00

I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday
Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does
not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up,
bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel
discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don
t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In
fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters
celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there
is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in
Malibu .. If people want a crèche, it's just as fine with me as is the
Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think
Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people
who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period.. I
have no idea where the concept came from, that Americais an explicitly
atheist country.. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it
being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we
should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we
understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there
are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and
where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a
little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's
intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham 's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson
asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding
Hurricane Katrina ).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and
insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this,
just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our
schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And
being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we
expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave
us alone?'

In light of recent events... Terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I
think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body
found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and
we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The
Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor
as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they
misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might
damage their self-esteem (Dr.. Spock 's son committed suicide). We said an
expert should know what he's talking about. And we said okay.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don
t know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers,
their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out.
I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world
s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question
what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they
spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord
people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and
obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of
God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on
your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they
will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than
what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it..... No one will know you did. But, if you
discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad
shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

SA Today: The New Erasmus Commission

2009-11-06T17:10:00.001+02:00

I was attending the Western Province Rugby Awards dinner on Tuesday
night when I received this SMS from my son: "Mom and dad, our water
has been cut off. What do we need to do?"

I smiled to myself and replied: "You obviously used too much water
today. Wait until midnight and it will come back on again."

The "cut-off" was the result of the water management device I had
installed in my home earlier this year. These devices provide each
household with 200 litres of water a day, free, at the normal flow
rate. People who register on the City of Cape Town's indigency
database get 350 litres per day, free (the most generous free
allocation in the country). Whatever is not used gets carried over to
the
next day. You can get additional water every day if you specify how
much you are prepared to pay per month.

The purpose of the device is to save water (crucial in light of the
growing shortages), to help residents avoid running up huge bills they
cannot afford (often because of leaks), and to ensure that the
municipality can viably provide every member of the public with access
to free, clean water, as is their constitutional right.

Contrary to the ANC's propaganda, the City does not cut off water to
domestic properties. In the most extreme circumstances, when people
have failed to respond to overdue bills for months and months, they
may be put on the trickle system. If your toilet cistern is filling
up on the "trickle system" it will seem as if nothing is coming out of
your tap until the cistern is full. That may be
irritating and inconvenient, but in every instance where people are
placed on the "trickle system" they could have avoided it by taking a
small measure of personal responsibility. They could have gone to
their local council office and made fair arrangements to pay off their
arrears. Or they could have registered on the City's indigency
database and had a free water management device installed.
Then they would continue to get their generous free daily allocation
on full flow. People who end up on the "trickle system" have made no
effort to do either.

If people experience problems they can use the City's SMS line
dedicated solely to dealing with water and sanitation problems. There
is a 24-hour call out service for emergency cases.

No other City in the country offers this kind of comprehensive service.

And yet the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional
Affairs, Sicelo Shiceka, is devoting his energies to proving that the
City of Cape Town is cutting off people's water and not delivering
services.

Why is a national Minister targeting a municipality which is a model
of good governance and efficiency in comparison with most ANC run
local authorities? And why now?

For those who understand how the ANC works, the answer is obvious. The
whole affair gives me a distinct sense of déjà vu.

It was a strange synchronicity that in the very week that we closed
the final chapter of the Erasmus Commission, I received a letter from
Minister Shiceka requesting me to report to a newly established
Ministerial Task Team on Water Cut-offs, Electricity, Sanitation and
Housing in the City of Cape Town.

This is another unlawful political witch-hunt, make no mistake.

Like the Erasmus Commission, it involves the abuse of state resources
by the ANC for the purpose of smearing a DA-led government in the
run-up to an election.

Like the Erasmus Commission, it reveals the ANC's underlying
intolerance of democracy when it loses an election and its willingness
to ride roughshod over the Constitution to achieve its political
objectives.

And, like the Erasmus Commission, the Task Team is based on a flimsy
pretext. According to Minister Shiceka, in a letter he wrote to
Provincial Local Government Minister Anton Bredell, he decided to set
up the Task Team because of a single letter from a member of the
public with a water-related grievance. "This [letter] clearly
demonstrates the problem is bigger than we have discovered.
Consequently, I have decided to establish a Task Team comprising
representatives from the three spheres, that is National, Provincial
and Local Government," wrote Minister Shiceka.

The only other 'evidence' that Minister Shiceka has of water cut-offs
are from his visit to Cape Town last month when he discovered that
some people in Mitchells Plain were without running water. The fact
that it later emerged that this was the work of ANC activists has not
deterred him.

When I went to Mitchells Plain to investigate, people told me that ANC
activists had requested them to switch off their water at the
stop-cock before the Minister's visit. The people I spoke to were so
sure of their story that they were willing to make sworn affidavits to
this effect.

It is worth quoting one of the affidavits in full:

On Tuesday 29 September 2009 at about 09h15, I heard a person calling
on a loud hailer. I saw [name of ANC activist] and he was asking
people to come to a meeting and bring along their water accounts.

He then approached me and asked me if I can turn my water off at the
stop cork (sic) and when some one ask me about my water, I must say
that my water was disconnected.

I then told him that I am not interested because my water is only
R00.00 cents; I've only have to pay the connection fee of about
R420.00 and that I also receive about 350 litres a day free.

I also state that this is not the first time that he is calling for
the community to give them their water bills and to turn off their
water.

The ANC's willingness to engage in dirty tricks knows no bounds. But,
as with the Erasmus Commission, there are those who will argue that,
if the City has nothing to hide, it will welcome the opportunity to
'clear its name' by participating in the Task Team.

We refused to testify at the Erasmus Commission because it would have
given credence to a process designed to impugn a DA-led administration
for political purposes. Lies and distortions would have been presented
in the press daily as if they were fact. The ANC are masters of the
Goebbels school of propaganda: if you repeat a lie often enough, some
people may begin to believe it.

It is for this reason that neither the City nor the Province will take
part in the open session in Parliament arranged by the Task Team. Even
the Erasmus Commission attempted to present a veneer of legality by
appointing a judge to head it. The Task Team, by contrast, solely
comprises ANC deployees such as former MEC for Local Government and
Housing Richard Dyantyi (who played a key role in
driving the Erasmus Commission).

If Minister Shiceka was really concerned about the state of service
delivery in local government in general and Cape Town in particular,
he would appoint an independent body to undertake a service delivery
audit of every municipality in the country.

In fact this study has already been done. In a recent survey of 231
local municipalities, 46 district municipalities and six metropolitan
municipalities, independent economic empowerment rating agency
Empowerdex found that Cape Town was the best performer in terms of
housing, water, waste removal and sanitation delivery. And this is
despite the fact that there are 222 informal settlements,
mostly on invaded land -- primarily the result of thousands of
people fleeing the conditions in ANC governed provinces.

So why the obsession with Cape Town when it is obvious that the real
problems are elsewhere?

Why is the Task Team not investigating the death of eight people from
Mpheko village in the Eastern Cape after they drank tap water that had
been polluted with faecal matter due to the municipality's failure to
maintain the water treatment plant?

Why is the Task Team not investigating why sewage runs like a river
down the streets of Odendaalsrus in the Free State (as I witnessed
during the election campaign this year)?

Why is the Task Team not investigating the fact that Thokoza informal
settlement in Gauteng has only four water points for tens of thousands
of households?

The answer is that these things are happening in ANC-governed
provinces and municipalities, so they are being covered up. Meanwhile,
the DA is selectively targeted and smeared.

According to the legal advice we have received, the Task Team is
unlawful because it disregards the principles of co-operative
governance set out in the Constitution. I have today written to
Minister Shiceka requesting that we meet to resolve the matter, as
envisaged in the Intergovernmental Relations Act. I hope that we can
avoid an intergovernmental dispute. But, if necessary, I am willing to
fight this power abuse all the way to the constitutional court. The
ANC's abuse of power is the single greatest threat to our democracy,
in every context, and we have to take a stand to stop it.

Minister Shiceka has reportedly put the hearings on hold until he
receives legal advice on the matter. To assist, I would be quite happy
to furnish him with a copy of the Erasmus Commission Court Judgment.
After all, those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

SA Today: The truth about cadre deployment

2009-10-24T15:34:00.001+02:00

Various important developments this week form an interesting political
pattern. They seem unrelated, but if one joins the dots, the
implications are clear. the ANC's policy of cadre deployment is
coming home to roost, with devastating consequences for our emerging
democracy.

The DA has warned for over a decade that cadre deployment is the root
cause of the "failed state". But these criticisms have never been
taken seriously. The ANC has managed to disguise cadre deployment as
"racial transformation". Anyone who opposes it, therefore, is labeled
a racist. This has bludgeoned many critics into silence.

For a democracy to work, power must be held to account. Power abuse
must be checked and prevented. For this reason, the institutions of
state, (such as the courts, the electoral commission and the public
broadcaster) must be genuinely independent from the ruling party.
They must be accountable to their constitutional mandate. They must
protect the public interest, not the party's interests.
This is where the notion of the separation of powers comes from. The
concept covers both the distinction between the party and the state,
and the separation of powers within the institutions of the state:
the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. The "separation of
powers" is the cornerstone of accountable democracy.

Cadre deployment is deliberately designed to destroy the "separation
of powers" and ensure that the institutions of state act in the
party's interests. The "party's interests" are defined by a small
inner circle, responsible for "deploying cadres" to all positions of
power. That is why the battle of Polokwane was so pivotal. It
determined which faction in the ANC would define the party's
interests and deploy its "loyal cadres" to control the institutions of state.

Cadre deployment is justified by a deceptively simple argument: the
people voted for the ANC. Therefore in deploying its cadres, the ANC
is acting on the mandate of the people. But the lessons of history
are clear. Inevitably, and immediately, the absence of effective
independent institutions leads to power abuse. On our continent, the
trajectory to the failed state has been direct:
centralization of power and "cadre deployment" lead to cronyism,
corruption and the criminal state.

In this context, the front page article in the Sunday newspaper, City
Press, was very significant. The newspaper reported that the ANC was
rethinking its cadre deployment policy because it was the "key reason
for the collapse of local government".

"Deployed cadres are perceived to have crippled service delivery in
many municipalities" the newspaper stated, noting that a culture of
"patronage and nepotism" had become so rife in municipalities that
they have become inaccessible and unaccountable. "The lack of
values, principles or ethics…indicates that there are officials and
public representatives for whom public service is not a concern,
but accruing wealth at the expense of the poor is"

It is a huge step forward that the root cause of the failed local
state is being recognized -- at least in some ANC circles.

It is also a good thing that the national government is reportedly
planning to strip ANC provincial and regional executive committees of
their powers to deploy party officials rather than appoint
professionals to municipal positions. The problem is that, instead,
the ANC plans to centralize its deployment powers nationally --
which will predictably make the consequences of cadre deployment
even worse.

This was dramatically and powerfully illustrated as events unfolded
during the week.

On Tuesday, President Zuma convened a meeting to discuss the crisis in
local government with mayors and municipal managers from throughout
South Africa. The most interesting aspect of this meeting was the
frank analysis by various mayors, of the impact of "cadre deployment"
on service delivery. One mayor complained that the local ANC
structures in her town regarded her as a deployed cadre.
This meant she could not fulfill her functions as mayor. When she
sought to take an impartial decision in the interests of good
governance, she was countermanded. She was told that unless she
followed the party's instructions she would be "redeployed". The
party's instructions, of course, come from a small clique of local
leaders, usually seeking to promote their personal wealth and
influence.

Another mayor received applause when she described service delivery
boycotts as a manifestation of faction fights within the ruling party.
If one local ANC faction controlled "deployment" into local
government structures, an opposing ANC faction would deliberately
disrupt service delivery (by blocking the sewage system, for example)
in order to create a reason for people to protest in the
streets. This was then dressed up as a "service delivery" protest,
with the express purpose of achieving the redeployment of local
leaders, and replacing them with their rivals.

Before the week had ended, this prediction had come to pass.

Julius Malema was given a hero's welcome in Standerton, when he
arrived to announce the "recall" of the Lekwa mayor, the speaker, the
chief whip and all members of the mayoral committee. Significantly it
was not the Minister of Local Government, Sicelo Shiceka, who went to
Lekwa to issue instructions. It was Malema, the populist demagogue,
who showed he was in charge. Malema's visit to Lekwa
this week demonstrated exactly what the ANC meant when it said it
would remove "deployment powers" from local ANC structures, and
centralize them nationally.

Ironically, as Malema was firing the Lekwa mayor, an independent
ranking of local authorities placed the municipal district in which
the Lekwa council is situated, in fourth position -- a very good
ranking -- on the service delivery improvement index of local
government throughout South Africa.

Irrespective of whether the Lekwa mayor and the mayoral committee were
doing their jobs properly, or whether their removal from office was
justified, the implication of their firing is clear. As the ANC's
faction fights intensify, they will increasingly manifest themselves
as "service delivery protests" with the aim of repeating the Lekwa
precedent. It is not far-fetched to imagine Julius
Malema and his cohorts controlling a centralized "deployment"
committee, determining which ANC cadres will control every
municipality. Any mayor or municipal manager that acts independently,
or that differs from the ANC's Malema faction, can expect to face
"service delivery protests" resulting in redeployment.

This is the inevitable result of the cadre deployment policy.
Centralising cadre deployment will make things worse, not better. It
is time to abandon cadre deployment completely and appoint or elect
people to positions on the basis of their capacity to do the job, not
as a return for political favours. It is time to restore and respect
the distinction between the party and the state.

The greatest irony of the week was that this point was stressed by
none other than Mr Joel Netshitenzhe, as he announced his resignation
from the President's office. It was Joel Netshitenzhe, as the ANC's
chief policy guru, who first articulated and promoted the cadre
deployment policy in 1997. Writing in the ANC mouthpiece Umrabulo, he
said "transformation" meant "extending the power of the
'National Liberation Movement' over all levers of power: the army, the
police, the bureaucracy, intelligent structures, the judiciary,
parastatals, and agencies such as regulatory bodies, the public
broadcaster, the central bank and so on."

He approved of this approach while the Mbeki faction was in power and
controlled cadre deployment. When this faction lost power, Mr
Netshitenzhe changed his mind. When people who abuse their power lose
their power, and become victims of power abuse themselves, they become
instant converts to the cause of preventing the abuse of power. The
wheel has turned and the man who was the architect of
the policy to fuse party and state, argues for their separation as an
essential element of democracy. Every convert is a victory in this
battle. But there is still a long fight ahead.

State of Local Government Overview Report

2009-10-23T20:22:00.001+02:00

Fortnightly bulletin for rates and tax payers.

For summaries of all news, please go to the NTU/NBU website www.ntu-sa.net
<http://www.ntu-sa.net/>

Please pass this on to all interested and affected parties.

Number 24

October 23, 2009

Our news this week is all about the Government Report on the state of local
municipalities.

There are no surprises: the report reveals issues that have been agitating
ratepayers for years. However, this report has now brought all these issues
into the open, and ratepayer associations can now begin to pressure
municipalities to bring in change. This document would be a very important
resource for ratepayers to identify problems within their municipal
districts.

There are two very important aspects to this report:

1. The report makes mention of the fact that municipalities have been
allocated a one-size-fits-all responsibility, which not all municipalities
are able to fulfil because of factors such as their tax-base, geographical
locations, etc. (Large metros with businesses and industries fare better
than small towns with high unemployment, for instance). The report also
mentions the need for better communication between the three tiers of
government. However, you as a ratepayer should not allow your municipality
to use this as an excuse for non-delivery. Local government is going to try
everything in their power to shift the blame onto someone or something else
(it is a human response) - if they try to do this, you must point out the
second item:

2. Through-out the report, in every section and under every heading,
the point is made again and again and again that service delivery has been
compromised by political deployment, infighting, corruption, nepotism, party
loyalty and incompetence. This has been underplayed by almost everybody in
government connected with the report. However, you must not let them get
away with it - these issues have now been publicly stated and the time is
right for ratepayers to demand that something is done about it. Highlight
these issues in your own municipality and demand action.

Here are some more elements of interest out of the report:

The report ranked municipalities on various delivery mandates, such as
services, water quality, maintenance, financial controls, fiscal discipline,
debt recovery, community involvement, etc.

The worst-performing province is KZN, followed by Eastern Cape and Limpopo.
The best-performing provinces are Western Cape and Gauteng. The worst of
all the municipal districts is Mbashe in the Eastern Cape, followed by
Msinga in KZN. It was difficult to identify the best-performing
municipalities, as the top few all excelled in different areas. However,
78% of the highest-performing municipalities are in the Western Cape.

75% of municipalities cannot function without government grants. Many
municipalities have so few skills that only a fraction of the municipal jobs
are filled, and there are several municipalities that have created
extra-numery jobs with no relation to service-delivery (clearly in order to
create jobs-for-pals). In one extraordinary case, the tea lady was given
the job of Municipal Finance Manager. Another huge problem was the lack of
communication between officials in municipalities and communities.

Of the six Metros, Cape Town was the best-performing in terms of service
delivery, while Ethekwini was the worst.

I cannot post the whole report, as it is a huge document, but if anyone
wants a copy, please mail me with 'Government Report' in the subject line
and I will send it to you.

If you would like to be placed on this mailing list, please send a reply to
nikimoore@7th-Avenue.co.za

" SUPPORT THE ANTI-TERRORIST!! JOIN THE NEW WORLD ORDER RESISTANCE."

2009-10-20T14:26:00.001+02:00

YES "YOU" ARE THE RESISTANCE AGAINST "THEIR" NEW WORLD ORDER.

YOUR LIFE AND HEALTH,AS WELL AS MOST BASIC RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS MAY BE
IN SERIOUS DANGER,NOT NECESSARILY FROM THE H1N1 VIRUS,BUT RATHER FROM
THE THREAT OF FORCED VACCINATIONS WITH INSUFFICIENTLY TESTED AND
UNPROVEN TOXIC VACCINES,AS MANDATED BY THE NWO'S WORLD HEALTH
ORGANIZATION AND SOME UNSCRUPULOUS VACCINE MAKERS WHO ARE MOTIVATED BY
MAJOR PROFITS AND WHO MAY BE UNBURDENED FROM ANY POTENTIAL LEGAL
LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES THEY MAY CAUSE.
IF YOU BELIEVE IN FREEDOM OF CHOICE AND THE RIGHT OF INDIVIDUALS TO
SAY NO TO ASSAULT ON THEIR PERSONS, WITH UNWANTED VACCINES, PLEASE DO
YOUR PART! DO NOT ASSUME THAT SOMEONE ELSE WILL DO THIS FOR YOU, NOR
THINK THAT THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO. NOW PLEASE DO SOMETHING!!!

PLEASE DO ALL YOU CAN TO PROTECT YOURSELF and YOUR LOVED ONES by:
1. informing yourself and others about ALL these issues we all face,
from all sides, from all available sources,
2. protecting your own health through good nutrition, living habits,
hygiene, and by using common sense,
3. stocking up on essentials for possible periods of self-quarantine
(voluntary or mandatory),
4. protesting publicly by signing related petitions, writing letters,
making phone calls to government members,
and / or filing civil court injunctions, etc and resisting all
attempts or suggestions of forced vaccination,
5. by taking it upon yourself to organize meetings locally, in your
town, and your neighborhood to
discuss and to educate your fellow citizens about your concerns with
H1N1 and Vaccine issues.
===================

YES "YOU" ARE THE RESISTANCE AGAINST "THEIR" NEW WORLD ORDER.

We ask that you all swear an oath to defend we the people and
everything our four fathers died and fought for.

Gen. George Washington, to his troops before the battle of Long Island
- "The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether
we people are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any
property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are
to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of
Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them.
The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage
and Conduct of this army" -- Gen. George Washington, to his troops
before the battle of Long Island

Such a time is near at hand again. The fate of unborn millions &
millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of
this Resistance Army.

" A wise person knows good self defense and good home defense is very
important to protect everything important." Good Self Defense = Mixed
Martial Arts, etc.... Good Home defense = Guard Dogs, Alarm systems
that release Dogs and other things ;), and when all else fails
AR-15's, AR- 10's, etc......

NOTE : To all Oath Keepers currently serving military, reserves,
National Guard, peace officers, fire-fighters, and veterans who swore
an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies,
foreign and domestic … and meant it.

won't "just follow orders."

Below is our declaration of orders we will NOT obey because we will
consider them unconstitutional (and thus unlawful) and immoral
violations of the natural rights of the people. Such orders would be
acts of war against the American people by their own government, and
thus acts of treason. We will not make war against our own people. We
will not commit treason. We will defend the Republic.
Declaration of Orders We Will NOT Obey

Oath Keepers : Declaration of Orders We Will NOT Obey
http://www.facebook.com/l/f5e2d;oathkeepers.org/oath/2009/03/03/declaration-of-orders-we-will-not-obey/

===================

"Canadians" I want you to check into a very dangerous bill called :
Bill C-6, because if it passes Canadians and their Freedoms and Rights
are in major trouble. Harper is a puppet to the "Bilderberg Group"
(NWO Elites). If you use google and investigate you will see that
Harper was photographed at a secret Bilderberg Group meeting in 2003
before he was put into power. Just so you Canadians know, Harper also
owns into some pharmaceutical companies. That is why these fascist
bills like Bill C-6 are trying to slide through. Think about it!
Notice how they get NO MAJOR MEDIAS REPORTING ON THESE BILLS. Look
into who owns most of all the medias and news papers in Canada and
America. Mostly all Jewish people. You think that is a coincidence?
NOT A CHANCE.

====================

They just disabled 3 more New World Order Resistance Groups and
Cancer truth groups that had thousands and thousands of members. JIDF
( Jewish Internet Defense Force ) was also involved in hacking,
hijacking and then disabling all groups. They do not want the truth to
get out you guys. Why do you honestly think there is a Jewish Internet
Defense Force? Think about it! Please Boycott Zionist products and
corporations. It is time we stop giving them our money to fund them
and their agendas. It is up to you all to do your part more now than
ever. It is the truth that is going to help us, so please step it up.
We need you all.

=================

I'm still amazed that even to this day, people refuse to believe that
a New World Order agenda exists. The Key players in the G20 and the G8
as well as other private interests are leading us down this path and
make it no secret. Why still the debate then? Why do people who try to
warn others of this agenda still get called conspiracy theorists or
nut jobs?
The time for debating whether this agenda exists or not is now over.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=15794609634#/video/video.php?v=1125492057009&ref=mf

Head of FBI J. Edgar Hoover quotes:
We must now face the harsh truth. The individual is handicapped by
coming face to face with a Conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe
it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of
the evil which has been introduced into our midst.

The Illuminati consist of the Jesuits and some of the world's richest
families including the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, Warburgs and the
Windsors. While they pay lip service to religion, they worship
Lucifer. Their agents control the world's media, education, business
and politics. These agents may think they are only pursuing success,
but success literally means serving the devil. Prisoners of their
wealth, the Illuminati prefer hatred and destruction to Love.
Understandably, they can't go public with this. They pretend to be
moral while working behind the scenes to degrade and enslave humanity
in a "new world order." Hiroshima, Dresden, Auschwitz, Cambodia and
Rwanda were sacrifices to their god Lucifer. They are responsible for
the two World Wars, the Depression and the Cold War. Sept. 11, 7/7,
the War on Terror and the Iraq War are their latest achievements. The
Illuminati Conspiracy Against God by HENRY MAKOW PhD

Below is another NWO Resistance Group under construction that needs
more members and support

The New World Order Resistance Movement. Join The Movement"We Need You All"
http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?id=1256647404&gv=12#/group.php?gid=17999704846&v=wall

==================

Thank you for everything

Love you all

NWO Resistance
--------------------

DA@WORK 19 October - DA reveals how huge Eskom hike could have been avoided

2009-10-19T22:05:00.000+02:00

Sejamothopo Motau, DA Shadow Minister of Energy last week vocalised the
publics' concern and justifiable outrage at the prospect of a threefold
increase in electricity costs over the next three years.
"It is unacceptable for Eskom and government to expect the costs of their
failures to be covered by ordinary South Africans. In an economic
environment which has placed the public under immense financial pressure,
these increases are simply not affordable," said Motau

Motau then outlined a practical solution to Eskom's problems: to allow for
independent power producers (IPPs) to contribute to electricity
generation.
He added that this solution had been blindingly obvious to government for
some time
Motau described how Eskom alone did not have sufficient capacity to meet
all power requirements and that the IPPs were the only long term option
that would provide sustainable and affordable electricity production
"If IPPs were allowed into South Africa, there would be no threat of load
shedding or a trebling of electricity prices – greater competition in
electricity production and distribution would lead to lower prices for the
consumer," said Motau

Motau then revealed how despite the obvious advantages of allowing private
firms to supply electricity, the ANC government had done everything in its
power to exclude these suppliers.
He added that problems with the awarding of tenders, approval of licenses
as well as a lack of a coordinated energy policy had all conspired to
create the current situation.

"It is ultimately the taxpayer, and the consumer of electricity, who is
paying for this lax attitude towards such a crucial policy area. It is
infuriating to realise that the enormous costs for the public emanating
from the proposed 45% electricity tariff increase could have been avoided
if IPPs were allowed." Motau added

The DA will be posing questions as to why this has not happened already,
and will request a fast track plan for the introduction of IPPs into the
power grid.
Read more http://www.da.org.za/newsroom.htm?action=view-news-item&id=7412

Ratepayers Newsletter - October 17th

2009-10-17T14:48:00.001+02:00

Fortnightly bulletin for rates and tax payers.
For summaries of all news, please go to the NTU/NBU website www.ntu-sa.net
Please pass this on to all interested and affected parties.
Number 23
October 17, 2009

It's all bad news, I'm afraid.

The number of riots and violent protests over bad service delivery and
collapsed municipalities is growing: Sakhile township in Mpumalanga
is calm, but protests are erupting in Sabie, Belfast, Nelspruit,
Alberton and Diepsloot in Johannesburg. In Tshwane townships, the
problem is that the council cannot apply credit controls because
whenever they attempt to recoup outstanding service charges their
officials are attacked.

Power-struggles within municipalities have crippled the functioning of
the councils of the Orange River district, almost all the towns in the
North-West where infighting and rampant corruption in local councils
have led to the collapse of almost the entire province; and Qwa-Qwa.

A lack of capacity means that 15 out of 61 councils in KZN are
unsustainable and will shortly collapse. The Auditor –General has
also revealed that out of the 283 municipalities country-wide, only 3
have their finances in order. The MEC for Local Government in
Mpumalanga has revealed that all the municipalities in the province
are on the brink of collapse.

There is a growing crisis over the quality of water. 24
municipalities are pumping sewage directly into their local streams.
32 municipalities have been warned about the collapse of their sewage
systems by the national department.

And then of course there are the implications of the electricity
tariff increases. Have a look at the website to see what your
municipality is entitled to charge.

If you would like to be placed on this mailing list, please send a
reply to nikimoore@7th-Avenue.co.za

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "NTU Mailing List" group.
To post to this group, send email to ntu-mailing-list@googlegroups.com

"Free Clive Derby-Lewis"

2009-10-17T14:44:00.001+02:00

I should have been released one year ago today, but certain
politicians have succeeded in keeping me locked up in prison
unlawfully.

Justice is not available to those in South Africa who are deemed to be
"from the wrong political order". Notwithstanding the price I have
paid in prison time for being convicted of killing Chris Hani, I have
been "left to rot in jail" by individual ANC politicians and some
bureaucrats, who have taken it upon themselves to effectively block my
parole by political means.

People from across the entire political spectrum, from far left to far
right including scores of black and white prisoners, tell me that
"everyone knows" I am being kept in prison regardless of the merits of
my parole recommendation and that if I had been anyone else there
would have been justice for me.

This parole was recommended by the parole board who recommended that I
be released on 15 October 2008. Now, one year later, I am still in
prison with little hope of being treated fairly.

Clive Derby-Lewis, 15 October 2009
Prison Number: 93623417
Pretoria Central Prison
Potgieter Street
0001, PRETORIA
--------------------

SA Today: Cosatu wants to abolish property rights. The DA wants t o abolish poverty

2009-10-17T12:59:00.001+02:00

SOUTH AFRICA TODAY
A WEEKLY NEWSLETTER BY THE LEADER OF THE DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE, HELEN ZILLE
FRIDAY 16 OCTOBER 2009

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Cosatu wants to abolish property rights. The DA wants to abolish poverty

How would you respond if you learnt that the South African Government
had been infiltrated by an organisation that had never been elected,
and whose aims were to eliminate private property, nationalise the
mines and food, and abolish parliament? What if you learnt that this
group had inserted ministers in government to drive policy objectives
that have brought disaster everywhere in the world
where they have been implemented?

In South Africa there are two such groups -- the South African
Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions
(COSATU). This week's SA Today focuses on Cosatu following its recent
Congress.

The DA unequivocally supports the rights of workers to form trade
unions to protect and promote their interests. Cosatu does not
confine itself to this role. Having received no votes from the South
Africa public, it is seeking to take over an elected party from
within, and to dictate policy in the highest councils of the state.

It is interesting to compare media coverage of Cosatu's 10th National
Congress last month with what actually happened. The newspapers and
TV covered the standing ovation for President Zuma, the calls to do
away with inflation targeting and the personal attacks on Trevor
Manuel.

What they did not cover were the actual resolutions passed at the
congress. These make chilling reading. They are freely available on
the Cosatu website.

In its "Draft Workers Manifesto Framework for a Socialist South
Africa", Cosatu says that "As part of the revolutionary proletarian
movement, Cosatu must develop its own guide to the struggle for a
socialist revolution". The revolutionary programme must have "A
Marxist dialectical and historical materialist approach".

The most dangerous element of Cosatu's rhetoric is the myth that its
policies will benefit the poor. Quite the contrary. The history of
the last century has demonstrated that this path inevitably leads to
the dead-end of dictatorship and impoverishment.

The lessons of history have escaped Cosatu whose "Long Term
Revolutionary Demands" include:

· Abolish bourgeois private property.

· Nationalise, socialise and democratise all key strategic means of
production in South Africa such as land, water, minerals, mines,
banks, oil companies, shipyards, telecommunications, transport, food,
housing, etc, etc, etc

· Abolish the bourgeoisie executive, parliamentary and justice system,
and replace them with working class state structures.

Presumably, these "working class state structures" will resemble those
set up by Comrade Lenin in Russia in 1917 and carried on so
enthusiastically by his faithful acolyte, Comrade Stalin. In North
Korea such working class structures are now headed by Comrade Kim
Jong-il (known in revolutionary circles as "The Dear Leader").

The policies promoted by Cosatu have always and everywhere been
disastrous. Always and everywhere, they have bought brutal, crushing
poverty to the people and exclusive power and privilege to a small
ruling elite. Always and everywhere, people have tried to move away
from communist countries: from East to West Germany, from North to
South Korea, from Cuba to the USA, from Communist China to
Hong Kong - there are no exceptions.

Cosatu particularly admires "the Cuban Revolution". In 1959, despite
the fact that reforms were urgently needed under the deeply corrupt
President Batista, Cuba was one of the richest, most developed
economies in Latin America. People wanted to come to Cuba. Castro's
revolution progressively wrecked the economy and impoverished Cuba.
The average wage is now $20 (R150) per month, although
Castro himself is ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the world's
richest men. Free trade unions are banned, only one party is allowed,
homosexuals have been persecuted, people with AIDS are reportedly
interred, and human rights have been crushed. People want to leave
Cuba: hundreds of thousands have fled; thousands have died while
trying to flee. Fidel Castro, after more than three decades
as dictator, has handed power over to his own brother. Such is the
model that Cosatu wants us to emulate.

The media gives the impression that the battle lines within the ANC
coalition are drawn on matters of personality and detail between
Trevor Manuel, head of the National Planning Commission, and Blade
Nzimande, Minister of Higher Education and head of the Communist
Party. (Incidentally, the one thing these two agree on completely is
the need to drive million Rand BMW motorcars at the tax-payers'
expense.)

This obscures the real battle within the ruling alliance, which is
over economic policy. The ANC's Polokwane Conference in 2007, where
Jacob Zuma replaced Thabo Mbeki as leader of the party, did nothing to
resolve the internal conflict. Cosatu was instrumental in Zuma's
coming to power, and now demand their pound of flesh. They seek to
present the economic debate as a simplistic contestation
between the "markets" and the "state".

This characterisation is obsolete and wrong. Successful market
oriented economies have strong and competent states. The real debate,
in every policy sphere, is about the specific role of the state and
the appropriate role of the market. In South Africa, the role of the
state should be to support people accessing the market economy, rather
than creating barriers to entry. All policies -- from
education to transport -- must be designed to open opportunity. Yet
Cosatu wants to shut down the market economy and prevent access to it.

When it pretends to be "pro-poor", the reality is that its policies
are pro-poverty. South Africa is now in the precarious position of
having 5 million personal registered tax-payers and 13 million people
dependent on social grants. This trajectory is unsustainable.

There are many leading figures in the ANC who understand this. The
growing tension between them and the "entry-ists" from Cosatu and the
SACP will escalate. This will, in all likelihood, culminate in
another split -- this time over economic policy -- within the next
five years. Indeed the period between now and the next general
election in 2014 will be fraught with risk for our developing
democracy. The greatest danger is that demagogues will increasingly
win the battle for control of the ANC, using race and populist
promises to mobilise support. Their cause will be driven by the
tragic fact that South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in
the world.

We urgently need a serious debate on the factors that make it so
difficult to reduce these inequalities. This is a complex debate, but
if we do not engage it, we leave the field wide open to the populists
who seek to enforce equality by destroying the economy, and thereby
ruining prospects of development.

We also need reliable research into the factors that continue to
increase inequalities. The populists claim that it is the result of
the "market". It is far more probable that the state has become the
primary driver of inequality in South Africa today. The extent to
which the ANC and its allies abuse the state for the accumulation of
wealth by a small elite with strong political connections
has increased, rather than reduced inequalities in our country.

Instead of removing the barriers to entry into the economy, the ANC
government built barriers, ironically in the name of "transformation".
This is a code word to justify the manipulation of tenders and
contracts in favour of the well-connected few.

The newspapers are regularly filled with reports of deals such as
those that enabled Gijima AST (with key links to the Zuma inner
circle) reportedly to turn over R3bn last year, 44% of which was
business with government. Sandile Zungu, another key Zuma associate,
recently received an outrageous R60m plus settlement from Transnet on
a case that he was considered unlikely to win. Procurement in
parastatals like the SABC is under investigation for crony deals, as
is SAA and as should be Eskom and Thubelisha. They all involve some
allegation of privileged relationships with service providers and/or a
political connection. It is routine for politicians and civil
servants to start their own companies to which they award tenders.

As the ANC's favoured inner circle gets smaller and smaller (and
richer and richer), inequality grows exponentially, especially as
educational outcomes decline and employment escalates during a
recession. But by blaming "apartheid" or "whites" or the "market",
the ANC and its allies in Cosatu can shift the blame and hide the
truth.

Odendalsrus protest march

2009-04-18T16:35:00.001+02:00

Media release

Early in March two women were tortured and murdered in the most
inhuman way thinkable. Mrs. Allice Lotter (78) and her daughter Helen
(57) of Allanridge in the Free State (South-Africa) were attacked with
knives and pieces of glass. After the three terrorists cut the elderly
women with their knives, broken glass was forced into their private
parts. A friend of the family said that one of the women's breasts
were cut off, and anti-white slogans were "painted" (with the breasts)
on the walls. These barbarous methods were also used in the late
1950's in the Belgian Congo.

This barbarous attack led to the K.OB (Committee of Public Relations
of the Boerevolk) initiating a protest march in front of the court
where the bail application of the attackers would be heard.

A simulation of this barbarous attack was staged and a dummy of a
murderer was set alight in front of hundreds of people. A poster with
the words "burn in hell" was placed on the dummy.

The reality that there are only about 2 million white people left in
South Africa, is slowly sinking in. Of the more than 100 000 white tax
paying Boer farmers that fed the country before 1994, there are now
only 13 500 left !

White Genocide in South Africa is a reality.

The K.O.B. of the Boervolk as well as the BVS will continue to stage
such protest actions against Boer genocide.

A copy of the Boerevolk's "Majuba declaration" was also delivered to
mr. Ban Ki-moon of the UN.

Edwin Leemans
Chairman of K.O.B (Committee of Public Relations) of the BVS

'White dogs will be killed'

2009-01-08T21:51:00.001+02:00

08/01/2009 08:42 - (SA)

Tom de Wet

Welkom - An elderly farmer was allegedly called a "white dog" by
police officers, and told that "all white dogs in South Africa will be
killed".

For several weeks now, Volksblad has reported complaints from the
community about poor service delivery and alleged brutality by the
police in Odendaalsrus.

Apparently they even stood watching while a woman was cruelly
assaulted by the father of her child, despite her having a domestic
violence interdict against him.

Rudi van Vuuren has visited the new station commissioner, Senior
Superintendent MB Mbongo, to discuss what happened to his father, Gert
van Vuuren, 68, on his farm on Saturday. Gert was the head of the
Odendaalsrus police reservists for many years.

He was advised to file a complaint against the police officers involved.

Called a racist

Rudy said three police officers arrived on the farm Hilton in a police
vehicle at about 14:00 on Saturday. They told his father they were
there to bring the R100 which a former farm labourer owed him.

One of them asked why Gert would take money from a poor man, whereupon
he answered that the man owed him the money.

One of the constables then allegedly called Gert a racist and also
cursed his mother.

Gert told them to leave the farm immediately, whereupon they allegedly
pulled out their guns and called him a white dog. They then left.

When they returned later on, Rudy's mother telephoned her son.

Upon his arrival on the farm, the policeman once again cursed his
parents and his sister.

They tried to leave when he arrived, but he blocked the road with his
vehicle and took a pen and paper to get their names.

They apparently refused to identify themselves at first, but after he
told them that he used to be a major in the commandos and that he knew
his rights and the law, one of the policemen identified himself. The
driver of the vehicle, who was doing the cursing, also identified
himself.

Reinforcements

Rudy said he then tried unsuccessfully to call the police station in
town and 10111 in order to file a complaint against the policemen and
get them off the farm.

While he was on the phone, one of the policemen allegedly told Rudy he
could call Welkom, Bloemfontein and Pretoria; but no one would or
could touch him.

After Rudy had moved his vehicle and ordered the policemen to leave
the farm, they refused to do so and said they were waiting for
reinforcements.

The reinforcements then arrived, in no less than eight police vehicles.

When Rudy questioned this, he was told they had been called out to the farm.

Apparently they were told that a farm worker was being assaulted by
the farmers on the farm and that the policemen who had wanted to help
the man had been attacked, cursed, threatened at gunpoint and that the
dogs had been set loose on them.

Rudy said he would like to know, among other things, why charges of
defeating the ends of justice and crimen injuria were now being
investigated against him and his father.

He would also like to know what the police had to do with private
matters such as the return of R100 and, to top it all, how they could
use a police vehicle to do so while they were on duty.

Complaint

Provincial police spokesperson Superintendent Sam Makhele said people
should first take their complaints to the station commissioner,
whereupon the matter would be handled through the right channels.

Police management understood the gravity of the allegations, but a
complaint should be filed against those police officers who commit
offences so that the offences could be investigated, he said.

- Volksblad

Source:News24

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2450016,00.html

Ratepayers Newsletter #6

2008-10-27T10:28:00.001+02:00

Weekly news bulletin of interest to ratepayers and tax-payers
Number 6
Friday October 24th 2008

News from Durban:

Correspondence over the last few weeks between various ratepayers and
the municipality has indicated that the municipality is ignoring all
protests and disputes, in the knowledge that ratepayers will eventually
have to capitulate. The problem is that legislation is so vague and so
open to interpretation that the only way to test it is in court. Recent
court cases have not been successful, mainly because ratepayers
associations have limited funds and are driven by volunteers, while the
municipalities have unlimited legal funds (derived from ratepayers!) and
time is on their side. Therefore the only solution is to ramp up the
pressure. The Combined Ratepayers Association (CRA) of Durban is
preparing a strategy to combat this, but it depends on a large number of
people taking part. Therefore it is vital that you forward this mail to
at least twenty people who would like to see an adjustment to their
rates - a future mail will outline our strategy. Additionally, the CRA
is about to spearhead a provincial ratepayers association, which will be
able to harness dissatisfied ratepayers across the province.

A summary of the problems with the Municipal Property Rates Act:

This latest property evaluation was the first time that properties were
valued according to their market value. Based on the new expected
values of the properties, Durban's council approved a rate randage of
0.9 cents in the rand, in order to gather enough income to meet their
latest budget (which has increased by 35%). Council expected that a lot
of new properties would become rateable and that rates would increase by
about 10% to 15%. However, most properties have increased enormously in
value and the evaluation was done during the peak of the property boom
when property values were at their highest. (Almost all properties have
decreased in value since then.) Therefore for most people their rates
increased by 100 - 500%. This huge increase in value has meant that the
actual rates income will exceed the budget considerably. It is
therefore vitally important that the council must be persuaded to
decrease the rate randage (which is the highest in the country). It is
also important that the municipality must delay the implementation of
the new Act till next year - which is the national norm. (By the way,
this anomaly is not confined to Durban - many cities and towns have
over-recovery of rates. Citizens are being stealthily over-taxed.)

Municipal officials have consistently threatened ratepayers who have
called a dispute with the council, that they will have their electricity
cut off. It must be repeated: if you have called a dispute on your
Metro bill, the municipality cannot take any action against you. This
has been confirmed by the City Treasurer.

There are many, many anomalies on Metro bills, and all of these are
grounds for a dispute. Please check your bills closely to make sure
that all charges are accounted for.

For more information on your rights and responsibilities as a ratepayer,
go to the CRA website <http://www.cra-durban.co.za/>
www.cra-durban.co.za

What's happening across South Africa:

National Ratepayers and Taxpayers (NBU) news: <http://www.nabuntu.org/>
www.nabuntu.org (There are currently 210 towns on the NBU's database)

The towns in South Africa where the ratepayers are withholding rates and
are performing services themselves are coming up with some extremely
innovative solutions to waste management. The spearhead of these
initiatives in Sannieshof, where the municipality's job has almost
entirely been taken over by residents (the municipality has done nothing
about this). The lady 'in charge' of Sannieshof, Carin Visser, has now
started an initiative to sort waste and to recycle, has introduced a
biological means of processing effluent that has proved extremely
successful, and is now investigating a mechanism whereby electricity can
be generated from the methane gas given off by sewerage. She recently
had a meeting with the MEC for Local Government where she laid out all
the problems experienced by the town, and we await any action from the
MEC. All this as a volunteer while running her own business!

The Masilonyana Municipality, which is in the Western Free State and
includes the gold-mining towns of Virginia, Brandfort and Theunissen,
has sent a letter to all its creditors informing them that it cannot
meet its current financial obligations. This has fairly serious
implications for service delivery, as no business person will supply
goods or services to the municipality unless there is some guarantee
that they will be paid!

The town of Molteno is experiencing constant water shortages. The
problem appears to be a low water level in the nearby dam and the fact
that only one pump is operational to serve 34 000 people. The NBU has
recommended that Molteno establish a ratepayers association and then use
this citizen muscle to take further steps to compel the municipality to
address the problem.

Johannesburg has been hit by a plague of rats, encouraged by the poor
refuse removal and blockage of drains. The Municipality has had to
employ 69 workers to deal with the infestation. Worryingly, the recent
deadly arena-virus is caused by the presence of rodents, and several
diseases are linked to the presence of rats. Alarm bells should be
ringing if service delivery in South Africa's largest city is so poor
that it raises the spectre of a rat-plague.

The National Tax-payers Union had a second meeting with Helen Zille (the
first one was interrupted by the political upheavals in the ANC). It
appears that Ms Zille was not aware of the extent of service collapse in
South African towns, and was also alarmed to be told that the problems
are as great in DA-controlled municipalities as in ANC or IFP-controlled
ones.

Any ratepayers association from anywhere in South Africa is also
encouraged to send their ratepayers' news to the writer of this
newsletter, so that it can be gathered into the weekly bulletin.

There are many other issues of relevance to ratepayers across South
Africa, and we will attempt to keep you informed on a weekly basis.
Please forward this mail to anyone who might be interested in this news.
If you want back-copies of this bulletin, please contact the writer at
<mailto:nikimoore@webstorm.co.za> nikimoore@webstorm.co.za

Helen Zille : SA Today - ANC’s political thuggery will lead to its demise

2008-10-25T12:31:00.001+02:00

A weekly letter from the Leader of the Democratic Alliance 24 October 2008
ANC's political thuggery will lead to its demise

The forced disbandment of the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO,
or "Scorpions") by the ANC yesterday underscores the post-Polokwane
drift of the ruling party into political thuggery. It happened in the
same week that two DA activists were brutally attacked by ANC
supporters in the Mogoba informal settlement near Daveyton, and ANC
loyalists threatened to kill Mosiuoa Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa.
Yesterday, the ANC used its majority in Parliament to muscle through
two bills which replace the Scorpions with a Directorate for Priority
Crime Investigation and locate the new outfit in the South African
Police Services (SAPS) rather than the National Prosecuting Authority
(NPA). Locating the new unit in the SAPS will not only render it far
less effective, but will undermine its independence. It is far easier
for politicians to interfere with the work of the SAPS than the NPA
because of the constitutional guarantee that the NPA must operate
"without fear of favour."
Given the success of the Scorpions, there is no rational,
public-interest argument for disbanding the unit, and the ANC has
never been able to muster one. It is telling that not one political
party or civil society organisation supported the decision to kill off
the Scorpions. I doubt whether there are many people outside the
ruling clique of the ANC who think it is a good idea.
ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe admitted that the decision was
taken to protect the ANC when I met with him at Luthuli House earlier
this year. He said, quite emphatically, that the Scorpions were being
disbanded because the unit was targeting ANC leaders. Jacob Zuma,
Blade Nzimande, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, Billy Masetlha, Nyami Booi (who was
yesterday appointed Chairman of the ANC's parliamentary caucus), Thaba
Mufamadi and Playfair Morule have all been investigated by the
Scorpions.
The nation's most effective corruption and crime-busting force been
sacrificed to protect the narrow, selfish interests of the ruling
party's leadership cabal. As constitutional expert, David Unterhalter,
told the Pretoria High Court during Hugh Glenister's bid to stop the
government from disbanding the Scorpions: "This is not being done in
order to create a better oiled machine, it is being done to carry out
the narrow interests of the ANC as a political party".
The ANC leadership may be celebrating the Scorpions' demise, but it
should be worried; worried because, in killing off the Scorpions, it
has revealed everything that is wrong with the ruling party. The ANC
has demonstrated its contempt for Parliament, its contempt for the
views of the people and its contempt for the Constitution.
The dissolution of the Scorpions is the logical outcome of the ANC's
model of closed, patronage politics in which the interests of the
party trump the rights of citizens and the higher law of the party
means independent institutions must be undermined or taken over if
they thwart the power abuse of the ANC's ruling clique.
The process through which the DSO was dissolved bore all the hallmarks
of closed, patronage politics, too. The initial decision to break up
the unit was taken by Jacob Zuma and his inner circle. It was then
passed as a resolution by approximately 4000 delegates at the ANC's
national conference at Polokwane in December last year. After that the
ANC in Parliament just went through the legal motions of implementing
the Polokwane decision, taken by people who were unelected by,
unrepresentative of, and unaccountable to the people of South Africa.
From beginning to end Parliament was sidelined, abused, and railroaded
by the ANC. The clearest indication yet that Parliament is being run
from Luthuli House came yesterday when Gwede Mantashe arrived at
Parliament to announce changes to the ANC's parliamentary caucus.
Mantashe has never been elected to office by the voters. He is not a
Member of Parliament. He is a member of the South African Communist
Party – a party that has never stood for election but now demands one
third of all the ANC's seats in Parliament. And it demands the right
to take decisions on behalf of the ANC and then impose such decisions
on Parliament. This takes the logic of closed, unaccountable, crony
politics to its logical conclusion. It entirely negates the struggle
to achieve democracy in South Africa.
The first test of democracy is the holding of free and fair elections,
the result of which must be accepted by all parties.
The second (and more difficult) test to pass is the willingness of the
winning party to be called to account, and to have its decisions
weighed and measured by independent institutions against the yardstick
of a bill of rights and just laws. This test of democracy requires
that ruling parties accept limitations on their powers by institutions
acting in the interests of the people as a whole, not just the ruling
clique of the majority party.
The third test is whether the ruling party will voluntarily cede power
when it is defeated at the polls or resort to violence, intimidation
and thuggery in order to stay in office. We are yet to submit to that
test, but the signs are not good. The ANC is growing increasingly
intolerant of opposition, and its intolerance is manifested both in
the militarisation of its discourse and the brutal behaviour of its
supporters.
This week I visited two DA activists in the Mogoba informal settlement
who had been violently attacked by a gang of men known to be members
and supporters of the ANC. They had been hacked with axes and
bludgeoned with shovels, and one of their homes was burned to the
ground. Deputy Minister of Justice, Johnny de Lange, callously
dismissed the whole episode as a DA publicity stunt.
Yesterday, ANC supporters tried to disrupt a rally held by the former
Minister of Defence, Mosiuoa Lekota, who plans to launch a breakaway
party from the ANC. The ANC thugs chanted "Kill Shilowa, kill Lekota".
With the warning signs so clear, we must succeed in one of our key
aims in the 2009 election – to hold the ANC below a two-thirds
majority, and thereby safeguard the rights entrenched in our
Constitution. The political realignment currently underway makes this
goal achievable.
The dissolution of the Scorpions is a Pyrrhic victory for the ANC: The
ruling party has won this battle, but lost any moral authority it once
had. Opinion formers that once mollycoddled the ANC now openly voice
their disapproval. Journalists that once soft-pedalled the excesses of
the ANC are now more inclined to interrogate its motives. Many of its
own supporters know, deep down, that the ANC is no longer the party of
Luthuli, Sisulu and Mandela. The spell has been irrevocably broken.
By destroying the Scorpions and resorting to thuggish tactics against
its opponents, the ANC is showing its true colours. In one sense, this
is a good thing. It confirms in the minds of more people that the ANC
is morally bankrupt. It sends out the clear message that the only way
for democracy to succeed is for South Africans to band together behind
a party that puts the Constitution first. I believe that the events of
the past week will prove to be a crucial step towards breaking the
ANC's dominance.
Best Wishes

'They came to kill'

2008-10-25T12:23:00.001+02:00

22/10/2008 09:16 - (SA)

Daniel Maluleke, Beeld

Pretoria - "They didn't come to steal, they came to kill," said a
devastated Veronica Roach after a group of robbers murdered her
husband, Rudi, 50, in the early hours of Tuesday morning on their
smallholding at Kameeldrift north-east of Pretoria - for two
cellphones and a few cans of beer.

Rudi was a teacher who had taught at Zwartkop High in Centurion for
the past four years.

He and his wife would have celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary
in a few months.

The couple's son, Rüdiger, 16, was shot three times.

Rüdiger, a pupil at John Vorster Technical High School in Pretoria,
was in a serious condition in the Montana Hospital in the city.

Died on the scene

Veronica and her daughters, Bonny Bekker, 26, and Kira Roach, 24, said
two armed men burst into their home at about quarter to one in the
morning and went to the couple's bedroom.

Rudi started shouting. The robbers ordered him to shut up and warned
him if he made any move, they would shoot him.

"My husband shouted loudly and they started shooting. He was killed on
the spot," Veronica said.

Her son emerged from his bedroom to see what the commotion was.

Veronica said she was lying on the bed. The robbers scrambled over her
to get to her son.

They shot him twice in the shoulder. Rüdiger ran away.

Still in hospital

"They followed him and another bullet hit him in the back."

The family said if Rüdiger hadn't reached his parents' bedroom so
quickly, something might have happened to his mother.

The robbers fled with the couple's cellphones.

Later empty beer cans were found in the yard. The robbers had taken
the beer from the outside fridge.

Bekker and her husband lived in a separate house on the smallholding.

They heard the shots and went to investigate.

"We couldn't believe that my dad had been murdered.

"We were shocked to see that my brother had also been shot. My husband
and I immediately called the police and took my brother to the
hospital," she said, crying.

Kira was in Johannesburg when the attack occurred.

- Beeld

Source:News24

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2413868,00.html

Cops return fire on mom's killer

2008-10-25T09:55:00.001+02:00

Barbara Cole

October 23 2008 at 02:41PM

Police working around the clock have tracked down the alleged killers
of a mother who died in front of her two little girls.

One man was arrested and the other, who is said to have put up a fight
when confronted, was shot dead.

Mary Visagie, 38, was shot in the stomach by gunmen who robbed her at
her rented Drummond home late on Friday night or early on Saturday
morning. The house is several hundred metres from the old Valley of 1
000 Hills Hotel.

It is believed the gunmen entered through an unlocked sliding door and
demanded the keys to her Corsa car. They were unable to get them and
Visagie ended up fatally wounded.

Her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter and six-year-old adopted
daughter tried to comfort her as she lay dying in the corridor.

"It was a horrifying scene and must have been traumatic for those
little girls," said Detective Inspector Keith Caswell of the
KwaZulu-Natal house robbery task team which was involved in the
investigations.

Visagie apparently told her girls to hide from the gunmen, but when
the suspects fled into the night, the children brought her pillows,
water and blankets. The gunmen took the only phone in the house, so
the children could not call the police.

But at about 7am, the eldest girl ran to a neighbour to say her mother
would not wake up.

Visagie and her husband, Jamie, were separated and their daughters are
now with their father. The children are undergoing psychological
counselling and returned to school on Wednesday.

Police arrested a suspect on Tuesday night and allegedly found him in
possession of an unlicensed weapon as well as items stolen from
Visagie's home. He is due to appear in court in Camperdown soon.

When police went to arrest the second suspect, he allegedly opened
fire and was shot dead.

The murdered woman's husband said he was waiting for police to
question the suspect as to why the robbery had escalated to such
violence.

The couple opened and used to own popular Burn nightclub in Durban and
Visagie still has the Red Door nightclub in Pietermaritzburg. They had
just closed down the Scaramouche Club in Hillcrest.

A memorial picnic gathering will be held for Mary Visagie at the
Monteseel view site at 10am on Saturday. Mourners have been asked to
bring along photographs, stories and mementoes for the little girls.

This article was originally published on page 3 of Daily News on
October 23, 2008

Source:IOL

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20081023115606223C580816

Inmates sang to drown screams

2008-10-25T09:48:00.001+02:00

22/10/2008 22:25 - (SA)

Vryheid - A Vryheid game rancher was being sodomised in a police cell
while the inmates were singing, the Pietermaritzburg High Court was
told on Wednesday.

The incident, which took place after midnight on January 27 2006, so
traumatised the manager, Zacharia Duvenhage, that he has moved to
Botswana to try to forget.

Game rancher, Etienne van Wyk, is claiming R1.2m from the Minister of
Safety and Security.

Van Wyk and Duvenhage were put into the Hlobane police cells after
they were arrested for transporting Van Wyk's game animals without a
licence.

Duvenhage was not sodomised but was assaulted and he is claiming R350
000 from the minister.

Their counsel, Advocate Gerrie Roberts SC, said the acting police
station commander was asleep and was not woken by screams of Van Wyk
while he was being sodomised.

Violent criminals

Van Wyk and Duvenhage were first held in a cell on their own, but
three female suspects were put into that cell and Van Wyk and
Duvenhage moved to the cell with 14 inmates.

Evidence given was that they could have been held in other cells, the
magistrate court cells or taken to other police stations. Three vans
were available to move them to other stations.

The 14 inmates included suspects predisposed to violence, Robert said.

Suspects included a man charged with three murders and arson, and six
men charged with rape. Other suspects were arrested for car theft and
housebreaking.

Both Van Wyk and Duvenhage have given permission for their names to be
used in the media.

The minister is contesting their claims.

Broke into song

Roberts said that because the police station commander did not respond
to Van Wyk's screams the inference was that he was asleep. Other
policemen did not respond to the screams either.

Roberts said that the prescribed hourly inspections of the cells
during their incarceration were not made.

The Vryheid district surgeon, Dr Senta Klingenberg, told the court
that there was evidence of repeated penetration of Van Wyk. There were
both external and internal tears.

She said that Duvenhage had two bruises on the head and on his back.

Roberts said that Van Wyk was sodomised at about 03:00 by one or more
inmates while others broke into song. Judge Nic van der Reyden said
that this was a ruse used by prisoners to mask the sound of a bar
being sawn or a similar incident.

Gate locked, no response

Roberts said that Van Wyk managed to phone his wife who contacted the
investigating officer in the game transport case.

The investigating officer went to the station and found the gate
locked. He phoned the station's number and heard a phone ringing in
the charge office, but no-one responded.

He sounded his vehicle hooter but there was no response and he climbed
the locked gate and went into the charge office where he found the
commander, an Inspector Mtshali, asleep at 03:55.

He took Van Wyk and Duvenhage to Vryheid district surgeon Dr Klingenberg.

She found tears, blood and bruising, indicating repeated penetration.

'Police must have known'

The former commander of the police station, Superintendent Isobel
Weiss, told the court that assaults had been perpetrated in the cells
and the policemen must have known about them.

She said that when inmates were singing, especially in the early
hours, cells should be inspected because "something could be up".

Weiss would not have put suspects charged with the type of offence
allegedly perpetrated by Van Wyk and Duvenhage in a cell with violent
criminals.

The case continues on Thursday.

- The Witness

Source:News24

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2414245,00.html

Gestapo tactics used by South-African Police

2008-10-24T01:16:00.001+02:00

Date: Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 1:15 AM
Subject: Gestapo tactics used by South-African Police
To: ireport@cnn.com, yourpics@bbc.co.uk, news@newsday.com, news@sky.com, margaretha@publicy.nl, foxnews@foxnews.com, press.office@bbc.co.uk, dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
Cc: mathet@saps.org.za, nmtyelwa@anc.org.za, ntshabalala@anc.org.za, crooksa@saps.org.za

Black Police use violence against white civilian women Wednesday evening at a public meeting concerning streetname-changes

The meeting was attended by different Afrikanergroups such as "Afriforum " and "Verkennersjeug".
The meeting started without a problem until a motion by Mr. Jan Beyers were being blatantly ignored . Mr. Jan Beyer's motion stated the meeting must be adjourned because it is unlawful , the city council already made up their minds to change the streetnames , it is not democratic and hence unlawful . While members insisted that the motion must be accepted , members of the police rapidly increased .
Emotions ran high between the group that's opposed to the changes and those who approve it . Members of the SACP (SouthAfrican Communist Party) and ANC (African National Congress) made their support of the streetname changes loudly clear .
Violence erupted when a member of SACP/ANC hit Mr. Jan Beyers with a chair over the head .
The black Police chose to act in favour of the SACP/ANC members by attacking the white people . One of the white people , an advocate , were beaten and unlawfully arrested .
Mr. Werner Smook , chairman of the "Verkennersjeug" said : " The arrest of one of our members was unlawful and the action of the police was unecesary violent and racist against whites . Members of the "Verkennersjeug" will file law-suits against the Metro-councel and Police .

After the arrest the lights of the meeting hall were switched off , the police then shot teargas into the dark hall . After this the meeting were restarted but the white people were not allowed by the Police to enter the hall again . On this principle the meeting was not democratic , it's a hoax , that is why we will reject the results .

Mr. Kallie Kriel of "Afriforum" pointed the man out to the Police who started the violence - an SACP/ANC member . The police ignored him and shoved him out of the hall . A senior member of the police in civilian clothes seriously assaulted Mr. Kallie Kriel without any cause .

The "Verkennersjeug" is a peaceful cultural organisation and regret the violent actions of the SACP/ANC and police who use Gestapo methods to intimidate citizens .

DA@WORK 20 October - Helen Zille is world's best mayor

2008-10-20T23:55:00.001+02:00

In this issue:

* QUOTES OF THE WEEK

* TOP STORY: DA PROPOSES STEPS TO EMPOWER PARLIAMENT

The DA proposed, among other things, that the technical
committee dealing with the parliamentary programme become a
multi-party committee.

* HELEN ZILLE IS WORLD'S BEST MAYOR

DA leader and mayor of Cape Town Helen Zille has been awarded
the 2008 World Mayor prize by City Mayors, an international urban
affairs think tank.

* NEW SAFETY AND SECURITY MINISTER MUST ANNOUNCE PLAN TO KEEP
SOUTH AFRICA'S CHILDREN SAFE

Last week, three year old Ayola Adonis was found dead metres
from her grandparents' home in Masiphumelele, Western Cape, from
whence she had been reported missing hours before.

* OPPOSITION DESERVES EQUAL PLATFORM, DA TELLS BROADCASTER

Helen Zille has written to the SABC requesting that the national
broadcaster give the opposition the same television platform accorded
to ANC President Jacob Zuma.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

"Helen Zille runs probably the most sensitive and challenging Unicity
in the world, yet has done so in a friendly, professional,
compassionate manner, using her outstanding leadership and
inter-personal skills to hold together a fragile political coalition
and deliver on the promises to ALL the people of Cape."

"My vote is for Helen Zille because she cares passionately about South
Africa and its people. A recent example of her compassion, leadership
and practical common-sense approach to problems is the recent refugee
crisis in Cape Town. When politicians were talking, Helen Zille was
acting and organising, setting up emergency shelters, arranging for
community help and getting her feet muddy. Go Helen, we need people
like you as leaders on our planet."

Two quotes selected from the thousands received by City Mayors
commending Helen Zille and her work in the City of Cape Town

TOP STORY: DA PROPOSES STEPS TO EMPOWER PARLIAMENT

The Democratic Alliance last Thursday proposed a number of steps to
empower Parliament to become a robust institution adequately holding
the executive to account for its actions and failures.

Briefing the media at Parliament, DA Chief Whip Ian Davidson and his
deputy, Mike Ellis, said Parliament was currently failing to fulfil
its constitutional obligations.

"The main reason for this failure is the disdain shown by the ANC
towards Parliament, especially with regard to its oversight role,"
they said.

The DA proposed, among other things, that the technical committee
dealing with the parliamentary programme become a multi-party
committee.

"All political parties should have a representative on this committee
so that any decision regarding what should be put on the parliamentary
agenda is a democratic one," they said.

In this way, the National Assembly programming committee would agree
to a programme which took into account the interests of all political
parties represented in Parliament.

The Assembly and National Council of Provinces rules on questions
should be amended to require the executive to request an extension in
writing if they had not replied to a written question within ten days.

To ensure all members of the executive appeared at least once a
parliamentary term, a question day for each government cluster and for
the Deputy President should be scheduled at least once a term.

Members of the executive who regularly failed to attend oral question
sessions without providing a valid excuse for their absence should
account to the Parliamentary Oversight Authority.

Those who continually failed to attend members' statement sessions
without providing a valid excuse for their absence should also account
to the authority, and the necessary action should be taken against
them.

The DA further proposed that interpellations (mini-debates) be
reintroduced to provide a collective solution for the problems
relating to oral question sessions, notices of motion, and members'
statements.

At least four 15 minute interpellations should take place per oral
question day so that lively interaction took place between ministers
and MPs.

On budget votes, the DA proposed the practice of splitting the House
into extended public committees be abolished to give every MP the
opportunity to attend all the budget debates.

Regarding legislation, every portfolio committee, when considering a
bill, should be required to comment on every submission received,
whether these inputs were included in the bill and, if not, the
reasons they were rejected.

The Assembly rules should also be changed so that the person elected
to be Speaker and Deputy Speaker could not hold a senior position in
any political party.

"We believe that these solutions will empower Parliament to become a
robust institution which adequately holds the executive to account for
its actions and failures and, in this way, remains answerable to its
voters.

"Furthermore, these solutions will ensure that the needs of all South
Africans, and not the political interests of the majority party, will
once again take precedence," Davidson and Ellis said.

Read the full review here >>

HELEN ZILLE IS WORLD'S BEST MAYOR

DA leader and mayor of Cape Town Helen Zille has been awarded the 2008
World Mayor prize by City Mayors, an international urban affairs think
tank.

Zille came out tops out of a group of 820 mayors from around the world
in the competition which has spanned 18 months. A shortlist of 50 was
selected from the 820 public nominations, which was later reduced to
11, and then to five.

Editor of City Mayors, Tann vom Hove, said last Monday that Zille had
dedicated her professional life to improve the well-being of South
Africans.

"Helen Zille was the judging panel's unanimous choice for the 2008
World Mayor Prize. This amazing woman was making a difference and
giving people hope. Her only equals in South Africa are Desmond Tutu
and Nelson Mandela," he said.

"She has dedicated all her professional life to further the well-being
of all sections of South African society. She has done so with
courage, tenacity and, above all, a deep-felt love for Cape Town, her
country and its people," Mr vom Hove added.

An outstanding mayor is described by City Mayors as someone who
possesses qualities of greatness, leadership and vision, has good
management abilities, is socially and economically aware and has the
ability to provide security and to protect the environment.

An excellent mayor also possesses the skill to foster good relations
between communities from different cultural, racial and social
backgrounds.

Commentators who supported her nomination said that in a country
devoid of present-day role models, Ms Zille was making a difference
and giving people hope.

The organisers stated that Zille had the most passionate and eloquent
supportive comments in this year's contest. "Her humanity, charm,
integrity, vision and political know-how have all been praised in
equal measures," said City Mayors.

Commenting on the announcement, Zille said: "It is a great honour to
have been awarded the World Mayor award. It is a tribute to the teams,
in the mayor's office, the city officials, my caucus colleagues, the
team in Parliament and my family who work tirelessly to support me in
everything I do."

"It is a great incentive for us to keep working to build democracy in
South Africa with opportunities for all."

Congratulating Zille on behalf of the Democratic Alliance, party
Chairperson Joe Seremane said that to beat 820 nominees from all over
the globe was a truly remarkable achievement.

"Helen and her team in the City of Cape Town are showing what can be
achieved within the DA's framework of an open, opportunity society for
all - we are proving that there is an alternative to the ANC, and this
alternative works," he said.

Under Helen Zille's leadership, the DA was growing from strength to strength.

"We have the courage, we have the vision and we have the plan to build
a truly non-racial alternative to the ruling party," he said.

"We look forward to next year's election, when the voters of South
Africa will have the opportunity to judge who they think is the best
person and the best party to take our country forward."

NEW SAFETY AND SECURITY MINISTER MUST ANNOUNCE PLAN TO KEEP SOUTH
AFRICA'S CHILDREN SAFE

Responding to the disappearance and subsequent murder of a three year
old toddler last Tuesday, DA spokesperson on child abuse Mike Waters
questioned whether enough was being done to protect South Africa's
children from harm.

Last week, three year old Ayola Adonis was found dead metres from her
grandparents' home in Masiphumelele, Western Cape, from whence she had
been reported missing hours before.

"While the police did respond swiftly, it was too late," Waters said.

He said that the Democratic Alliance had made several proposals to
improve child protection services to the previous Minister of Safety
and Security, which were ignored.

"We call upon the new Minister, Nathi Mthethwa, to address the public
on what he intends to do about child safety."

The party had proffered numerous suggestions including hosting a
National Missing Children's Day to raise public awareness of the
numbers of children who were reported missing every year.

"We have also proposed developing an SMS and photo link-up to the vast
network of private cellular phones in the country so that information
about missing children can be transmitted across the country almost
immediately."

He said that the party had approached South Africa's three cell phone
giants to develop such a system, but had had an apathetic response
from them.

Other suggestions included using radio stations to make public
interest broadcasts for missing children in a range of languages and
implementing 'Code Edith', similar in nature to Code Adam in the
United States, a means of instantly galvanising people in the
immediate vicinity of a reported abduction (e.g. in a shopping centre)
to search for the child.

"It is also vital that the Family Violence, Child Abuse and Sexual
Offences Units across the country are reinstated, and that a summit be
hosted where the government, the private sector and concerned citizens
can come together to decide on initiatives to tackle this problem,"
Waters said.

"The DA challenges the new Minister to put a viable action plan on the
table - let him now address the public with his plans to keep our
children safe."

OPPOSITION DESERVES EQUAL PLATFORM, DA TELLS BROADCASTER

Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille last Thursday wrote to the SABC
requesting that the national broadcaster give the opposition the same
television platform accorded to ANC President Jacob Zuma.

"I have today written to the acting CEO and Editor in Chief, Gabriel
Mampone, to request that he gives the Democratic Alliance the same
opportunity to set out its alternative vision and policies," she said
in a statement.

On Wednesday, the SABC hosted Zuma during a special broadcast
programme where the ANC president briefed listeners on recent
developments within the ruling party.

However, Zille said the special broadcast amounted to nothing other
than a platform for Zuma to spout party political rhetoric.

"Giving the president of the ANC a special platform without affording
the opposition the same opportunity is biased, partial and unbalanced.
This is particularly true in this case because Zuma used this platform
to say that the DA has no policies," she said.

The interviewer should not have allowed Zuma's statement on the DA to
go unchallenged.

"It is ironic for Jacob Zuma to make these comments when he has
steadfastly refused to join me in a televised policy debate, despite
repeated requests to do so. Perhaps if Mr Zuma agreed to debate me, he
might brush up on the DA's policies," Zille said.

The only way the SABC could rectify the injustice was by according the
DA the same opportunity it granted to Zuma.

"If the SABC refuses our request, it will confirm that it is not
motivated by the public interest, but a desire to suck up to whoever
is in power," Zille said.

Zille said she would insist on Mampone's appearance before
Parliament's Communication Portfolio Committee should the public
broadcaster fail to heed the DA's call.

DID YOU KNOW?

A reply to a parliamentary question by the Democratic Alliance has
revealed that maintenance by the SA Navy of many of the expensive Arms
Deal acquisitions including four frigates and three submarines, were
falling behind schedule.

The reasons for these limitations were said to include:

• More work was being outsourced to industry, as a result of the loss
of trained technical personnel

• But, in many instances industry also had a capacity problem in
coping with varying SA Navy requirements, adversely affecting the SA
Navy's maintenance and repair schedule.

• Because of resource limitations, the SA Navy has to rely on reactive
spares procurements, which resulted in long lead times while spare
parts are ordered and delivered.

• This exacerbated the co-ordination and scheduling of maintenance activities.

• Financial constraints have also required that the SA Navy acquire
spares judiciously.

The result of these issues meant that SA's force-readiness and defence
capability was compromised.

SA Today 18 Oct 08: Lekota's choice

2008-10-18T23:52:00.000+02:00

A weekly letter from the Leader of the Democratic Alliance 18 October 2008
Lekota's choice

Most casual observers of political developments would probably
describe the current situation in a single word: confusion. Many
believe this confusion can be resolved if all opposition parties
converge into a single large party to challenge the ANC's political
dominance. Instead of this happening, they see opposition parties
multiplying, with yet another due to be born on or around the 2nd of
November, when Mosiuoa Lekota holds his National Convention.
Choice is the essence of democracy. The terms "multi-party" and
"democracy" are inseparable. A country cannot be described as a
democracy unless there is a choice between different parties espousing
policy alternatives.
This truth can lead to the fallacious conclusion that the more parties
there are, the more choice there is. In fact, the number of parties on
offer does not automatically translate into more choice.
There is actually a clear choice between only two alternative
political philosophies for South Africa, each of which will take our
country in a fundamentally different direction. These diametrically
opposing options can be described, in summary, as the "open,
opportunity-driven society for all" versus the "closed,
patronage-driven society for some." An analysis of any party in the
South African political landscape shows that it fits within the
framework of one of these alternatives.
The ANC is the archetype of the "closed, patronage-driven party for
some". The defining feature of this kind of party is that the
prospects of each individual are determined by his links and access to
the small leadership network. The leadership promotes and protects the
network (inside and outside the party) and the network, in return,
protects and promotes the leadership. It is a closed circle based on
reinforcing mutual interests. It inevitably results in corruption and
power abuse. Merit and competence are entirely incidental in this kind
of system. The people with prospects are those loyalists who can be
relied upon to extend and entrench the network's control over all
levers of power both inside the party, and throughout society, and
follow its instructions. The approach is known as "the higher law of
the party" which is why Jacob Zuma repeatedly says that the ANC is
more important than the Constitution. He knows what he is saying, and
he means it. The SA Communist Part
y takes the "higher law of the party" to its logical conclusion. They
do not even bother to stand for election, but just secure safe
positions for themselves within the ANC's patronage network so that
they can assume their self-styled role in the "vanguard" of the
patronage movement.
It has to be said that this tendency did not start with Zuma. Thabo
Mbeki's ANC was a demonstration of the closed, patronage-driven
network in action. Its defining feature was the abuse of
constitutional mechanisms by the ruling clique in the ANC, to deploy
its own loyalists to control every state institution, from the SABC to
the National Prosecuting Authority and the police, in order to serve
its own interests, not the people. Cadre deployment was justified by
the "fig leaf" of the ANC's self-serving, crony version of affirmative
action, which was just a convenient moral cover for a sinister
purpose. And the network's tentacles extended into the private sector
through all manner of corrupt schemes (such as Chancellor House), to
entrench the party's influence into the private sector. Business,
increasingly realising that the prospects of winning state tenders
depended on the favour of the network, quickly adapted to a system
that would, if taken to its conclusion, lead to th
e demise of an open, market economy in South Africa. It is noteworthy
that Mosiuoa Lekota never objected to this planned process while Thabo
Mbeki was in power.
Things have changed, at least rhetorically, since the tables were
turned at Polokwane. Having lost his foothold in the power network,
Lekota has spoken out strongly and volubly in favour of the
independence of state institutions, and the supremacy of the
Constitution. Has he undergone a Damascene conversion? This is
possible. After all, there is no quicker way to undergo a conversion
to the philosophy of the "open, opportunity-based society" than losing
power in a "closed, patronage-based society". Most leading members of
the former National Party underwent this conversion, while only a few
followed Marthinus van Schalkwyk in his seamless transition to a new
closed, patronage network inside the ANC.
But the loss of absolute power often leads people, who previously
abused their power, to understand why independent institutions must
check power abuse, and why peoples' life chances should depend on
opportunities, ability and hard work, rather than their links to a
patronage network. Maybe Terror Lekota, Mluleki George, Mbhazima
Shilowa and Willie Madisha have indeed learned that lesson. We cannot
discount the possibility. If that is so, it would be a most welcome
development and will increase South Africa's democratic prospects
immeasurably. We are committed to facilitating the convergence of all
parties dedicated to promoting the "open, opportunity society for
all".
Whatever its prospects, the Lekota initiative's dilution of the ANC's
single party dominance is positive in itself. But it has to be said,
the prospects for a genuine "open, opportunity" alternative arising
out of the Lekota initiative seem limited by his followers'
determination to start what they call "the real ANC" which seeks to
brand itself as "more ANC than the ANC". This certainly holds the risk
of being yet another closed patronage party seeking the spoils of
office for the same purpose that drives the leadership clique of the
dominant faction of the old ANC. Time will tell and we will watch the
gestation of the new party very closely.
What of South Africa's other choices? There are, for example, a
plethora of parties, (ranging from the Minority Front to the Freedom
Front Plus) that openly position themselves in "niche" markets -- a
code word for ethnic and racial interests. In addition, there are a
range of other parties that try to disguise their "niche", but that
are also effectively ethnic parties, seeking to protect and advance
the interests of a single minority group. Such parties fall by
definition within the "closed patronage-driven" model.
Amichand Rajbansi's Minority Front is the classic example of its kind.
It openly canvasses as a party for Indians, promising to find them a
cosy nook under the wing of the dominant ANC. The ANC leadership
clique rewards this loyalty with minor patronage, positions, and other
favours as long as the MF remains sufficiently subservient. This
relationship is clearly reflected in the MF's groveling performances
in Parliament, which are reminiscent of the play-ground weakling
sucking up to the school-yard bully, who demands more and more
boot-licking in return for protection. When a new, stronger bully
takes control, the MF seamlessly switches allegiance, as it did from
Mbeki to Zuma.
This may create an illusion of security for minorities, but it
actually achieves the exact opposite. Their inalienable constitutional
rights and freedoms are voluntarily sacrificed to the whim of the
dominant bully of the day. In an open, constitutional democracy,
no-one should have to beg and barter on a group basis for favours and
hand outs. They should claim and protect rights, not only for
themselves, but for everyone. Those who voluntarily agree to
subordinate their rights in favour of securing patronage for specific
representatives of ethnic groups, actually help to undermine the
Constitution by entrenching the ruling party's capacity to abuse
power.
The FF+ argues that "niche parties" should exist because they can
negotiate good deals for the groups they represent, and potentially
hold the balance of power in governing coalitions. But they have no
power to break the mould of the dominant "closed, patronage" code.
They can only work as junior partners within it, bartering and
bargaining for favours for some of their members, who are themselves
chosen through the closed, patronage networks that are the defining
feature of small ethnically based parties. This approach offers no
protection for minorities. On the contrary, as Mugabe's Zimbabwe
demonstrated, they have to demonstrate more and more subservience in
return for fewer and fewer favours. They have to pick up the crumbs
tossed from the table of the dominant patronage party. Furthermore,
this approach guarantees that the dominant ethnic group entrenches and
abuses its power -- the most certain recipe for wholesale corruption
and economic decline Instead of protecting t
he rights and prospects of their members, small ethnic based parties
are doing the very opposite. They are reinforcing the closed,
patronage society that will always keep ethnic minorities firmly in
their submissive and powerless place, at the mercy of the majority
forever.
The only real alternative for South Africa, is to build a new
majority. A new majority that is based on shared values and
principles, not on arbitrary criteria such as ethnicity or race. South
Africa needs a new majority founded on the values of the Constitution,
which recognizes and protects each person's cultural and language
rights, and the right to freedom of association on the basis of these
rights. A society where these rights will be far more secure because
everyone protects them, not just the minority directly affected.
An open society where each person has the opportunities and the space
to shape their own lives, improve their skills and follow their
dreams. A society where people are not held back by arbitrary criteria
such as sex, religion, or colour, or the prejudice of those in power;
where outcomes are linked to opportunity, effort and ability, not
special favours; and where real opportunities are extended to more and
more people because the government is doing its job as the
constitution intended.
This is the alternative the Democratic Alliance promotes. And at
present we are the only party in South Africa that promotes this
vision in principle, policy and practice.
Of course, our detractors try to brand us as a "white" party. But the
truth is our leadership is more diverse than any other party, and so
is our membership. Our candidate selection process for the 2009
election seeks to extend our commitment to excellence and equity
throughout our party. Following a recent comprehensive political
survey, veteran pollster Professor Lawrie Schlemmer concluded that
"The Democratic Alliance is the most multi-racial party South Africa
has ever had."
So, in the end, despite the plethora of parties, there are only two
choices: the closed patronage society for some versus the open
opportunity society for all. Understanding this simple fact does a lot
to clear up the current political confusion.
Best Wishes

Stop a Zuma two-thirds majority

2008-10-14T20:49:00.001+02:00

Dear DA supporter

Our country is in grave danger of Jacob Zuma and his allies achieving
a two thirds majority in parliament. The consequences would be
disastrous. People like Julius Malema, Blade Nzimande and Zwelinzima
Vavi would have the power to change our Constitution and damage our
economy.

Help ensure Zuma doesn't get his way. Join thousands of volunteers
already working to win support for Helen Zille and the DA.

Here are six ways to help:

Give 30 minutes of your time to call 20 unregistered voters from your home.

Join other DA volunteers in local door-to-door registration drives and
neighbourhood walks.

Spread the DA's positive message of a safe and prosperous future for
all South Africans by writing in to newspapers, blogging or calling in
to talk radio shows.

Grow Helen Zille's DA volunteer team by asking your friends, family
and co-workers to get involved.
Build momentum for the DA by attending events and rallies, and show
the country how ordinary South Africans are lining up behind our
positive vision. Volunteer to help on Election Day. We need thousands
of volunteers to get out the vote and monitor the IEC in polling
stations.

DA@WORK 13 October - ANC split heralds a new and exciting political era

2008-10-13T15:56:00.001+02:00

DA@WORK 13 October 2008

DA LAUNCHES NEW EDUCATION POLICY
Entitled 'Preparing for success', it seeks, among other things, to
provide 25 000 high-quality teachers a year.

ZILLE AND MOTLANTHE MEET
On a political solution to Zuma's legal matters, Motlanthe gave Zille
the assurance that he was opposed to a political solution to a legal
problem, and that he regarded no one as above the law.

DISINTEGRATION OF THE ANC HERALDS A NEW AND EXCITING ERA IN SOUTH AFRICA
The DA was prepared to work with any party or individual sharing its
vision of a non-racial South Africa united behind the Constitution.

DA WELCOMES SCOPA DECISION ON ARMS DEAL
After many requests from the DA to do so, Scopa has finally agreed to
take the matter further at a committee meeting later this month.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"It is a fact that our leadership is more diverse than the ANC's,
which is completely uni-racial. Our membership and support base are
far more non-racial than the ANC's. In fact, in his most recent
political opinion survey, Professor Lawrence Schlemmer has concluded
that the DA is the most multi-racial party South Africa has ever had."

DA Leader Helen Zille responding to Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu's
statement last week, in SA Today http://www.da.org.za/?p=649, dispels
some popular myths about the DA

DA LAUNCHES NEW EDUCATION POLICY

The Democratic Alliance launched its new education policy last
Tuesday. Entitled 'Preparing for success', it seeks, among other
things, to provide 25 000 high-quality teachers a year.

Briefing the media at parliament, DA leader Helen Zille
http://www.da.org.za/?p=605 said the current education system failed
mainly because the key focus was not on quality education.

There were a small number of world-class schools but many schools that
ran on mediocrity, apathy and neglect.

"South Africa too needs to place the pursuit of excellence at the
heart of its policies on education and, in the policy we are launching
today, we make many proposals to do so," she said.

"We have many exceptional teachers who must be given the pay and the
recognition they deserve.

"At the same time, we cannot allow any longer a situation where
teachers arrive unprepared, late or not at all or where principals are
found to be out at lunch during school hours.

"The DA's proposals for performance management and for
performance-related pay will tackle this," Zille said.

DA education spokesperson George Boinamo said the policy was intended
to ensure that, within 15 years, all South African children emerged
from school literate and numerate at internationally benchmarked
levels.

The plan would guarantee a core minimum of resources for every school,
and steps, including linking schooling to child support grants - to
reduce the drop-out rate. It would also ensure that the school
nutrition scheme covered learners all the way through to matric.
"In addition to this, the education system must be restructured so
that excellence is recognised and valued, and poor performance is
rooted out."

Bold steps were needed to confront schools that were completely
dysfunctional and the DA would, among other things, create a dedicated
dysfunctional schools task team, implement a mentoring programme, and
set clear performance targets.

A strong emphasis would also be placed on ensuring that the
requirements of special-needs learners were adequately met.

On funding school education, he said the DA would support fee-free schools.

"But in allocating money, we will use a formula which also measures
schools' performance to give those schools that consistently produce
outstanding results an incentive to continue doing so.

"To further increase the options available to poor parents, every
school will be required to accept a minimum percentage of non
fee-paying pupils".

A nation-wide bursary voucher programme would be created aimed at
giving the most academically promising 350 000 children from
low-income families the opportunity to receive a better school
education," Boinamo said.

Deputy spokesperson Desiree van der Walt said the DA would aim to
ensure that, within five years, South Africa had access to an
additional 25 000 teachers a year, and that every child was taught by
qualified and committed teachers.

"To increase the number of teachers we train, we will work with
universities to establish satellite teacher training campuses in
remote areas and institute full study bursaries for quality candidates
who undertake to teach in specific under-privileged areas for two
years."

It was imperative that teachers were able to properly convey their
subject to their learners, and all teachers should write standardised
knowledge assessments in the subjects they taught.

Pay increases and promotions would be dependent on passing these tests.

Teachers would also be subject to a system of regular individual
performance review, something taken for granted in most other jobs.

"Performance and skills will become as much an accepted part of a
teacher's pay package as it is for any other professional.

To spread the skills of teachers with scarce skills more widely, the
DA would introduce the concept of Master Teachers who would teach a
single subject they had particular expertise in at several schools,
she said.

Click here to download the full
policy…http://www.da.org.za/wp-content/uploads/da_education_policy-preparing_for_success-2008-10-07.pdf

ZILLE AND MOTLANTHE MEET

President Kgalema Motlanthe has not ruled out a judicial commission of
inquiry into the arms deal, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille
said last Friday.

Speaking outside the presidential guest house in Pretoria after
meeting Motlanthe, Zille said she was encouraged by Motlanthe's
thoughtfulness on the issues she raised.

These ranged from crime, a judicial inquiry into the arms deal and a
political solution to African National Congress President Jacob Zuma's
legal matters.

"He certainly did not rule out any judicial commission of inquiry into
the arms deal when I asked him specifically about that."

She said the president had told her he was waiting for the appeals on
the Judge Chris Nicholson judgement regarding Zuma and the standing
committee on public accounts to deal with the issue, and then he would
definitely look at it.

"So I'm encouraged by that thoughtfulness and that focus."

She said the institutions of constitutional independence from the
ruling party also came up for discussion, and that Motlanthe had fully
agreed and that he gave his sincere commitment that he would defend
their independence.

On a political solution to Zuma's legal matters, Motlanthe also gave
Zille the assurance that he was opposed to a political solution to a
legal problem, and that he regarded no one as above the law.

"I put that question to him directly."

Zille reiterated that Zuma should not stand as a candidate for state
president until the cloud over him had lifted.

"I do not think that a potential candidate who has been accused of
taking 783 bribes over a period of 10 years, namely Mr Jacob Zuma,
should be eligible as a presidential candidate until the cloud over
his head has been lifted by due process of the law.

"That is why I believe it is completely untenable for him to be a
candidate until such time," said Zille

DISINTEGRATION OF THE ANC HERALDS A NEW AND EXCITING ERA IN SOUTH AFRICA

The Democratic Alliance last Wednesday welcomed former defence
minister Mosiuoa Lekota's move to realign SA politics.

"The DA welcomes Mosiuoa Lekota's sharp criticism of Jacob Zuma's ANC
and his call for a national debate to discuss the future of our
constitutional democracy," DA leader Helen Zille said.

"The disintegration of the ANC has begun, heralding an exciting new
era in South Africa. We have long championed the realignment of
politics which is now clearly underway," she said.

The DA was open to discussing the way forward with Lekota and his
colleagues and would seek an opportunity to do this as soon as
possible.

The DA was prepared to work with any party or individual sharing its
vision of a non-racial South Africa united behind the Constitution.

"We are committed to building a new political vehicle to tackle
poverty and unemployment, to root out corruption and to beat the
scourge of crime," she said.

"We share Mosiuoa Lekota's rejection of resurgent tribalism in the
ANC, the anti-constitutional rhetoric of Zuma's supporters and the
illegal and unconstitutional idea of a 'political solution' to the 783
counts of alleged bribery with which Jacob Zuma has been charged."

The DA would continue to work with all parties that shared its
commitment to the Constitution to challenge Zuma's ANC for power at
the next election.

"We will also make our case to the electorate, which is beginning to
get used to the idea of real choice.

"This is good for South Africa and good for the cause of the open,
opportunity society that the DA is building," Zille said.

DA WELCOMES SCOPA DECISION ON ARMS DEAL

The Democratic Alliance last week welcomed parliament's public
accounts committee (Scopa) decision to put the arms deal back on the
agenda.

"After many requests from the DA to do so, Scopa has finally agreed to
take the matter further at a committee meeting later this month," DA
spokesperson Eddie Trent said last Thursday.

The DA had already informed Scopa that it wanted to call a number of
people, ranging from former committee members to the National
Prosecuting Authority, to give testimony on the subject of corruption
and the arms deal.

"Scopa has dragged its heels on the matter of the arms deal and has
made no progress since its February 2008 decision to accept the spirit
of the DA's suggestion to investigate the matter further," he said.

The lack of progress on Scopa's part was directly linked to the
ambivalence surrounding future ANC leadership.

"Unsure of which ANC faction is going to be in power next year, I
believe that certain members of the ANC component are dragging their
heels rather than taking decisive action on the arms deal, and thus
running the risk of making enemies," Trent said.

"Politics should not stand in the way of the pursuit of accountability
and the DA will continue to pursue the Arms Deal corruption saga until
the full truth is known," he concluded.

DID YOU KNOW

It was revealed in its latest annual report that the South African
Rail Commuter Corporation (SARCC) posted a R500-million loss in
2007/08.

The loss reflected in the SARCC's annual report comes despite an
increase in its fare revenue and overspending was attributed to
overpaying its personnel and failure to make any major investments in
rail infrastructure. The report notes that:

• No major infrastructure improvements were completed in the 2007/08
financial year.
• The SARCC exceeded its operational expenditure by 7% largely because
of overspending on personnel costs, energy and security.
• Personnel costs alone increased by R500 million from R1.5 billion in
2006/07 to more than R2 billion in the current financial year.
• The CEO's package rose by over 40% from R1.38 million to R2 million
with an additional R40 000 increase to his travelling allowance of
R120 000.

EYE ON CRIME

SOUND SUSPICIOUS?
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/452

DOES POVERTY=CRIME?
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/449

MURDER SURVEY ON LARGE RESIDENTIAL PROPERTIES
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/447

CLIMB AGAINST CRIME
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/446

Helen Zille - SA Today: Et tu, Tutu?

2008-10-11T10:42:00.001+02:00

A weekly letter from the Leader of the Democratic Alliance 10 October 2008
Et tu, Tutu?

The tumultuous political events of the last few weeks have been good
for South Africa. Mosiuoa Lekota's criticism of the ANC in a letter to
its leadership and the suggestion that he will lead a breakaway party
show that we will not go the way of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. More and
more South Africans are waking up to the power abuse of the ANC's
ruling cabal and saying: enough!
Just as importantly, the racial mudslinging that has dominated our
political discourse for so long appears to be subsiding. A new debate
is emerging over values, policies and principles. That a politician of
Lekota's stature has openly expressed views about the ANC that the DA
has long espoused is an encouraging sign that our democracy is
maturing.
But every silver lining has a cloud. In an interview with the Sunday
Times, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said that if an election were held the
next day, he would be "sufficiently unhappy [with the ANC] not to
vote". In the same breath, he lamented the lack – in his view – of "a
viable opposition… one that gives the impression that it could become
an alternative government".
An editorial in the same newspaper endorsed Tutu's sentiments, noting
that: "There are many South Africans who agree with him". Ironically,
this was the same newspaper that a week previously had published an
opinion poll that showed the ANC and the DA to be "neck and neck"
among people with landline telephones in urban areas. Clearly, there
are many South Africans who do believe there is a viable alternative
to the ANC and are prepared to vote for it.
It is not often that I disagree with Archbishop Tutu, but his comments
earlier this week, it has to be said, were both reckless and
misguided. I also cannot agree with the view expressed in a number of
newspaper editorials that Tutu, by expressing his intention to opt out
of voting, showed leadership. If every South African who is
disillusioned with the ANC adopted Tutu's view on voting, we would
live in a one party state; a state whose office-bearers become
increasingly corrupt and drunk with absolute power. It should also
occur to someone as insightful as Archbishop Desmond Tutu that the
approach he advocates is precisely what undermines the capacity of
opposition parties to become alternative governments.
If he does not vote, Archbishop Tutu will serve to entrench and
prolong the very set of conditions – the slide into one-partyism –
that he bemoans. As a strong critic of Mugabe's misrule in Zimbabwe,
Archbishop Tutu should know that. So it is bizarre that he should
adopt an approach to voting that would inevitably lead to the
Zanufication of South African politics.
There is, of course, a very clear policy choice for South Africans. It
is between the DA's open opportunity-driven society for all and the
ANC's closed, patronage-driven society for some. This is a concise
summary of the policy options that have either led to progress or
decline in countries for centuries. Clear policy alternatives for
South Africans have never been more available, or more stark.
The DA has kept alive the idea of political opposition since 1994; we
have put the idea into practice; and we have managed to persuade a
growing number of voters of the grave danger of concentrating too much
power in one centre, and of the importance of holding a ruling party
to account. Everything we have warned about for over a decade is now
apparent to most South Africans.
Furthermore, we have also managed to win elections, against great
odds, and become an alternative government in some significant places,
including the City of Cape Town. Where we govern, we are working day
and night to reverse the legacy of ANC corruption and cronyism, to
implement our policy proposals and show that they make a difference in
the lives of all the people (not just the inner circle of the
politicians in power). We are making progress step by step.
So why don't we say more about the DA's policies? And why don't we
make our policies more accessible to more people? These are questions
people ask me every day. They were put to me a week ago by a Sunday
Times journalist. Ironically, his own newspaper provided the answer in
the same edition that carried the interviews with Archbishop Tutu and
me.
The newspaper's satirical columnist "Hogarth" reported that the Sunday
Times had received an invitation from the DA to the launch of a video
designed to make some of our policies on job-creation more accessible
to people who are not economists. The columnist then smugly announced
that the newspaper had chosen to give the event a miss.
A few days after Hogarth's column appeared, the DA launched its
revised education policy in Parliament. Predictably, the Sunday Times
did not send a reporter. The Sunday Times is, of course, free to make
its own choices about what it wishes to publish. But it does not do
much for the newspaper's already battered credibility to make
editorial comments about the lack of available "alternatives" when it
resolutely refuses to listen to them. That is the kind of denialism
for which newspapers regularly criticise politicians.
The Sunday Times is not alone in this. It is interesting how many
political journalists have not taken the trouble to familiarise
themselves with the DA's raft of accessible policy documents on every
challenge facing South Africa. And it is generally they who assert
that there is no viable alternative to the ANC.
This is because their analysis is not based on policies, values or
principles at all. It is based solely on the stereotype propagated by
the ANC that the DA is a party led by a white person in the interests
of whites. Proceeding from that premise, they conclude that the DA is
not a viable alternative to the ANC, and it is a waste of time to read
or report on our policies.
Yet it is a fact that our leadership is more diverse than the ANC's,
which is completely uni-racial. Our membership and support base are
far more non-racial than the ANC's. In fact in his most recent
political opinion survey, Professor Lawrence Schlemmer has concluded
that the DA is the most multi-racial party South Africa has ever had.
The notion that a party is "white" simply because it has a white
leader is outmoded and obsolete. If one were to apply this logic to
American politics, the Democrats would be classified as a black party,
with no prospect of governing simply because Barack Obama is their
presidential candidate.
Fortunately, our supporters, members and public representatives –
black and white – do not share Archbishop Tutu's views on voting. They
know that democracy is about real choice and that the choice in South
Africa is not between voting for the ANC and not voting at all. It is
between the closed, patronage society of the ANC and the DA's vision
of an open, opportunity society.
Our goal is to free South Africans from the shackles of race politics,
and to convince people to participate on the basis of values, policies
and principles. If we can do this, South Africa will become a
consolidated democracy in which substantive policy issues – rather
than racial identities – shape political debate, and in which the
ruling party can be peacefully dislodged from power at the polls,
because their policies have failed the people.
Our task is made harder by opinion makers who resort to facile
assertions about the absence of a credible opposition, or who
characterise opposition parties on the basis of their leaders' skin
colour. It is certainly not helped by those who preach
non-participation in the democratic process.
Archbishop Tutu has agreed to meet me to discuss the comments he made
to the Sunday Times, and I look forward to putting the case I have
made here to him personally. I aim to convince him that if he wants
South Africa to be a thriving constitutional democracy, and if he
wants to see a revival of the Rainbow Nation (a term he coined), then
he must do two things. He must not only reject the ANC in the 2009
election, but he must also familiarise himself with the DA's policies
and then make an informed choice on how to vote.
Best Wishes

DA@WORK 6 October: The Pursuit of Excellence

2008-10-06T15:44:00.001+02:00

Working for an Open Opportunity Society for All 6 October 2008

In this issue:

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
TOP STORY: DA LAUNCHES NEW SPORTS POLICY, 'THE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE'
ANC CADRE DEPLOYMENT IN THE WESTERN CAPE TO COST THE TAXPAYER MILLIONS
EASTERN CAPE BABY DEATHS COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED
DA REJECTS DECISION TO BRUSH TRAVELGATE SCANDAL UNDER THE CARPET
DID YOU KNOW?
EYE ON CRIME

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"But if we look below the bubbling surface, we will see the real hope,
indeed far more than a possibility, that over the next five years,
South Africa's constitutionalists will win the struggle for our
country's soul. More and more people understand what we mean when we
talk about constitutionalism, and the need for institutions to limit
the power of the ruling party. This new awareness, which has permeated
the consciousness of our society's opinion makers on all fronts,
provides fertile ground for the next crucial step in the evolution of
our democracy."

Helen Zille comments on South Africa's prospects post the 2009
election in her weekly online newsletter, Sa Today.
http://www.da.org.za/?p=571

DA LAUNCHES NEW SPORTS POLICY, 'THE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE'

The Democratic Alliance last Thursday launched a new sports policy
entitled 'The Pursuit of Excellence', which advocates the creation of
a South African Sports Academy which, on the back of a series of poor
performances such as at the Olympics and failure to qualify for the
next African Cup of Nations, would be designed to bring talent to
where it would be nurtured and honed.

"Our policy advocates for the establishment of the academy, a centre
of sporting excellence, designed to identify, recruit and train a new
generation of athletes and coaches, with the express purpose of
improving South Africa's performance in international sports; and to
redress the imbalance between the amount we spend on hosting
international competitions and that dedicated to the development of
our sporting talent," said party sport and recreation spokesperson,
Donald Lee.

He said the DA understood the potential role that sport could play in
our democracy and the defining role it played in shaping and
influencing our identity, both as individuals and as a country.

"We also understand the role that sport has to play in more practical
terms - as a means to enrich and fulfil the day-to-day lives of our
people, to uplift and empower and, in the case of those with the
ability and talent to achieve success at the highest level, as a
diverse profession with the potential to open up a myriad
possibilities."

"At the heart of the policy is the principle of excellence, which
should define every element of the Academy's structure and purpose,
and the practical creation of opportunities for those people who do
not have the means to fulfil their sporting potential on their own,"
Lee said.

He said the policy was designed to overcome the factors which were
undermining South Africa's ability to compete credibly at
international levels.

" Firstly, sport has become politicised and its administration subject
to sustained interference and, secondly, following from this, a
relentless drive for transformation and an ever-increasing hostility
towards the pursuit of excellence has damaged our sporting
institutions and resulted in a failure to produce a new and diverse
generation of sports professionals able to compete on the world
stage."

The Academy would be housed at a national centre of excellence, would
be funded primarily by the state and, as building and maintenance of
infrastructure was the responsibility of municipalities, the current
backlogs would have to be overcome and an amount should be ring-fenced
as a separate and appropriate allocation that must be spent on
sporting infrastructure.

Lee explained that the Academy would be tasked with developing a
national programme of action across as many sporting codes as
possible; identifying and recruiting South Africa's sporting potential
and pursuing a programme of excellence in developing that talent and
thus placing South Africa on a par with the super-powers of world
sport.

He said the Academy would operate independent of the state, but would
report to Parliament on its finances and, ultimately, fall under the
department of sport and recreation. It would form a partnership with
leading sporting schools, across a range of sporting codes and
establish a bursary scheme.

"Local and international coaching staff would be recruited, which
would comprise the best expertise in any particular area, and its
programmes would be benchmarked against international best practice."

"The Academy would boast the best facilities and equipment and would
offer both fulltime and part time training programmes," he said.

Lee added that, in order for the model to be successfully adopted, the
willing participation of schools and private sporting bodies was
required. In addition, it would require a change in attitude on the
part of government and a belief that excellence should be championed,
promoted and supported, not just financially but individually, down to
the very athletes themselves and the institutions that managed them.

"A South African Sports Academy must embody that attitude; it cannot
be tainted by compromise or half-measure and, for that to happen,
there needs to be a collective commitment to strive towards being the
best, in everything we do."

"If we do that," he concluded, "there is no record South Africa cannot
break; no medal we cannot win; and no competition we cannot dominate.
Our potential is all around us; harnessing it is our greatest
challenge."

Read the full policy, click here >>
http://www.da.org.za/wp-content/uploads/sports_policy.pdf

ANC CADRE DEPLOYMENT IN THE WESTERN CAPE TO COST THE TAXPAYER MILLIONS

The DA has pledged to block a recruitment drive by the Western Cape
ANC government to fill vacant posts in the department of the premier,
an attempt by the ANC to pack the department with new staff loyal to
the ANC before 2009's election.

It was reported in the media that the department of the Western Cape
premier had launched into an extraordinary recruitment drive to fill
its vacant posts and several weekend newspapers carried advertisements
for about 85 vacant public service positions, with annual salaries of
up to half a million rand.

DA federal council chairman James Selfe said last Wednesday that the
ANC was trying to rule from the grave by packing the provincial
administration - particularly senior positions - with ANC cadres
sympathetic to the party's agenda, just months before it ceases to
govern.

This was a deliberate move to entrench ANC control over the
administration of the province in case it lost the province to the DA
or a coalition government in next year's provincial elections.

"With only six months to go before the next general election, this
represents a blatant attempt on the part of the ANC to load the
provincial administration with staff members loyal to the incumbent
party, at a massive cost to the taxpayer," Selfe said in a statement
on Tuesday.

Selfe said many of the advertised positions needed to be filled, but
some of the more senior positions - especially those with a political
dimension - should either remain vacant for the time being or be
filled on a short-term basis only.

"Some countries have politically neutral public services, but the ANC
government has, as a matter of deliberate policy, ensured that South
Africa is not one of them.

"The ANC's policy of cadre re-deployment ensures that its members can
move seamlessly from political to administrative and sometimes even to
quasi-judicial positions, thus providing the leadership of the ANC
with total control over all the levers of power," Selfe said.

EASTERN CAPE BABY DEATHS COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED

The surge in child mortality figures in the Ukhahlamba area in the
Eastern Cape at the beginning of 2008 was due to poor health
standards, the Democratic Alliance said last Thursday.

DA spokesperson on Health Mike Waters said a report by the task team
investigating the deaths showed that the high mortality rate was not
due to contaminated water as earlier suggested.

"These documents paint a grim and depressing picture of health
services in this part of the Eastern Cape. It is clear that no
particular disease outbreak led to the spike in baby deaths in the
district earlier in 2008, but rather that the health service available
was simply hopelessly defective," he said.

The report, released to the DA by the health department, also
attributed the deaths to high levels of poverty in the area.

The DA has been calling for the release of the report following an
investigation by the task team into the deaths of 140 babies in the
Ukhahlamba area early in 2008.

"The DA has been trying for four months to obtain these reports, and
we welcome the fact that the new Minister of Health, Barbara Hogan,
seems to have brought a new spirit of openness and accountability to
the department," Waters said.

He said the health department should see to it that all weaknesses
highlighted in the report were addressed.

"It is notable that many of the problems did not arise because of
inadequate funding, but were simply a question of poor management,"
Waters said.

DA REJECTS DECISION TO BRUSH TRAVELGATE SCANDAL UNDER THE CARPET

The Democratic Alliance last week condemned parliament's decision to
scrap millions of rands of Travelgate debt allegedly owed by MPs.

Speaking last Tuesday, DA chief whip Ian Davidson questioned the
manner in which this controversial decision was taken by parliament
the previous week, at a time when all eyes were on Thabo Mbeki
stepping down as president and mass resignations from his cabinet.

"While the nation was understandably immersed in the tumult
surrounding the resignation of former president Thabo Mbeki and his
cabinet ministers - parliament, under the stewardship of the
then-speaker Baleka Mbete, took the opportunity to announce quietly
that a decision had been taken to abandon the debt owed the
legislature," Davidson said.

The decision was taken by the parliamentary oversight and authority
committee. Davidson said Parliament had decided to spend R200 000 to
'buy back' from liquidators of the Travelgate agency, Bathong Travel,
a claim worth more than R3,2 million to prevent any proceedings
against the MPs.

The decision effectively meant parliament would not recover the debt
from MPs and would not pursue MPs on behalf of the liquidators,
Davidson said.

"The decision is effectively a double blow to the South African
taxpayer. Not only is this massive misuse of public money being
brushed under the carpet, but the South African public must also foot
the bill for Parliament's convenient political solution", Davidson
said.

"Not only was parliament, and therefore the public, defrauded by
certain miscreant MPs, but now the legislature plans to buy back their
debt from the liquidators charged with recovering it," said Davidson.

The DA said Parliament's decision was politically expedient.

"It is, in fact, neither sensible nor ethically or morally acceptable
for Parliament to go down a road which would essentially exonerate the
fraud of those MPs who are guilty of criminal misconduct, at the
expense of the very taxpayers whom their actions allegedly defrauded,"
Davidson said.

In a statement on Sunday, Davidson called on the new speaker of
Parliament, Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde, to rise to the challenge of her
new office by compelling those MPs guilty of defrauding Parliament in
the so-called Travelgate scandal to repay the money that they owe the
legislature.

"Where necessary, we call on the Speaker to initiate full criminal
proceedings against guilty MPs where there is sufficient evidence to
do so. Parliament, in terms of its own internal disciplinary process,
must ensure that MPs who have been involved in the Travelgate saga and
owe money pay it back."

DID YOU KNOW?

The National Prosecuting Authority released its 2007/2008 annual
report last week, which has revealed how badly the political war over
the Scorpions has affected the war on crime.
• The number of new cases handled by the Scorpions dropped by 70% from
2007 to 2008 as it clearly focused its attention on finalising
existing cases.

• The number of investigations finalised dropped by 33% - a direct
result of operational staff capacity issues.

• The threat to close the Scorpions prompted an exodus of skilled and
experienced people - as of March 2008, there was a 29% vacancy rate in
the Scorpions – including 45% for advocates and 80% for prosecutors.

• The NPA also faces broader capacity issues, such as:

• The fact that the Auditor-General was unable to certify the
financial statements of both the NPA and the Criminal Assets Recovery
Account;
• The 27.4% overall vacancy rate for the NPA;
• The 21.1% vacancy rate for prosecutors and 27.7% vacancy rate
specifically for advocates;
• The 9.5% drop in the number of cases finalised;
• The 12.6% increase in cases on the outstanding court roll;
• The 10% increase in backlog cases; and
• The 19% decline in convictions by the Specialised Commercial Crime
Unit, which deals with complex commercial crime.

EYE ON CRIME

CLIMB AGAINST CRIME
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/446

CRIME LEVELS ARE VERY HIGH….SAYS MINISTER
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/445

SAFETY AND SECURITY- PRESS FOR CHANGE
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/444

WE CHALLENGE YOU…
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/443

Helen Zille - SA Today: 2009 and beyond

2008-10-04T10:53:00.001+02:00

A weekly letter from the Leader of the Democratic Alliance 3 October 2008
2009 and beyond

(SA Today this week is based on a speech delivered by Helen Zille at
the South African Business Club in London on 2 October 2008)
In the last fortnight, we saw the recall of President Thabo Mbeki by
his own party; his subsequent resignation; the resignation of the
Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo- Ngcuka; the resignation of several
senior Ministers; and the swearing in of a new President, Kgalema
Motlanthe. Rumours of an ANC split now abound.
The events have been described by some commentators as the biggest
political crisis to hit South Africa since the end of apartheid in
1994. And the present turmoil will last for a while yet, just like the
turbulence in the international banking system.
But if we look below the bubbling surface, we will see the real hope,
indeed far more than a possibility, that over the next five years,
South Africa's constitutionalists will win the struggle for our
country's soul. We will survive our Constitution's adolescence, and
the crises this phase inevitably brings, to emerge a more mature,
stable and consolidated democracy to take our country to the next
level.
The events of the past few months have exposed and revealed what is
really going on, and what danger this entails for our country. This is
a much healthier situation than the state of denial we have been in
for so long.
More and more people understand what we mean when we talk about
constitutionalism, and the need for institutions to limit the power of
the ruling party. This new awareness, which has permeated the
consciousness of our society's opinion makers on all fronts, provides
fertile ground for the next crucial step in the evolution of our
democracy.
The Nicholson judgment has reverberated through our institutions of
state, alerting incumbents, from the police to the public broadcaster
and the Independent Electoral Commission that their role is to serve
the people – not the party – and that there is a distinction between
the two. This may seem trite in a longstanding constitutional
democracy like Britain. But we easily forget that these insights
evolved here over centuries. In South Africa these lessons must be
learnt in the space of a few short years, if our transition is to
succeed. And all indications are that we are learning them.
But the greatest cause for optimism is that the foundations have been
laid for the next crucial step in the evolution of our democracy. We
are moving away from the current configuration with one single
dominant party and a fragmented opposition. The dominant party is
beginning to fracture and the opposition is beginning to coalesce
around common core values.
This process started in 2006 when the Democratic Alliance emerged as
the largest party in Cape Town and managed to come to power in a six
party coalition, securing a majority of a single seat in the 210-seat
Council. Against all odds, this coalition has worked extremely well,
and facilitated a convergence around the DA's policies for an open,
opportunity-driven society. The events in Cape Town had national
significance. They were, in effect, the start of the realignment of
politics.
Our next major step is about nine months away, at the general election
of 2009. In this crucial benchmark election, we must seek to hold the
ANC below a 2/3 majority nationally, and we must win power in at least
one province, either on our own or in a coalition with other
opposition parties. There is a distinct likelihood that we will
succeed in the Western Cape.
This task will be made easier if the ANC splits before the next
election, but this development is not a foregone conclusion. Last week
an ANC breakaway seemed a certainty. This week the probability is
retreating, and is now just a possibility, as Kgalema Motlanthe moves
to rally his disaffected forces, and allay the ANC's internal
tensions; and as the enormous difficulties of launching a new party so
close to an election dawn on the major proponents of the initiative.
But whether there is a breakaway now or not, one thing is certain: the
ANC's divisions will deepen in the years ahead and its disintegration,
from a position of almost complete hegemony for the past 14 years, has
begun.
If we succeed in our 2009 electoral objectives, we will show that the
DA's policies to promote an open, opportunity-driven society for all
produce better results than the ANC's closed, patronage-driven
society. We will demonstrate that our talk about constitutionalism has
real practical implications for people who aren't interested in
political theory, but want homes, decent education and health care for
their families.
If we can demonstrate progress, step by step, (as we have been doing
in Cape Town), by the time the 2011 local government election is upon
us, the realignment will be well advanced. It could take different
forms, either as a growing coalition of various component parties, or
preferably, as a new political entity, free of the baggage of the
past, to take on the challenge of the future.
The possibilities of the 2011 election are even more exciting than
those of 2009 because we have the real prospect of winning power in
South Africa's major cities. Already the urban electorate is showing
encouraging signs of breaking the political logjam. Just last week an
Ipsos Markinor poll of urban voters with landline telephones showed
the ANC and the DA neck and neck in the major cities – 27% of
respondents said they would vote for the ANC, 26% said they would vote
for the DA and 27% were undecided.
This is significant, and as the realignment progresses, and the move
from the ANC continues, this trend will escalate. And the DA will be
the core of the alternative, either because we progressively extend
our voter support base, or because events trigger a more dramatic
series of events that shape the realignment. No-one can predict
exactly how this will happen, but the trend is crystal clear.
By the next general election in 2014 – just five and a half years from
now – a new political entity will be a pillar of the political
landscape, with real prospects of winning the national election. Some
key names of South African politics – currently scattered across many
parties or outside of politics altogether – will find the same
political home, and we will nominate a presidential candidate and
shadow cabinet that can carry us through the real test of any emerging
democracy – a peaceful change of power through the ballot box.
That is the vision. And it is not wishful thinking. The political
currents, growing stronger below the surface, are propitious. We have
to row extremely hard, sometimes with the current (and sometimes
across it) to extend our support base, continue the dialogue already
underway behind the scenes, win power wherever we can, and then govern
well to demonstrate the alternative in practice to change people's
lives.
As long as we keep faith in our project, the prospects for South
Africa are good and the future is bright. I have little doubt that if
we read it right, make the right moves and work hard enough, history
will show that the events of the past fortnight were a catalyst for
positive change in our country.

Best Wishes

Horror dream not over

2008-10-04T02:14:00.001+02:00

To: ireport@cnn.com, yourpics@bbc.co.uk, news@sky.com,
news@newsday.com, margaretha@publicy.nl, foxnews@foxnews.com

02/10/2008 22:59 - (SA)

Sonja van Buul, Beeld

Vanderbijlpark - The young woman whose skull was fractured during a
brutal attack in which her mother died, may never walk again.

"I thought it was a horrible dream that would end soon," Charmaine
Pienaar told her dad Danie.

Her 41-year-old mother Heila was hacked to death.

Charmaine, 18, underwent a nine-hour operation in Vereeniging
Medi-Clinic on Thursday morning to repair the damage to her skull and
nerves.

She said during "the horrible dream" she "just wanted to protect mommy".

For hours she lay helpless next to her murdered mother's body at the
family's scrapyard in Waldrift before Danie, 42, and her brother,
Frikkie, 21, walked in on the horror scene.

"During the attack Charmaine's skull was fractured and both her legs
are now paralysed," said Marius Vosloo of Meyerton, a spokesperson for
the Pienaar family.

Before the operation, the doctors couldn't give the family a guarantee
that Charmaine would be able to walk again, Vosloo said.

"They said it's in God's hands," he added.

Vosloo said Charmaine's cheeckbones were also shattered and her jaw was broken.

"Charmaine said shortly after the attack that the man had attacked
them with an axe, but I think he hit them with a metal bar," Vosloo
told Beeld on Thursday.

"Charmaine said the man had promised my mother he wouldn't harm them
if they gave him money, but he still attacked them," Frikkie said.

He believed it was Tyson, the scrapyard's guard dog, that saved his
sister's life.

"Charmaine apparently rushed to help my mother and when the man
attacked her, Tyson bit him and he ran away."

- Beeld

Source:News24

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2403703,00.html
People who want to help Mr.Vosloo can call (+27)083 311 7030

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2008-10-02T19:52:00.001+02:00

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DA@WORK 29 September - the realignment of politics has begun

2008-09-29T19:55:00.001+02:00

DA@WORK 29 September

OUR NEW PRESIDENT
Election to the highest office in the land brought with it great and
profound responsibility, said Democratic Alliance chairman Joe
Seremane to the newly elected president, Kgalema Motlanthe.

THE REALIGNMENT OF POLITICS HAS BEGUN
Many of the ministers resigning, including Trevor Manuel, Mosiuoa
Lekota and Ronnie Kasrils, had served their office with distinction.

MLAMBO-NGCUKA WAS A LEADER ON HIV/AIDS
Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka who resigned last Monday was a
great leader when it came to dealing with HIV/Aids

DA CHALLENGES NEW SAFETY AND SECURITY MINISTER TO DELIVER
An effective plan to tackle crime must be one of the new government's top.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

The decay of our state institutions, caused by infighting in the ANC
and the use of these institutions to wage political battles, partly
has its origins in conflicts triggered by the arms deal. President
Motlanthe can help to arrest that decay, and prove his commitment to
fighting corruption, by appointing a commission without delay.

DA Leader Helen Zille, writing in SA Today, calls for the new
President to appoint a commission of inquiry into the arms deal as
part of his programme of action.

OUR NEW PRESIDENT

Election to the highest office in the land brought with it great and
profound responsibility, said Democratic Alliance chairman Joe
Seremane to the newly elected president, Kgalema Motlanthe.

Kgalema Motlanthe was duly elected in the National Assembly last
Thursday as South Africa's next President to replace President Thabo
Mbeki.

Seremane said Motlanthe's most important responsibility should be to
rise above party-political interests and put the needs and aspirations
of the people of South Africa first.

"The country is crying out for resolute and strong leadership to
reduce the level of anxiety currently felt by a great many of our
people who have been deeply unsettled by the governing party's
internal power struggles, now playing themselves out on a national and
international stage," he said.

There were urgent challenges facing South Africa which had to be dealt with.

The new administration should therefore do away with a focus on
internal power struggles and rather turn its attention to issues that
mattered most to ordinary South Africans.

These included rampant crime and lawlessness, widespread and
devastating poverty, chronic levels of unemployment, the continuing
negative effects of HIV/Aids, the gradual erosion of general
infrastructure, and poor or non-existent service delivery.

"Dealing with these problems needs to become the nation's number one
priority, not the politics of revenge and hatred which we have
witnessed from within the ANC's ranks over the past week," Seremane
said.

Responding last Monday to the suggestion that Motlanthe was likely to
be the ANC's nominee, DA leader Helen Zille said this was the best
case scenario under the circumstances.

"Minister Motlanthe is perhaps the most level-headed and reasonable of
all the politicians in the Zuma camp. Unlike Zuma, he dared to stick
his head above the parapet and rebuke the ANC Youth League for its
menacing statements that it would 'shoot to kill' for the ANC
president," Zille said.

She added that the DA would hold him to statements committing himself
to the independence of the judiciary should he be elected president.

THE REALIGNMENT OF POLITICS HAS BEGUN

The resignation of fourteen Cabinet ministers loyal to President
Mbeki shows deep dissatisfaction with the ANC's decision to recall
President Thabo Mbeki, the leader of the Democratic Alliance, Helen
Zille, said last Tuesday.

"It is clear that behind the display of unity, there is deep
dissatisfaction with the ANC NEC's decision to recall the president,"
she said.

Many of the ministers resigning, including Trevor Manuel, Mosiuoa
Lekota and Ronnie Kasrils, had served their office with distinction.

"That the ANC is willing to sacrifice them and risk our country's
stability in order to wreak revenge on the President, speaks volumes
about its lack of commitment to stable government."

She said it was now time to radically realign the political landscape.

"We must bring together all of those in the opposition and in the
ruling party who believe in the supremacy of the Constitution and
build an alternative to Jacob Zuma's ANC."

"The Democratic Alliance (DA) will take this process forward with
those who share our vision for a non-racial, democratic and prosperous
South Africa in which all are equal before the law."

MLAMBO-NGCUKA WAS A LEADER ON HIV/AIDS

Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka who resigned last Monday was a
great leader when it came to dealing with HIV/Aids, said the
Democratic Alliance.

"Unlike other members of the Cabinet, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka gave
vital leadership in the fight against HIV/Aids," said DA leader Helen
Zille.

"Under her stewardship, the SA National Aids Council was revived; and
it has made meaningful input into a plan to halve the rate of HIV
infections by 2011."

Zille said that, although it had seemed the Deputy President could
rise above faction struggles in the African National Congress, in the
end she seemed to have fallen victim to them.

"This is regrettable, as she would have been a steady hand on the
tiller during this time of political uncertainty."

Zille said Mlambo-Ngcuka had shown good economic judgement and
commendable political will in trying to halve unemployment and poverty
by 2014 and tackling skill, shortages.

"She successfully helped to launch, guide, and promote, at home and
abroad, the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA)
and the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa
(Asgisa)."

Zille said some clouds would hang over Mlambo-Ngcuka's head regarding
her involvement in the "oilgate scandal" and her United Arab Emirates
trip at taxpayer's expense.

"In the main, however, she combined competence with common sense, and
her contribution to government will be missed," she said.

DA CHALLENGES NEW SAFETY AND SECURITY MINISTER TO DELIVER

The Democratic Alliance had identified ten key priorities for the new
Minister of Safety and Security, Nathi Mthethwa, party safety and
security spokesperson Dianne Kohler Barnard on Sunday.

"An effective plan to tackle crime must be one of the new government's
top concerns and the DA will be watching the new Minister's attention
to these priorities closely," she said.

"All South Africans have been affected by crime and all of us want to
see South Africa become a safer country, but with the SAPS conviction
rate for contact crimes at a lowly 19%, the Minister clearly has his
work cut out for him."

She challenged the new Minister on the top ten crime-related issues in
the country, including replacing National Police Commissioner Jackie
Selebi ; reinstating the specialised units such as the Narcotics
Bureau and the Family Violence, Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Units
and agreeing to retain the Scorpions.

"He must also commit himself to revamping the detective service with
high calibre officers and ensure that they have all the necessary
vehicles, equipment and resources as well as addressing border control
problems with a plan to seal our borders and enhance rural safety by
allocating sufficient personnel, suitable vehicles, radios and other
relevant equipment to border and rural areas," she said.

Other issues which needed addressing were backlogs at Forensic Science
Laboratories, violence in schools and improving the public's access to
crime statistics and the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) by
allocating it more funds and personnel.

"We call upon the new Minister to avoid taking cover behind a veil of
secrecy whenever tough questions are directed at him – he needs to
deliver on his responsibilities and simply accept that crime is one of
the most pressing issues for all South Africans," she said.

DID YOU KNOW

It was revealed in reply to a DA parliamentary question that South
African households owe local and district municipalities more than
R10-billion for services.

• At the end of June all 283 local and district municipalities across
the country were owed more than R18,4-billion by households,
businesses and various national government departments.

• Households were the major defaulters as they owed 60 percent
(R10,8-billion) of the total, followed by government departments at 20
percent (R3,6-billion) and businesses at 20 percent (R3,6-billion).

• "Of the total debt (of R18,4-billion), R15-billion had been
outstanding for over 90 days.

• Metros faced a similar problem - they were owed a combined fee of
more than R26,6-billion by private businesses, households and
government departments.

• Gauteng topped the list of provinces with outstanding debt - it was
owed R21,7-billion, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with R5,6-billion, the
Western Cape with R4,7-billion and the Free Sate with R3,8-billion.

• In the Eastern Cape, a total of R3,1-billion still needed to be
collected. In North West, R2,3-billion was outstanding, in Mpumalanga
R1,9-billion, in Limpopo R805 000, while Northern Cape municipalities
were owed R775 000.

MC BRIDE FIRED!
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/442

HOW EFFECTIVE IS YOUR ARMED RESPONSE COMPANY?
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/441\

TIME FOR FRESH THINKING?
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/440\

Helen Zille - SA Today: A programme of action for President Kgalema Motlanthe

2008-09-27T12:03:00.001+02:00

A weekly letter from the Leader of the Democratic Alliance 26 September 2008
A programme of action for President Kgalema Motlanthe

The new President of South Africa, Kgalema Motlanthe, must act quickly
and decisively to gain the confidence of the South African nation, and
demonstrate that he can rise above the factional power-plays of the
ruling party and govern in the interests of the people as a whole.
He must show that he is the leader of the nation, rather than the
chosen proxy for the leader of a victorious faction in the ruling
party, at whose behest he was elected President. And for that to
happen, he must, at the outset of his term in office, do two things
which are in the national interest but which will not serve the
self-interest of ANC President Jacob Zuma and his clique.
Firstly, he must announce the establishment of a judicial commission
of inquiry into the arms deal, headed by a judge nominated by the
Chief Justice.
In his verdict on the matter between Jacob Zuma vs. the National
Director of Public Prosecutions, Judge Chris Nicholson said of the
arms deal: "Only a commission of enquiry can properly rid our land of
this cancer that is devouring the body politic and the reputation for
integrity built up so assiduously after the fall of Apartheid".
This proposal – a key recommendation in a judgment which,
incidentally, was hailed by the Zuma camp as proof that our judiciary
is independent and that constitutional democracy is flourishing –
should be adopted by President Motlanthe. In fact, it is only right
and just that he should use his constitutional power to appoint such a
commission, headed by a judge nominated by the Chief Justice, so that
we can get to the whole truth.
The decay of our state institutions, caused by infighting in the ANC
and the use of these institutions to wage political battles, partly
has its origins in conflicts triggered by the arms deal. President
Motlanthe can help to arrest that decay, and prove his commitment to
fighting corruption, by appointing a commission without delay.
Secondly, President Motlanthe must state unequivocally that under his
administration there will be no 'political solution' to Zuma's legal
problems. Any attempt to broker a special political deal for Zuma
outside of the courts, with presidential consent, would be illegal and
unconstitutional, and would violate the oath of office taken by
President Motlanthe when he was sworn in by the Chief Justice
yesterday.
It would be a betrayal of his conscience, and a gross infringement of
the principle of equality before the law, if President Motlanthe
abused his power either to facilitate or condone a political
settlement for Zuma.
There is prima facie evidence that the ANC President accepted 783
bribes totalling R4.2 million over ten years. Zuma cannot credibly
occupy any office of state until a court of law has had a chance to
weigh the evidence and establish his innocence. A short-circuiting of
that process – especially one engineered by the Presidency, or one to
which it turned a blind eye – would confirm that the "recall" of
former President Thabo Mbeki was a cynical ploy by Zuma's supporters
to get their man off the hook without him having to face his day in
court.
Of course, President Motlanthe will also have to calm the political
storm that erupted on Saturday when Mbeki was recalled, and which
rumbled this week, after it was announced that a third of the Cabinet
had resigned. The manner and timing of that announcement surprised
South Africans, temporarily devalued the rand, shook local financial
markets, and revealed the breakdown of trust between the executive and
the ruling party.
Given that several Ministers from the Mbeki administration have been
included in the reshuffled Cabinet, President Motlanthe must ensure
that whatever tensions still exist between the executive and the ANC
do not negatively impact on governance and service delivery.
It is encouraging to see Trevor Manuel return as Finance Minister. The
appointment of Barbara Hogan as Minister of Health is a welcome
development. The redeployment of her predecessor, Manto
Tshabalala-Msimang, as Minister in the Presidency, is hard to justify
given her track record of incompetence. Perhaps her political survival
can be explained by the fact that her husband, Mendi Msimang, is a
former ANC treasurer, and knows a great deal about the financial
dealings and misdealings of the ruling party.
We note with interest that Brigitte Mabandla has been moved to Public
Enterprises, and made way for Enver Surty as Minister of Justice. This
is a critical portfolio in relation to the National Prosecuting
Authority, because in terms of legislation, the Minister of Justice
can request information from the NPA about pending prosecutions. The
DA will be watching Minister Surty closely to ensure he defends the
independence of the NPA and allows it to get on with its
constitutional mandate of instituting prosecutions where there is
prima facie evidence against any person, irrespective of his or her
political status.
For the rest, President Motlanthe's Cabinet is something of a mixed
bag, and it will have its work cut out to restore the integrity of
government in the short space of seven to ten months, when new
elections will have to be held. Even so, it must begin clearing the
debris left by the Mbeki administration, notably its policy failures
on crime, HIV/Aids, and job creation.
On crime, President Motlanthe can send a powerful message to South
Africans by distancing his government from the kind of denialism that
led the former Minister of Safety and Security, Charles Nqakula (now
inexplicably redeployed to Defence) to say that citizens tired of
crime could either "whinge until they are blue in the face" or "simply
leave this country".
The President and his new Minister, Nathi Mthethwa, must also work to
bring down levels of crime, improve conviction rates, and expedite the
review of the criminal justice system.
In the health portfolio, Barbara Hogan will bring a measure of
competence that Tshabalala-Msimang sorely lacked. Her challenge now is
to rid the Ministry of the last vestiges of denialism that sowed
confusion about how HIV/Aids is transmitted, hamstrung the universal
rollout of antiretroviral medication, and diminished South Africa's
reputation internationally.
Finally, it is time for President Motlanthe to revisit the debate on
labour market reform initiated by Jacob Zuma last year, when the ANC
President called for greater labour market flexibility on the grounds
that restrictive labour laws were "counting out the poorest of the
poor" from the job market.
A considerable weight rests on President Motlanthe's shoulders. His
past words and deeds suggest that he might bring a level-headed
approach to government and exercise a stabilising effect on our
national politics which have been taken to the brink by his colleagues
in the ruling party. But he must distance himself immediately from
their power-plays, and govern in the interests of South Africa rather
than the interests of the Jacob Zuma camp.

Best Wishes

Ratepayers Newsletter - September 26 , 2008

2008-09-26T16:07:00.001+02:00

Weekly news bulletin of interest to ratepayers and tax-payers
Number 3
Friday September 26, 2008

In Durban, there is still tremendous confusion about what charges are
being levied for what. Here is an attempt to explain:
1. Your property has been given a market-related valuation.
2. Your rates are worked out as .009% of that valuation. Therefore
a R1 million property will pay rates of R9 000 per year, divided into
twelve months.
3. The first R120 000 of your property is rates-free, so you must
calculate your rates on the remainder. This is also true of pensioners'
rebates and other concessions.
4. Sewage and refuse are worked out as a percentage of your rates -
20% and 11% respectively. So, if your rates are R800 per month, 20% of
that is your sewage and 11% of that is your refuse removal.

However, this is where problems are creeping in. Many properties in
Durban do not have city sewage. The situation has arisen, therefore,
that even though the sewage is not individually charged, it is still
included in your rates. So, even people who do not have sewage are
being charged for it. People who have these green Wheelie Bin contracts
with the city are also still being charged for refuse removal as this is
part of their rates. A resident of Durban has asked the municipality
for an explanation as to how these charges can attract VAT, as it is
illegal to charge VAT on a tax. We are still waiting for a satisfactory
response from the city.

These are just some of the anomalies that are arising because of the new
rates policy. Anyone with other examples of problems with this new
billing system are asked to contact us. The Combined Ratepayers
Association (CRA) is gathering evidence about all these shortcomings in
order to call for a rethink of this legislation.

The CRA is still waiting for a response from the Mayor and the Speaker
as a result of last week's meeting - this will be followed up soon.
Lilian Develing of the Hillcrest Ratepayers Association has been going
through the evaluation roll and has turned up many discrepancies that
were brought to the council's attention up to four years ago. They have
still not been corrected. The same company that did Durban's valuations
were also responsible for doing the valuations for Nelson Mandela Bay
Metro (Port Elizabeth) and a recent newspaper report from the Eastern
Cape identified the process as being 'chaotic'. It appears that PE,
along with other towns that had their valuations done by the same
company, are experiencing the same problems as Durban.

With regard to the evaluations process, here is what you can do:
1. If you do not agree with the valuation, lodge an objection.
2. If the objection is overruled, you must ask in writing for an
explanation as to why the objection was overruled.
3. Once you have received the reason in writing, you can lodge an
appeal. You have thirty days to do so.
4. Regardless of where you are in the above process, it is
recommended that you call a formal dispute with the municipality over
your bill. This will prevent the municipality from taking any action
against you if you do not pay your full account.

For more information on your rights and responsibilities as a ratepayer,
go to the CRA website www.cra-durban.co.za
<http://www.cra-durban.co.za/>

PS - Residents who are dissatisfied with municipal service are also
urged to cancel their subscription to MetroBeat.

Any ratepayers association from anywhere in South Africa is also
encouraged to send their ratepayers' news to the writer of this
newsletter, so that it can be gathered into the weekly bulletin.

What's happening across South Africa:

National Ratepayers and Taxpayers news:

There is growing resistance all over South Africa to municipal
mismanagement, and there is growing conviction that withholding rates
and taxes is the only option left to compel municipalities to improve
their service delivery and accountability to the public. There have
been several success stories in this regard, the most recent being Mooi
River. The number of towns declaring disputes against their management
is growing, with three more having joined in this week (East London,
Kareedouw and Frankfort).

Many towns across South Africa have declared disputes with their local
municipalities and are withholding rates, with varying degrees of
success. However, until recently several Constitutional experts were
quoted as saying that withholding rates is illegal. This has now
changed, as these experts now claim that their remarks have been
mis-interpreted. There are indeed grounds for the withholding of rates.
Rates can be redirected in the case of an 'emergency'. What constitutes
an emergency, no-one yet knows. The major point with all these legal
experts, is that the new municipal laws have been insufficiently tested
and therefore are still open to interpretation. Despite almost fifty
towns being in dispute across South Africa, and many of them withholding
rates completely, not one action by any municipality against these
disputers has been successful.

Bethlehem: an internal auditor in the Bethlehem Municipality recently
wrote a letter to the council, in which he stated that the town's
finances were in such disarray that 'God has forsaken this place'. This
is being used as a reason why the Bethlehem community are about to
declare a dispute with their municipality, citing the complete breakdown
of services in the town as a reason.

Enviro-Matters: Issue 5

2008-09-26T10:07:00.001+02:00

SEPTEMBER 2008 – ISSUE #5
In this issue:
INTRODUCTORY LETTER

DA SUPPORTS THE ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS AMENDMENT BILL

DA SUPPORTS THE PROTECTED AREAS AMENDMENT BILL

DA DISAPPOINTED BY DECISION TO MINE WILD COAST

HIGH VACANCY RATE FOR EIA STAFF IN GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS

DA DISAPPOINTED THAT G8 DID NOT COMMIT TO MORE DRAMATIC REDUCTION IN
CARBON EMISSIONS

WHY HAS THE MINISTER NOT CONCLUDED AIRPORT APPEALS PROCESS?

DA QUESTIONS SUSPENSION OF OFFICIALS INVOLVED WITH FLAMINGOS AT KAMFERS DAM

DA REACTS TO SUSPENSION OF THE BOARD OF EZEMVELO KZN WILDLIFE

DA CALLS FOR COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO GAUTENG DEVELOPMENTS

DA CALLS FOR RESIGNATION OF NORTH WEST PARKS AND TOURISM BOARD

INTRODUCTORY LETTER

Greetings

This edition of Enviro Matters comes to you at a time of considerable
upheavals in government. By the time you read this, there will be a
new President of the Republic and, in the days ahead, a number of new
Cabinet appointments will be made. In this time of uncertainty, the
oversight of government must continue. Political changes cannot be
allowed to undermine service delivery on the ground.

The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism has a new
Director-General, Mrs. Nosipho Jezile-Ngcaba. Mrs Jezile-Ngcaba had
previously been the acting DG of the Department since the departure of
Ms Pam Yako earlier in the year. I am confident that Mrs Jezile-Ngcaba
is the correct person for this challenging position. At the time of
her appointment I encouraged Mrs Jezile-Ngcaba to mainstream the
National Strategy on Sustainable Development, yet to be approved by
Cabinet, across all departments in government. This matter has been
dragging on for far too long.

One of the most significant announcements by government in recent
months was that a series of carbon taxes are being considered. I have
welcomed this initiative. Details remain sketchy, but I have suggested
that government should, among other things, ensure that revenues from
carbon taxes are ring-fenced for projects involving renewable energy,
energy efficiency, and research and development. If government is
going to induce behaviour-change, then producers and consumers must
have the assurance that their taxes are being spent on projects that
will reduce the country's carbon footprint.

This edition of Enviro Matters includes news from the DA in a number
of provinces reflecting the variety of issues that the party is taking
up, and the role that our public representatives are playing in
holding the government to account. Our increased focus on matters
related to improving environmental protection and sustainable
development is reflected in the fact that, thus far this year, the
Minister of Environmental Affairs has been asked exactly 100
parliamentary questions, making him one of the top three most
questioned Ministers by the DA in parliament.

Kind Regards

Gareth Morgan MP

DA SPOKESPERSON ON ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS

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DA SUPPORTS THE ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS AMENDMENT BILL

In September, the Democratic Alliance supported the passing of the
Environmental Laws Amendment Bill.

Speaking in parliament, DA spokesperson on environmental affairs
Gareth Morgan noted that the Bill simultaneously amended six pieces of
environmental legislation.

"Several of the bills, including the Atmospheric Pollution Prevention
Act, the Environment Conservation Act, National Environmental
Management Amendment (NEMA) and the Protected Areas Act are amended to
increase penalties for offences. It is common cause that higher
penalties will act as a greater deterrent for individuals or entities
that consider perpetrating environmental crimes. In most cases, both
the monetary fines and jail sentences are significantly ramped up, and
the DA fully supports these steps."

Morgan said that the issue of remedial costs for pollution was the
subject of considerable debate in the committee.

"Under the amendment bill, if a person fails to comply with a
directive to remediate pollution the authorities are able to take
measures to rectify the situation, which includes claiming
anticipatory costs. The DA was concerned with the open-ended nature of
the original proposed amendment, but supported it in principle. I am
considerably more comfortable with it now that it has limited costs to
'costs for reasonable remedial measures to be undertaken'," he said.

"The new Bill also guarantees that retrospective application is
ensured. I hope that the numerous polluters who have not taken
responsibility for pollution prior to NEMA being promulgated take
action before the Green Scorpions come knocking on their doors."

Morgan congratulated the new Head of the Environmental Management
Inspectorate, Mrs Frances Craigie on her appointment, saying that he
hoped she would take the Green Scorpions forward, and concentrate on
prosecuting those entities that commit pollution-related crimes.

"I would also like to suggest that the work of training magistrates
about the intricacies of environmental law be further advanced. It is
one thing having good environmental laws that exist on paper. We need
the judiciary to help enforce them," he said.

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DA SUPPORTS THE PROTECTED AREAS AMENDMENT BILL

In a debate in the National Assembly in September, DA spokesperson on
environmental affairs, Gareth Morgan said that South Africa's
protected areas were national assets and a haven for biodiversity and
heritage.

"It is important that our parks are well funded, that they create
opportunities for wealth creation, and that opportunities to access
these parks, particularly from poor communities, are maximised," said
Morgan.

Morgan said that one of the amendments contained in the Bill provided
for flight corridors over protected areas to be regulated.

The DA had argued that the original proposed provisions in the Bill
were not strict enough, as they provided too much discretion to park
authorities. However, it now provides for the need for environmental
authorisations for flight corridors in terms of section 24 of the
NEMA.

"This means that the parks will be obliged to use an EIA or similar
environmental management tool when establishing such corridors," said
Morgan.

Morgan said that the clause related to provisions for the dissolution
of SANParks caused considerable consternation from many members of the
public who made submissions, mainly because it conceivably allowed for
national parks to be transferred to private entities.

"My personal opinion is that there was no malicious intent by the
Department in its original drafting, as SANParks needed to comply with
the Income Tax Act in this regard. But, I agreed that the provision
needed to be strengthened, and the committee subsequently amended the
clause to reflect that, if dissolution occurred, the assets would be
transferred to the State or to an equivalent Schedule 3A Public Entity
contemplated in the PFMA."

"For good measure, the committee also added that, if SANParks was ever
to be wound up, it should be done by an Act of Parliament. All
stakeholders, I believe, were satisfied with these amendments which
reinforce the view that our national parks belong to all South
Africans," said Morgan.

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DA DISAPPOINTED BY DECISION TO MINE WILD COAST

In August, the DA noted with disappointment the decision by the
Department of Minerals and Energy to grant a right to a mining company
that intended to mine a portion of land in Xolobeni in the Eastern
Cape.

"The granting of this mining right will see the creation of only a few
hundred jobs at most, and it will negate the sustainable option of job
creation on a massive level through opportunities from eco-tourism,"
said the Leader of the Opposition in parliament, Sandra Botha.

Since the initial announcement by the Minister of Minerals and Energy,
it appeared that the Minister was beginning to reconsider her decision
to grant the mining right. This followed two recent visits by the
Minister to the affected area.

Meanwhile DA spokesperson on environmental affairs Gareth Morgan has
raised questions about why the Minister of Environmental Affairs and
Tourism has been so quiet on this issue. He said that the Minister's
legacy was at stake if the mining went ahead.

Morgan drew attention to various conservation and tourism projects
that were either underway or had been mooted by the Department of
Environmental Affairs and Tourism, including the establishment of the
Pondoland National Park. He also reminded the Minister of a reply to a
DA parliamentary question in September 2007, in which the Minister
noted that SA Tourism had conducted a Global Competitiveness Study
which identified the lower and upper Wild Coast as priority areas for
tourism development.

"It is worth remembering the strong words of the former Minister of
Environmental Affairs, Valli Moosa, who said on the matter of mining
the Wild Coast that it would 'irreparably ruin the area and spell the
death of an eco-tourism asset whose long-term sustainability far
outweighs the economic benefits of mining'", said Morgan.

"The DA agrees with the former Minister."

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HIGH VACANCY RATE FOR EIA STAFF IN GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS

In reply to a DA parliamentary question, it was revealed that an
unacceptably high number of vacancies persist in the government
departments that deal with Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
applications. 44% of posts established to process EIAs are currently
vacant.

"The vacancies are particularly acute in a number of provinces
including Limpopo (73% vacancy rate), Mpumalanga (63% vacancy rate),
Free State (52% vacancy rate), Gauteng (44% vacancy rate), and North
West (43% vacancy rate). In total, there are 138 posts standing
unfilled across South Africa. KZN province did not return figures, but
a year ago the vacancy rate was approximately 50%," said DA
spokesperson on environmental affairs Gareth Morgan.

"The answer to this parliamentary question shows that problems with
slow EIAs are not necessarily with the instruments themselves, but
also with incapacity of the departments that assess applications."

Morgan said that the national department had several initiatives to
train EIA practitioners, also known as Environment Officer Cadres, in
the provinces, but it is clear that more needed to be done.

"These officers possess scarce skills, and the Minister needs to
redouble efforts to encourage more graduates to enter this field. As
the Minister acknowledges, competition with the private sector for
these skills is fierce, so it is self-evident that the conditions of
service of these practitioners needs to be improved."

Morgan said that, in light of the 2006 State of the Environment
Report, which noted a general decline in the health of South Africa's
environment, it was imperative that these positions in the provinces
be filled as soon as possible.

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DA DISAPPOINTED THAT G8 DID NOT COMMIT TO MORE DRAMATIC REDUCTION IN
CARBON EMISSIONS

The DA expressed its disappointment with the response of G8 leaders to
the climate change challenge in July.

"Their commitment to a 50% reduction in emissions by 2050 is
meaningless without a base year," said member of the G8+5 climate
dialogue and DA spokesperson on environmental affairs Gareth Morgan.

"Further, if these major emitters are to subscribe to the science of
climate change, then their reductions should be even greater by 2050."

Morgan said that the window of opportunity for a substantial climate
change response was closing and that it had been hoped that the G8
summit would set the groundwork for the negotiations leading up to the
next Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen in late 2009.

"The principle of historic and differentiated responsibility means
that developed countries need to take on the bulk of absolute
reductions in emissions through mitigation targets. While developing
countries should take some mitigation action in the period going
forward, the announcement by the G8 leaders is not going to provide
the necessary confidence building measures that developing countries
require to enter into a meaningful post-2012 climate framework," he
said.

Morgan said that legislators from the G8+5, including a cross-party
delegation from South Africa, met the week prior to the G8 Heads of
State Meeting, and drew up a substantial communiqué.

"This was a consensus document that, among other things, called on the
G8 to commit to mid-term targets as well as a long term goal. Most
notably, our communiqué called for a 25-40% reduction in emissions on
1990 levels by 2020. This has been ignored by the G8 leaders, despite
legislators from their own countries calling for it," he said.

"The DA believes that the South African government has taken the
correct positions on these matters, and calls on the Minister of
Environmental Affairs and Tourism to continue his efforts at ensuring
greater commitments by the developed world to dealing with climate
change."

In related news, Morgan had the opportunity to question former UK
Prime Minister Tony Blair at the G8+5 Climate Dialogue on matters
related to funding for adaptation to climate change. Blair is now
involved in an initiative to get CEOs of major corporations interested
in responding to climate change.

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WHY HAS THE MINISTER NOT CONCLUDED AIRPORT APPEALS PROCESS?

The DA has taken the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
Marthinus van Schalkwyk to task for not ruling on the appeals against
the record of decision for the construction of the new King Shaka
International airport, despite the deadline for appeals having been
closed more than nine months ago. Meanwhile, the construction of the
airport has been steaming ahead.

DA spokesperson on environmental affairs Gareth Morgan said in
parliament in June that the delay was making a mockery of the EIA
process.

"The Minister is making a ruling on the appeals against the
development application of ACSA, essentially a state-owned entity. The
longer this process drags out, the more it looks like he is favouring
an organ of state," said Morgan.

In late August, Morgan wrote to the Minister urging him to rule on the appeals.

"Surely it is better to cause remedial action on any problem areas as
soon as possible. A ruling on the appeals sooner rather than later
would allow stakeholders to engage with the substance of your ruling."

Morgan assured the Minister that his attempts to pursue the matter
were motivated by attempting to create a 'win-win situation'.

"My belief is that, the longer your ruling is delayed, the harder it
becomes to seek remedial efforts, if such efforts are required," wrote
Morgan.

The Minister responded in writing in September noting that he shared
Morgan's concern regarding the time it was taking to consider the
appeals.

"You will appreciate that this matter is complex and also very costly
and that, like you, I am also attempting to find a 'win-win' solution.
Balancing the respective arguments and rights of the parties to this
decision requires adequate consideration of all the facts and
circumstances," said Van Schalkwyk

"Please be assured however that I will nevertheless endeavour to
expedite my decision on this matter as far as is possible," wrote the
Minister.

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DA QUESTIONS SUSPENSION OF OFFICIALS INVOLVED WITH FLAMINGOS AT KAMFERS DAM

In August, the DA in the Northern Cape questioned the suspension of
three senior officials from the Department of Tourism, Environment and
Nature Conservation in the province.

"It is believed that these officials were suspended because of their
alleged involvement, both on a personal and departmental level, in the
flamingo saga at Kamfers Dam," said DA spokesperson on conservation in
the Northern Cape Dr Chris Liebenberg.

"The area adjacent to Kamfers Dam, home to the largest population of
flamingos in South Africa, is subject to a development application.
The current water quality of the dam is also a matter of considerable
concern."

"The question is, was their suspension politically motivated and, if
so, why? And secondly, what promises were made to the developers by
politicians?" said Liebenberg.

In light of the suspension of these officials, DA spokesperson on
environmental affairs Gareth Morgan asked the Minister of
Environmental Affairs whether he would consider becoming the competent
authority for this particular development application.

The Minister replied, noting that this application did not trigger any
of the requirements in section 24C of the National Environmental
Management Act which would make it an issue of national competency.

DA spokesperson on water affairs Mpowele Swathe subsequently
questioned the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry on what efforts
were being taken to mitigate the flow of partially treated sewage into
Kamfers Dam. The Minister responded that short term 'crisis
interventions' were currently underway and that long term
interventions were in an integrated planning stage.

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DA REACTS TO SUSPENSION OF THE BOARD OF EZEMVELO KZN WILDLIFE

The DA welcomed the suspension in late September of the entire board
of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife following recent disclosures in the
provincial legislature that nearly 50 Ezemvelo staff members would
face criminal prosecution or disciplinary action for fraud, corruption
and other offences.

"The controversy and mismanagement surrounding this once prized
provincial asset has boiled over and accountability should not be
limited to Ezemvelo board members," said DA spokesperson on
conservation in KZN Margaret Ambler-Moore.

"The MEC for Agriculture and Environmental Affairs, Mr Mthimkhulu,
must shoulder his share of responsibility for Ezemvelo's troubles and
for any public monies that may have been misappropriated as a result
of inaction on his part."

In answer to a parliamentary question in May 2005, the DA learnt that
board members had been transacting with Ezemvelo. Mr P. Shangase
received R378 000 over an 18 month period for services provided to
Ezemvelo by his company AP Shangase and Associates. Mr I. Lax received
R32 250 in that year for legal services he provided to Ezemvelo.

"The official written response from the then – MEC, Mr Ndabandaba, and
HOD Dr Mjwara was that 'there has never been a policy which stipulates
that members of the board may not supply services to the organisation
(Ezemvelo)'. This was strongly condemned by the DA in portfolio
committee meetings at the time, but as a result of inaction by
successive MECs, HODs and the Agriculture Department, Mr Shangase, Mr
Lax and/or other board members have been free to contract with the
same organisation that they serve in a fiduciary capacity for the last
three years," said Ambler-Moore.

"It is tragic that a once world-renowned conservation agency has seen
its entire board suspended, its CEO demoted for drunk driving, and 47
employees fingered for fraud and theft," she said.

"The future leadership of Ezemvelo must recapture the commitment to
conservation that was a hallmark of previous conservation agencies in
the province."

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DA CALLS FOR COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO GAUTENG DEVELOPMENTS

The DA has once again called on Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa to
initiate a commission of inquiry into various records of decisions
made by MEC for Agriculture, Conservation and Environment, Khabisi
Mosunkutu. A similar request was made of the Premier earlier this
year, however, he said there was no basis for such an inquiry.

The party had earlier accused Mosunkutu of overruling environmental
expert advice in his department against particular developments, in
some cases after personally meeting developers.

The renewed call for a commission of inquiry followed Gauteng
integrity commissioner Jules Browde's recent finding that evidence
presented "demanded a comprehensive inquiry" into decisions made by
the MEC. Browde had been investigating allegations that Mosunkutu had
earlier this year threatened two DA MPLs, Hendrika Kruger and Paul
Willemburg, and had ejected them from a media briefing.

MEC Mosunkutu was reported to have said to the DA MPLs in the briefing
in question: "Now, you know I am the sort of person who does not issue
a warning and not carry it out. I hope, friends, you have — eh —
sufficient resources…If you don't, (and you) go and lose, and you lose
spectacularly, (the) possibility is that I might take your house. I
will also help you look for an alternative for your kids, in some
orphanage, because that's (only fair). But I might just take your
house, or your car, if you don't have sufficient resources. So I hope
you have enough."

Mosunkutu was found to have breached the code of conduct and
subsequently apologised.

"A proper inquiry is needed into this department; otherwise the cloud
of suspicion will persist. Shilowa should heed the opinion of Browde
and set up an inquiry as soon as possible," said DA leader in the
Gauteng legislature Jack Bloom.

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DA CALLS FOR RESIGNATION OF NORTH WEST PARKS AND TOURISM BOARD

In September, the DA called for the resignation of the members of the
North West Parks and Tourism Board. This followed a report of the
Auditor-General (AG) on the findings of an investigation into the
possible conflict of interest by officials of the Board relating to
the procurement of goods and services.

The investigation had been initiated by the Public Accounts Committee
after DA provincial leader and spokesperson for conservation in the
North West Chris Hattingh raised various allegations in the committee
in June 2007.

"The AG's report confirmed, among other things, that various employees
of the Board had not declared their interests in companies and/or
close corporations, nor had they received approval to perform other
remunerative work," said Hattingh.

"Six entities connected to employees of the North-West Parks and
Tourism Board had been found to be doing business with the Board."

The DA welcomed the recommendation that all employees listed in the
report should declare interest in companies or close corporations.

"The report of the AG indicates gross anomalies. It is a disgrace to
see a government entity that people have placed so much trust and
faith in, exploit this trust," said Hattingh.

"If the Board fails to resign, the DA will put forward a motion in the
legislature calling for their immediate replacement."

Back to menu >>

DID YOU KNOW?
How does paper wastage contribute to our carbon footprint?
• Worldwide, the pulp and paper industry is the fifth largest
industrial consumer of energy.
• Producing recycled paper uses up to 70% less energy than virgin
paper, as well as using far less water.
• According to environmental charities, for every tonne of 100%
post-consumer recycled paper purchased instead of virgin fibre paper,
we save at least 30,000 litres of water and 3000 - 4000 KWh of
electricity, which is enough power to run an average three bedroom
house for one year.
• Nearly 80% of the world's original old growth forests have been
logged or severely degraded.
• 34% of documents printed are used for less than 5 minutes, while 22%
are never used.

ZILLE - MBEKI'S OUSTING MAY SIGNAL END OF THE ANC'S DOMINANCE

2008-09-23T10:43:00.001+02:00

STATEMENT BY HELEN ZILLE

LEADER OF THE DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE

Mbeki's ousting may signal end of the ANC's dominance

Release, immediate: Sunday, 21 September 2008

President Mbeki made a dignified resignation speech. He used the
opportunity to spell out the points of his Presidency for which he
wishes to be remembered, and to differ with the opinion expressed by
Judge Chris Nicholson in the judgment of 12 September 2008. This
judgment gave the Jacob Zuma faction the reason it had been seeking
for a long time to oust President Mbeki and seize power so that they
can impose a political solution to avoid Zuma having to face his day
in court.

In his statement, Mbeki demonstrated respect for a court judgment,
even though he has not been given a chance to state his case in court.
This contrasts sharply with the response of Jacob Zuma and his
followers, who only respect court judgments that are in their favour,
and vilify and defy the judiciary if they are not.

The dignified way in which Thabo Mbeki handled his exit gives us hope
that there will be some continuity in government between now and the
next election. We must now look ahead and consider what is in the best
interests of our country. Above all else, it is crucial that there is
stability in government. An all out purge of Ministers, particularly
those that have carried out their jobs effectively, would have
disastrous consequences for delivery. This must be avoided at all
costs.

The President's forced resignation is clearly motivated by the ANC's
stated aim to find a 'political solution' to Jacob Zuma's legal
problems. The incoming President must make a commitment that he or she
will not interfere with the National Prosecuting Authority's decision
to appeal Judge Chris Nicholson's judgment or any further efforts by
the NPA to prosecute Jacob Zuma for the alleged 783 bribes he
received.

Mbeki's conciliatory tone belies the deep divisions in the ruling
party; his ousting may prove to be the undoing of the ANC's electoral
dominance. We must now show South Africa that there is an alternative
to the political thuggery that has come to characterise the ANC.

The vicious way in which Mbeki was forced out by his enemies has
shocked the nation. As a result, the ANC stands irrevocably divided
and so do its supporters. Ironically President Mbeki spoke about the
value of Ubuntu, which has clearly been denied to him by his own
party.

I have long called for a realignment of politics to unite all South
Africans who wish to defend the constitution and the gains of our
democracy. We must stand together to resist the war-talking
anti-constitutionalists that have taken over the ANC. This time is now
upon us. We will redouble our efforts to bring together all those who
believe in the Constitution to challenge the power hunger and power
abuse of Jacob Zuma's ANC.

President Mbeki leaves a chequered legacy. His denialism of HIV/Aids
and crime cost thousands of lives; he undermined his own vision of an
African renaissance by siding with despots on the continent; and, by
eschewing Nelson Mandela's nation-building project, he has left South
Africa more divided than when he assumed office.

But, for all his faults, Thabo Mbeki must be praised for his sound
stewardship of the economy. Under his watch, South Africa experienced
its longest sustained period of economic growth, albeit in a benign
international economic climate.

All new democracies go through periods of political turbulence. The
future depends on how we react to the tumult. This is a time for bold
leadership and fresh thinking. If we make the right decisions, South
Africa's democracy can emerge stronger than before. This is our
challenge and we must not fail.

DA@WORK 22 September - SA: the road ahead

2008-09-22T15:50:00.001+02:00

DA@WORK 22 September

MBEKI'S OUSTING MAY SIGNAL END OF ANC'S DOMINANCE
President Thabo Mbeki's dignified resignation speech has helped calm
South Africans in the wake of his departure from office. It was
crucial for Mbeki to convey a message that there would be stability in
government after his departure.

ZUMA JUDGEMENT: THE ROAD AHEAD
A number of measures could be taken to ensure transgressors were held
to account, that justice was served and that independent state
institutions were protected from undue political influence.

FLAWED INVESTIGATIONS FREE CRIMINALS
Failure by government to address weaknesses in the police's detective
service has allowed criminals to go unpunished.

COULD NEW DEAL BE THE BEGINNING OF STABILITY IN ZIM?
While the signing of the deal was the first significant ray of hope
for the future stability of Zimbabwe, Leon voiced concerned about the
durability of the deal.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

The success of our Paralympics team in Beijing is a shining example of
the extraordinary talent that South Africa possesses - our
Paralympians have shown incredible determination, perseverance and
dedication throughout the games – values which all South Africans
should emulate in our efforts to build a prosperous and winning
nation.

James Masango congratulates the South African paralymic team on their
stellar performance in at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing -the
team finished in sixth position with 21 gold medals, 3 silver medals
and 6 bronze medals.

MBEKI'S OUSTING MAY SIGNAL END OF ANC'S DOMINANCE

President Thabo Mbeki's dignified resignation speech has helped calm
South Africans in the wake of his departure from office, Democratic
Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Sunday.

She said that Mbeki had used his live resignation speech on television
as the opportunity to spell out the legacy for which he would like to
be remembered and to differ with Judge Chris Nicholson's inference
that HE may have interfered in the National Prosecuting Authority's
prosecution of Zuma.

"This judgment gave the Zuma faction the reason it had been seeking
for a long time to oust Mbeki and seize power so that they can impose
a political solution to avoid Zuma having to face his day in court,"
she said.

"The dignified way in which Thabo Mbeki handled his exit gives us hope
that there will be some continuity in government between now and the
next election," she said in a statement.

It was crucial for Mbeki to convey a message that there would be
stability in government after his departure.

"We must now look ahead and consider what is in the best interests of
our country," she said.

While Mbeki had made some blunders, it was important not to lose sight
of his achievements.

"For all his faults, Thabo Mbeki must be praised for his sound
stewardship of the economy - under his watch, South Africa experienced
its longest sustained period of economic growth, albeit in a benign
international economic climate," she said.

Zille reiterated her view that the ANC's decision to remove Mbeki was
motivated by the party's desire to protect its President, Jacob Zuma,
from prosecution.

"The President's forced resignation is clearly motivated by the ANC's
stated aim to find a 'political solution' to Jacob Zuma's legal
problems," she said.

"The incoming president must make a commitment that he or she will not
interfere with the NPA's decision to appeal Judge Nicholson's judgment
or any further efforts by the NPA to prosecute Jacob Zuma for the 783
alleged bribes he received."

The vicious way in which Mbeki was forced out by his enemies had
shocked the nation and as a result, the ANC stood irrevocably divided,
as did its supporters.

"Ironically, President Mbeki spoke about the value of Ubuntu, which
has clearly been denied to him by his own party," said Zille.

She said that Mbeki's conciliatory tone belied the deep divisions in
the ruling party and that his ousting may prove to be the undoing of
the ANC's electoral dominance.

"We must now show South Africa that there is an alternative to the
political thuggery that has come to characterise the ANC."

"I have long called for a realignment of politics to unite all South
Africans who wish to defend the constitution and the gains of our
democracy," she said.

"We must stand together to resist the war-talking
anti-constitutionalists that have taken over the ANC and we will
redouble our efforts to bring together all those who believe in the
Constitution to challenge the power hunger and power abuse of Jacob
Zuma's ANC."

"All new democracies go through periods of political turbulence and
the future depends on how we react to the tumult," Zille said.

This was a time for bold leadership and fresh thinking.

"If we make the right decisions, South Africa's democracy can emerge
stronger than before. This is our challenge and we must not fail."

ZUMA JUDGEMENT: THE ROAD AHEAD

In a press conference last Tuesday, DA leader Helen Zille said that
the verdict delivered by Judge Chris Nicholson in the Pietermaritzburg
High Court the preceding Friday raised key questions about the
corruption cancer at the heart of government

She outlined four key issues arising from the judgement which she said
should be given due consideration.

"Firstly, it is clearer than ever that a judicial commission of
inquiry is the only way we are going to get to the truth of the arms
deal," she said.

This was a demand the DA had been making from the start. DA
parliamentary leader Sandra Botha last Monday submitted a motion to
Parliament calling for a debate on the establishment of a commission
of enquiry into the arms deal.

"We must get to the truth because we cannot build our future as a
constitutional democracy when government leaders block all means of
establishing whether or not they are corrupt. "

"Secondly, the judgment suggests that President Thabo Mbeki influenced
the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in his war against his
designated successor, Jacob Zuma."

This matter was subsequently addressed by Mbeki in his resignation speech.

"Thirdly and most importantly, Jacob Zuma has not been acquitted of
corruption charges," Zille said.

"A court of law has yet to determine whether Zuma is guilty or
innocent of charges of corruption relating to the arms deal."

Zuma had repeatedly asked for his day in court to clear his name and
until this happened, he could not be a fit candidate for the
Presidency of the country and he must withdraw until his name had been
cleared in court.

"Fourthly, it is clear that the NPA is susceptible to political
interference, which needs to change if we are to prevent accusations
of selective prosecution in the future," Zille said.

She said that the manner which these issues were dealt would determine
whether constitutional democracy was strengthened or weakened.

A number of measures could be taken to ensure transgressors were held
to account, that justice was served and that independent state
institutions were protected from undue political influence.

These interventions included the establishment of a judicial
commission of inquiry into the arms deal; the prosecution of Jacob
Zuma, after he had been given the opportunity to make representations,
given the prima facie case against him; and a re-evaluation of the
constitutional provisions and legislation governing the NPA, so as to
restore the integrity of that institution.

She added that should the National Prosecuting Authority decline to
prosecute ANC President Jacob Zuma on charges related to the arms
deal, the DA would investigate the option of bringing a private
prosecution against him.

"We need to be sure that a court has pronounced him innocent before he
assumes that office, and if a court finds him guilty, that he has no
chance of assuming that office.

"Because if somebody guilty of such serious corruption charges is in
the highest office in this country, then the rot will quickly
consolidate itself in the body politic, and it will be a disaster for
everybody," she said.

Read the detailed plan here >> http://www.da.org.za/?p=373

FLAWED INVESTIGATIONS FREE CRIMINALS

Failure by government to address weaknesses in the police's detective
service has allowed criminals to go unpunished, the Democratic
Alliance said last Thursday.

Briefing the media on the DA's recent survey on the capacity of the
SAPS's detective service, safety and security spokesperson Dianne
Kohler Barnard said the state had failed to equip the country's
investigators with adequate resources.

"As a result of the neglect of the Detective Services, the SAPS's
investigative ability has been severely undermined and this has
contributed to the overall dysfunction of our criminal justice
system," she said.

According to the DA's calculations, six out every 100 crimes reported
to the police resulted in a conviction.

Close to a million crime scenes were not being visited as a resulted
of a shortage of forensic experts in the SAPS.

Detectives managed a case load of 40 or more cases as opposed to the
norm of 10 cases.

Kohler Barnard attributed the deteriorating investigative capability
to the department of safety and security's pattern of funding that was
heavily skewed in favour of other components of the SAPS to the
detriment of the detective service.

"Since 2004, the Detective Service has received only a seven percent
increase in the number of staff while Protection Services, which does
not provide security to the general public but instead is used
increasingly to protect the ANC leadership, has increased by a
staggering 160 percent," she said.

Measures proposed by the DA to beef up the service included the
immediate employment of 30 000 detectives, the improvement of
detectives' salaries and high quality training.

"It is clear that, in order to improve the functioning of the criminal
justice system, the ability of the SAPS to detect and solve must be
substantially improved," Kohler Barnard said.

Read the full report here >> http://www.da.org.za/?p=431

COULD NEW DEAL BE THE BEGINNING OF STABILITY IN ZIM?

The news that ZANU-PF's Robert Mugabe and Movement for Democratic
Change leaders, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara had finally
succeeded in reaching a mutually-agreeable power-sharing deal in
Zimbabwe, signed last Monday, was to be welcomed said DA foreign
affairs spokesperson, Tony Leon.

The significant reduction of Mugabe's powers was to be welcomed, he said.

While the signing of the deal was the first significant ray of hope
for the future stability of Zimbabwe, Leon voiced concerned about the
durability of the deal, as well as the dangerous precedent it would
set for the future of ballot-based regime change in Africa.

"The Kenyan power-sharing deal, which came in the wake of the
extensive political violence which followed that country's last
election, and today's agreement have established a disturbing trend in
Africa whereby despotic rulers can continue to cling to power even
after their removal from office by democratic means," he said.

"In addition to this, past experience has shown that Mugabe is not a
man who may be taken at his word; as such it remains to be seen
whether he will honour his part of the agreement."

"Of particular concern is the indication that the security ministries
– which have been used by ZANU-PF as instruments of political violence
– will by-and-large remain under Mugabe's control."

He expressed the hope that Zimbabwe's people who had been subject to
crippling socio-economic turmoil and political violence at the hands
of Mugabe's repressive regime would come to benefit from the
agreement, however flawed.

"We also hope that today's deal will be the last in a series of
political solutions in Africa, which ignore the democratic consensus
and threaten to undermine our chances of seeing true democracy take
root and flower on the continent," he concluded.

DID YOU KNOW?

While charities serving South Africa's neglected and abandoned
citizens have been fighting desperately with the National Lotteries
Board to have their applications processed, the NLB 2008 annual report
shows that its officials were all paid generous bonuses during the
2007/08 financial year.

• NLB staff received a total of R1.4m in bonus payments, amounting to
a 14% addition to the total salary bill, an amount that could have
been a life-line to some of the charities which have been brought to
the brink of closure by the NLB's failure to pay out..

• Six senior managers received approximately a quarter of this amount
(R279 000).

• The CEO benefited the most, with a large payout of R76 000.

• The manager of applications (who should be held directly responsible
for the chaos in the applications process) received a generous R49
000.

• Other staff members received an estimated average of R19 000.

THE NEGLECT OF OUR DETECTIVE SERVICES
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/439

THE TRUTH BEHIND POLICING IN SOUTH AFRICA
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/438

HOW GOOD IS YOUR PERSONAL SECURITY?
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/437

WOULD YOU TACKLE CRIMINALS AFTER ONLY TWO WEEKS OF TRAINING?
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/436

THIS WEEK IN THE REAL ANC TODAY

An overview of 11 key Judgments handed down by the High Court, the
Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court, regarding the
ANC government and the nature of its administration.

The Nicholson Judgment has brought the ANC's behavior into stark
relief. Against that background, it is worth considering what the
Courts have had to say about the ruling party more generally.

http://realanctoday.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/the-judiciary-on-the-anc/

SA Today: Zuma must commit to the rule of law, not the rule of war

2008-09-19T22:29:00.001+02:00

A weekly letter from the Leader of the Democratic Alliance 19 September 2008
Zuma must commit to the rule of law, not the rule of war

Since Judge Chris Nicholson ruled in his favour last Friday, Jacob
Zuma has suddenly become a staunch supporter of the courts' role in
promoting constitutional democracy.
On Monday, he told an audience that, "Our faith in the judiciary
has…been given a further boost by the ruling…", and that the "judgment
has re-emphasised the independence of the judiciary and the critical
role it plays in interpreting our Constitution…".
Most importantly, Zuma claimed, the verdict "opened the eyes of the
nation to the critical task at hand, to…protect our democratic
institutions and prevent their abuse to further political agendas".
It is all very well for Zuma to have made these remarks after the
Pietermaritzburg High Court's ruling, since the judgment went his way.
Beforehand, however, he showed little inclination to contradict or
restrain those of his supporters who had openly intimidated the
judiciary and threatened to unleash a wave of violence if he lost his
case. One of the unintended consequences of the verdict is that Zuma's
supporters may well believe their strategy worked.
Zuma's double-dealing reflects the "lie in the soul", to use Plato's
term, of the new ANC leadership cabal elected at Polokwane: its
misguided belief that the ANC is more important than the Constitution.
When constitutional institutions happen to come down on the side of
its leaders, the ANC is happy to talk the language of
constitutionalism and proclaim its commitment to the rule of law. When
it feels thwarted by those institutions, the ANC reverts to
revolutionary war-talk; it brands them "counter-revolutionary" enemies
of the people, and elevates the rule of war over the rule of law.
A week before judgment was passed by the High Court, some of Zuma's
backers protested outside courts in KwaZulu-Natal. They carried
banners stating: "We shall take arms if need be to support [the] ANC
President". Others burnt tyres outside police stations, and threw
stones at police officers.
Neither Zuma nor the party he leads unequivocally condemned these
actions. That is because the new crop of ANC leaders has only a
tenuous attachment to the rule of law.
We have seen it in what former ANC MP Kader Asmal calls the
"militarisation of our political discourse" – statements by senior ANC
officials calling on people to "prepare for war", "kill for Zuma" and
"fight to take over the streets".
ANC Youth League President Julius Malema specialises in this sort of
inflammatory rhetoric. Before the High Court passed judgment, he
pledged: "We'll never hand over our President to jail without a fight.
We're going to fight…Any force that tries to block our way, we will
eliminate. We are on a mission here. We will crush you".
ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe also made warlike threats against
the judiciary before the High Court ruled. He labelled Constitutional
Court judges "counter-revolutionaries" and said that "when the…judges
pounce on our President we should be ready at that point in time
[because] our revolution is in danger [and] we must declare to defend
it till the end".
Malema and Mantashe's pronouncements, and countless others by senior
ANC leaders, formed part of a systematic campaign of intimidation
against the judiciary over the months that Zuma appeared in court.
The reasons for the campaign are not hard to find: If the judiciary
and the Constitution stand in the way of the personal interests of the
ANC President; if they contradict decisions taken by the party; and if
they frustrate the party's drive for absolute power, then the ANC is
ready to attack the judiciary and jettison the Constitution.
That is why Zuma's recent utterances about the judiciary and other
constitutional institutions need to be taken with a pinch of salt.
After all, this is the same man who argues that "the ANC is more
important than even the Constitution of the country".
However, if Zuma is serious about the rule of law, the constitutional
mandate of the courts, the independence of the judiciary, and the
political neutrality of other democratic institutions, he must match
his words with deeds.
Firstly, he must accept the decision by the NPA to appeal the High
Court's ruling, and instruct his party to do the same. ANC
spokesperson Jessie Duarte has called the NPA's move "cynical and
ill-considered". Cosatu's KwaZulu-Natal Secretary has described it as
"a declaration of war on our people".
It is hypocritical of the ANC and its alliance partners to praise
Judge Nicholson's ruling and then to lambaste the NPA's decision to
appeal it. The NPA is fully within its rights to appeal the verdict –
that is the due process of law – and Zuma has himself had recourse to
the appeals mechanism on several occasions during his trial.
Moreover, if there is a prima facie case against Zuma, the NPA is
legally bound to explore every legal avenue to ensure justice is done.
That is what the rule of law requires, and this is what the Nicholson
judgment also emphasised.
Secondly, as ANC President, Zuma must abandon his party's cadre
deployment policy. In deploying cadres to supposedly independent state
institutions, the ANC has subordinated these institutions to its own
political agenda. Once factionalism became rife within the ruling
party, it was inevitable that cadres would use the institutions they
led to fight battles on behalf of their political masters and
persecute their political opponents.
Indeed, this is what Zuma maintains about the NPA: that President
Mbeki got the former National Director of Public Prosecutions,
Bulelani Ngcuka (a deployed ANC MP) to do his bidding in making public
claims about a prima facie case of corruption against Zuma.
Cadre deployment has completely undermined the independence of our
constitutional institutions, whose very role it is to limit the ruling
party's power and guard against the abuse of that power. It is time
for the cadre deployment policy to be discarded once and for all, and
Zuma must set the ball in motion.
But he is unlikely to do so. Why would Zuma want an independent person
as the National Director of Public Prosecutions when he is facing
allegations of 783 counts of bribery over 10 years involving
R4,2-million? Zuma has done everything to avoid his day in court in
order to gain the power of the Presidency. If he does become
President, it is likely that he – more so than Thabo Mbeki – will
abuse the office to protect and enrich himself and his clique. Cadre
deployment is one of the key tools of abuse.
Zuma's commitment to constitutionalism, and the commitment of the
ruling party's post-Polokwane leadership, has yet to be truly tested.
The NPA is to appeal the High Court ruling, and it may reinstitute
charges against Zuma. If either of those moves is successful, our
constitutional democracy will face its greatest test yet. But our
judiciary is strong, and more people support the rule of law than the
rule of war. For that reason, I believe that the Constitution, rather
than empty war-talk, will win the day.

Best Wishes

Elderly woman seriously assaulted with hammer

2008-09-18T12:33:00.001+02:00

To: ireport@cnn.com, press.office@bbc.co.uk, yourpics@bbc.co.uk,
margaretha@publicy.nl, foxnewsonline@foxnews.com, news@sky.com,
news@newsday.com, stories@farmmurders.com, dtletters@telegraph.co.uk

An old woman (78) , Mrs. Marie Claassen from Kromdraai outside
Muldersdrift South-Africa , has been seriously assaulted with a hammer
by a black man wearing a beleclava and gloves.
Like this the reality of the NSA (New South Africa) creep upon us to
stalk us at our front porch.

Sunday evening 7 September 2008 at 21h00 on the farm Kromdraai :
A 78 year old woman are being assaulted in her Own home by a black man
that wear a beleclava and gloves . She has been hit with a hammer on
the head , one blow penetrated more than 3cm through the skull .
She still live and are being cared for in Hospital .
More detail in the attached interview on Radio Pretoria .

Interview wit Mr. Armand Claassen , Mrs. Marie's son on Radio Pretoria
VolksMikrofoon .

VolksMikrofoon : " Do she stay allone there ?"
Armand : " She
stay alone yes , my father died 14 years ago and my sister about 7
years ago. We tried to persuade her to move but she didn't want to
move due to the fact she stayed there over 40 years. Also we had good
security . "
VM : " What happened ? "
Armand : " It was Sunday evening at about 21h00 . She have a small dog
that stay with her in the house . The dog started to bark , usually
when he do this she know he want to go outside . When she opened the
door , a black man with a beleclava and gloves repeatedly assaulted
her with a hammer on the head . From there he dragged and threw her
through the house , blood on the walls and floor are evidence of that
, through the hallway into the main bedroom . He knew there is a safe
. "
VM : " Were she conscious ? "
Armand : " She say so yes , drifting in and out .In the room he hit
her another few blows with the hammer . He then got the keys for the
safe and emptied it . There is another safe but we don't have keys for
it , he then tried to break it open . After numerous unsuccesful
attempts , he hit her with the hammer on her fingers . Failing to open
the second safe , he decide to take the stolen items and load it into
her vehicle . The vehicle stopped outside the house due to the
anti-highjack system of the vehicle . He took what he could carry and
fled . "
VM : " What did he steal ? "
Armand : " Not much . Two fire-arms that were inside the safe . Mostly
jewelry and her bank cards . The next morning he withdrew a few
thousand rand , in the meantime we stopped the accounts . "
VM : " How did your mother got help , when did help arrive ? "
Armand : " The next morning . The farmworker phoned me at 08h30 to
tell me the gate are not being opened , he can't enter to start work .
I then went there immediately . When I arrived I found my mother in
the house , by then she was already more than 12 hours alone , in pain
and shock . "
VM : " What a shocking experience it must have been for you ? "
Armand : " She is small and old (78) , I cannot believe that one
person can do this to another person . It is pointless , he got what
he wanted ; it was not necesary for this absurd violence ."
VM : " I can't believe it , with a hammer over the head !! Are she
seriously injured ? "
Armand : " Yes she is seriously injured , she is in intensive care in
hospital . Three blows to the side of the skull cracked it , but
another blow on top of the head went right through and penetrated the
skull , causing a breakage in the skull bone 3cm in diameter . This
indicates he've hit her to kill her . "
VM : " What do the doctors say , what is her chances of survival ? "
Armand : " They say it is rather good . The one side of the body is
paralysed caused by the broken skullbone that causes pressure on the
brain . It will be removed in an operation. "
VM : " Is it only one person ? "
Armand : " Yes it was only one person . He dug a hole underneath the
electric fence , tracks indicate it is one person , also the stolen
items is enough for one person to carry . "
VM : " He obviously waited for her to open the door . "
Armand : " Yes , we looked outside and saw he tried to opened the
steel security gates . She didn't heard it because she was watching TV
, but the dog heard it and hence started barking . "
VM : " Is she going back to the farm ? "
Armand : " Not a chance , she'll stay with us . "

'Tell Nqakula I won't go'

2008-09-17T17:23:00.001+02:00

16/09/2008 22:53 - (SA)

Virginia Keppler, Beeld

Pretoria - "Tell the minister of safety and security that I'm not
going to Australia, because South Africa is my home."

That's what a citrus farmer from Cullinan, east of Pretoria, said
after being shot three times in a robbery that took place at his house
on Monday night at 22:30.

John de Jager, 37, was shot three times in his right leg when he came
to the aid of his wife, Petronella, also 37, after armed robbers
attacked her at their washing line.

She had gone out to bring in the washing when she suddenly started
screaming. He immediately rushed outside, De Jager said from his bed
in Montana hospital on Tuesday.

Shot without warning

"I saw a man standing close to her. He didn't say anything and shot me
without warning. When the first bullet struck me, I rushed at him. He
then fired two more shots, hitting me in the same leg."

The robbers left him lying there and took his wife into the house.

"They took her to our bedroom to open the safe for them and then stole
two firearms and money from the safe."

The robbers also took the couple's cellphones and Petronella's wedding
rings and jewellery. They then tied her hands behind her back with her
husband's shoelaces.

"They also tied my hands and feet with my shoelaces and then sat on
me. When I told them I needed medical attention, they swore at me.

"Before they fled, they pulled a blanket over my head."

His wife managed to free herself and also cut him loose.

Son sleeps through drama

"I couldn't move and just lay there."

Fortunately their son, Günter, seven, slept through the drama.

More than a week ago De Jager caught two cable thieves on his property
and handed them over to the police. He believes the attack could be
related to that.

Minister of Safety and Security, Charles Nqakula, said in 2006 that
people who threaten to leave the country because of the high crime
rate should stop complaining or leave.

De Jager said he wasn't going to leave the country. "The minister
should rather be sacked.

"Tell him (the minister) I'm not a grumbler and I'll never leave the
country, because where shall I go? I just want them to bring back the
death penalty.

"My firearms are now out there and will be used in other armed robberies."

Source:News24

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2394571,00.html

DA@WORK 15 September - quality healthcare should be accesible to all

2008-09-15T20:32:00.001+02:00

MAKE QUALITY HEALTH CARE ACCESSIBLE TO ALL
The government must bridge the gap between the private and the public
health care sectors to create quality of care which all can access

COMPENSATION FUND IS FAILING THOUSANDS
According to the AG, the extent of the mismanagement of the CF ranged
from a complete breakdown of internal controls and a filing system in
complete disarray, to non-compliance with applicable legislation.

DEFENCE DEPARTMENT UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT
South Africa's defence sector should be subjected to rigorous scrutiny
in all respects, in light of its recent infringements of legislation.

ZAPIRO CARTOON SHOULD SHOCK THE RULING PARTY TO ITS SENSES
A metaphorical depiction that tells the truth and provokes argument
may be just what South Africa needs at this critical juncture.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

The judgment also provides proof to Zuma's supporters, if any were
necessary, that the judiciary is impartial and will rule according to
the law. It is now incumbent upon them to demonstrate their respect
for the judiciary when judgments go against their political
preferences. If Zuma has his day in court, as we believe he must in
the interests of the country, his supporters will have no reason to
believe that he won't have a fair trial.

DA Leader Helen Zille comments on the Pietermartizburg High Court's
verdict set aside the decision to prosecute Jacob Zuma on fraud and
corruption charges on a technicality, saying nthat the rule of law
must be respected, in her weekly newsletter SA Today -
http://www.da.org.za/?p=357

MAKE QUALITY HEALTH CARE ACCESSIBLE TO ALL

The government must bridge the gap between the private and the public
health care sectors to create quality of care which all can access,
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said last Tuesday.

"Our health care system works well for some. Most South Africans are
excluded from it. Most people still rely on the public health system,"
Zille told the party's New Vision for Health Care conference in
Johannesburg.

She criticised Cosatu secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi's
recommendation to do away with the private health system.

"Nationalising health care would be disastrous, because it would shift
the burden of provision of quality health care to the state," she
said.

The state was incapable of providing quality health care for all, she said.

Zille also voiced her concern about the National Health Amendment Bill
- which would give Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang the power
to determine private sector hospital fees.

"This would lead to a further loss of skills. Private health providers
would close their doors... shrinking the private sector and placing an
even greater burden on an already incapacitated public health care
sector," she said.

She recommended that the government only be involved in the financing
of health care and not in service delivery, adding that this would
allow market forces to ensure efficiency and keep down costs.

Examples of this were the Canadian, Singaporean and Taiwanese health
care systems, said Zille.

"We need to find a working solution that would allow private providers
to earn a living while the state meets its obligation to its people."

She said reforming the health care system would mean fixing what was
not working without destroying what did work.

Read the full speech here >> http://www.da.org.za/?p=213

COMPENSATION FUND IS FAILING THOUSANDS

The Democratic Alliance last Monday called for a forensic
investigation of the Compensation Fund (CF) and for the fund to be put
out to tender.

The latest disclaimer by the Auditor-General in his report on the CF
tabled in parliament, confirmed the evidence of complaints to the DA
that the fund was in serious disarray, DA labour spokesperson Anchen
Dreyer said.

According to the AG, the extent of the mismanagement of the CF ranged
from a complete breakdown of internal controls and a filing system in
complete disarray, to non-compliance with applicable legislation.

The CF was supposed to assist employees who had had the misfortune of
contracting an occupational disease or suffering an injury while on
duty.

The neglect and mismanagement of this fund caused direct harm to
ordinary South African workers, especially those who could not afford
private sector disability insurance and were therefore most
vulnerable.

Dreyer said complaints received by the DA indicated it was not only
individual claimants who were disgruntled with the CF and service
providers had also not been spared.

Some medical practitioners had resorted to demanding cash upfront from
employers of injured staff, while others were flatly refusing to treat
CF patients to avoid the risk of late payment or no payment at all.

Common among the complainants was a poor track record of payment. One
legal consultant highlighted an unresolved case dating back as far as
1994.

Generally, those lucky enough to receive payment had to wait for at
least a year to get their first instalment.

Particularly worrisome was the lack of political will the labour
minister had displayed in this regard, and the absence of purposeful
action to resolve the fund's long-standing problems.

In 2005, the CF strategy 2006-2009 was introduced to improve customer
satisfaction through service and efficiency.

"Two and a half years down the line little has changed," Dreyer said.

"The time has come for the department to undertake a forensic
investigation of the Compensation Fund.

"The Commissioner and his top staff must be held accountable for
letting down vulnerable workers in this way.

"The DA further contends that the Compensation Fund should be put out
to tender. Let the best bidder run it in a professional manner, to the
benefit of injured and sick South African workers," she said.

DEFENCE DEPARTMENT UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT

South Africa's defence sector should be subjected to rigorous scrutiny
in all respects, in light of its recent infringements of legislation
said the Democratic Alliance last Wednesday.

"Given the recent debacle in April 2008 in which the NCACC, in
contravention of the rules that bind it, permitted a Chinese weapons
shipment bound for Zimbabwe to be conveyed across South Africa, it is
Vital that all its transactions are shown to be transparent and open,"
said DA defence spokesperson, Rafeek Shah.

It appeared that there were serious unresolved issues regarding
defence industry interests held by senior defence force members, which
served to undermine civilian oversight of the defence force.

The Auditor-General (A-G) had previously found that the current Acting
Secretary for Defence, Mr Tsepe Motumi, was named as a director in
Chancellor House Defence Dynamics, which is part of the Chancellor
House Group, the front company for the ANC.

"Given Mr Motumi's high ranking position in the Department of Defence,
such alleged vested interests in the defence sector are highly
inappropriate."

"If the allegations are true, it means that specific business
interests are in a position to benefit from inside information, and if
these business interests are associated with political parties – and
the ruling party in particular - it has serious implications for good
governance in our country," said Shah.

As early as August 2007, the AG had stated in his report that the
potential for a conflict of interests existed within the department
and had called for action to address this on the part of the NCACC.

"The Democratic Alliance calls upon the Minister of Defence to confirm
whether or not these allegations are true and, if so, how such a
situation could have been allowed to occur," Shah said.

He said that the DA had submitted parliamentary questions to gain
clarity on the situation and would pursue it within the Defence
Portfolio Committee to ensure that all members of the DoD declared
their interests openly and completely.

"Clear measures must be taken to ensure that state information is not
used to further personal and political interests," he stated.

ZAPIRO CARTOON SHOULD SHOCK THE RULING PARTY TO ITS SENSES

Reacting to the controversy that sprang up over a cartoon by Jonathan
Shapiro (Zapiro), depicting the "rape of justice" by ANC president
Jacob Zuma, the Democratic Alliance said that neither Shapiro nor the
Sunday Times was practising abuse of the freedom of expression in
creating or publishing the cartoon.

"A metaphorical depiction that tells the truth and provokes argument
may be just what South Africa needs at this critical juncture. It may
also be what is needed to shock the country's leaders into their
senses," said party communications spokesperson, Dene Smuts.

"The Constitutional Court has confirmed in different judgments that
free speech includes ideas that shock or disturb, and that the
arbitration of taste cannot form part of adjudication."

"The truly shocking fact is that the ANC's new rulers – effectively
the SACP, ANC Youth League and Cosatu – have been attacking the
constitutional order at its foundation for many months now - by
calling the chief justices counter-revolutionary (Mr Gwede Mantashe);
issuing a threat that a ruling against Jacob Zuma would 'take the
country to the brink' (Blade Nzimande); and mounting demonstrations
against the courts," she said.

DID YOU KNOW?

The South African Social Security Agency's (SASSA) annual report
released last week, revealed a startling vacancy rate at the agency,
meaning that its capacity to deliver comprehensive social security
services to South Africa's poorest and most vulnerable citizens could
be seriously compromised.

The report shows that SASSA has an overall vacancy rate of 58.7% with
vacancies highly concentrated in critical areas, for instance:

• Out of 10 475 posts of permanent skilled workers only 4 323
vacancies were filled. This is a 58.7 percent vacancy rate.
• The vacancy rate of permanent highly skilled employees stands at
64.5 percent (out of 5341 posts only 1896 were filled).
• The vacancy rate at senior management and supervisory (highly
skilled) level is 32.6 and 57.7 percent respectively.
• To compound this situation, the finance department tasked with
detecting social grant fraud also has an alarming vacancy rate of 49.2
percent - out of 366 vacancies only 186 are filled and the legal
department which must initiate legal proceedings against fraudsters is
51.4 percent vacant.

With the high level of social grant fraud and the agency's incapacity
to deal with this, it comes as no surprise that SASSA has overspent by
R 33 659 000.

CAMERAS GO UP IN BID TO WEED OUT BAD COPS
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/432

KNOW YOUR ENEMY
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/431

ROBBERS TARGETING OUR HOMES – AND COMING IN ARMED
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/430

DO WE FIGHT BACK? APPARENTLY NOT!
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/429

Heart expert's wife murdered

2008-09-15T16:40:00.001+02:00

15/09/2008 09:44 - (SA)

Jackie Pienaar-Brink, Die Burger

Cape Town - The wife of a member of the team that carried out the
world's first heart transplant was murdered in the early hours of
Sunday morning in Hermanus.

The body of Lulu Hewitson, 84, was found in the foyer of her house at
about 04:00. She had a stab wound to her back.

Her husband, Professor Rodney Hewitson, survived the attack as he was
in another part of the house, said police spokesperson Superintendent
André Traut. He was badly traumatised.

The elderly woman was murdered after she presumably pressed the panic button.

The suspects are believed to have gained entrance to the house through
a living room window, which they took out. They fled the same way.

'Awful and ironic'

The murdered woman's husband was Professor Chris Barnard's right-hand
man during the first heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in
1967.

"That he lost his wife in this way is awful and ironic," said
Professor Johan Brink of the Chris Barnard Memorial Hospital's
Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery.

"As a doctor, he had dedicated himself to the less fortunate. Over the
years he helped hundreds of people who had been stabbed in the chest.
He was an extremely committed doctor and a mentor for heart surgery
all over the world."

One of the couple's sons, Dr John Hewitson, followed in his father's
footsteps as a heart surgeon while another, Professor Bruce Hewitson
of the University of Cape Town, is an internationally recognised
climate expert. A third son is a pilot in Mozambique.

According to Traut, the motive was presumably housebreaking with the
intention to steal possessions, though nothing valuable was missing.

No one has been arrested and the murder weapon is still missing.

Source:News24

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2393506,00.html

Mooirivier RATES DISPUTE - PLEASE DISTRIBUTE AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE

2008-09-14T13:15:00.001+02:00

From: Mpofana Ratepayers & Residents Association
[mailto:ratescom@lantic.net]
Sent: 12 September 2008 05:30

RATES DISPUTE
It has come to our attention that the municipality has sent out letters
to residents who have declared a dispute wherein they state, inter alia,
the following:-

1. The dispute claimed is illegal and invalid, and,
2. Warns that the Municipality has elected to sue the
residents of the Mpofana Municipality, who have elected to raise the
said disputes, due to their failure to pay their rates.
We view this action as illegal on the part of the municipality and have
already consulted with our attorneys and believe that the letter is
aimed at intimidating those residents who have declared a dispute. We
urge all residents not to be intimidated by the illegal actions of a
desperate municipality. It is clear that the dispute action by the MRRA
and The Mooi River Farmers Association has made the municipality
desperate and they are therefore resorting to illegal and intimadatory
tactics.
We have drawn their attention to the provisions of the various pieces of
Municipal legislation that encourage and oblige the Municipality to
engage the public and promote public participation. By ignoring the
residents needs and concerns the Municipality continues to cause further
hardship in the community.
Each individual letter of dispute has been handed to the Municipality;
accordingly the Municipality is now under a statutory obligation and
duty to resolve every one of these disputes with each ratepayer
concerned. The Municipality is obliged to investigate every dispute and
then communicate its findings to the residents concerned. However as an
association, we have been appointed to act for and on behalf of the
residents and as a result, the Municipality is ordered to communicate
directly with us and we will respond for and on behalf of the residents.
Until every dispute has been resolved, the Municipality is precluded
from handing over any of its residents in terms of the act.
We have drawn the Municipality's attention to the said provisions of the
act and should the municipality not adhere to the provisions of the act
and unlawfully proceed to handover the ratepayers, who have elected to
exercise their Constitutional rights as contained in our Constitution,
this will be brought to the attention of the Magistrate concerned and an
appropriate order as to costs will be sought against the Municipality.
We also highlighted the fact the rates accounts issued by the
municipality do not comply with Section 27 of the Municipal Property
Rates Act (Act 6 of 2004) and are therefore invalid/illegal.
We further pointed out that the letter of demand is defective as it does
not comply with the provisions of the Municipality's Credit Policy and
fails to comply with the National Credit Act, 2005.
As an association we will continue with our dispute until a satisfactory
solution is reached. We once again urge all residents to support the
action of their respective associations i.e. the MRRA and the Mooi River
Farmers Association and not to be intimated by the municipalities
illegal and desperate actions.
For any further information please do not hesitate to contact me or any
of the following members. Trevor Diener (082 824 4505); Johan Albertyn
(082 450 4282); John Zelenka (082 864 0955) or Sayed Kazi (082 497
8604)

Your sincerely

Hayden Soobramoney
Chairman
Mpofana Ratepayers & Residents Association
Phone : 083 485 1583
Fax : 086 550 1379
Email : ratescom@lantic.net

_____

Executive Committee: H.Soobramoney (Chairman); T. Diener
(Vice-Chairman); J.Albertyn; N.Coetsee; N.Ahmed; C.Cornelius; J.Zelenka;
S. Winckworth;
R. Mackenzie; N. Kerr; SMI Kazi; K Denysschen; F. Swindon; V. Zaca

Boksburg Calamari platter -

2008-09-13T11:19:00.001+02:00

For a real seafood experience, stop at Koos's Restaurant in Rachel de
Beer street, Boksburg. Their calamari platter is, hmm, unique and the
price is just right. And what's more, you get a glass of Pick 'n Pay
Late Harvest on the house!

Cheers

Chris

Helen Zille: SA Today - The Zuma Verdict: What now?

2008-09-13T09:14:00.001+02:00

A weekly letter from the Leader of the Democratic Alliance 12 September 2008
The Zuma verdict: What now?

As a party that upholds the rule of law and the Constitution, the DA
respects the Pietermartizburg High Court's verdict, based on a legal
technicality, to set aside the decision to prosecute Jacob Zuma on
fraud and corruption charges. The Court ruled on the basis that the
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) did not allow Zuma to make
representations before it decided to reinstate the charges against him
– as it was required to do by the Constitution.
An unintended consequence of the judgment is that some of Jacob Zuma's
supporters may conclude that their intimidatory and violent behaviour
influenced the judge's decision. They must understand that their
behaviour had no influence at all on the judgment. They must also
understand that the verdict does not absolve Zuma of guilt.
It is significant that Judge Nicholson stressed that this verdict was
not a judgment on Zuma's guilt or innocence. This means that we are
still no closer to knowing whether Zuma is innocent or guilty of the
corruption charges brought against him. The DA will not rest until
this is resolved.
This is why the DA reiterates its call for a full judicial commission
of inquiry into the arms deal, headed by a retired judge nominated by
the Chief Justice. The truth must out and justice must be served. No
person implicated in arms deal corruption deserves to escape the due
process of law.
We have also called for Parliament to be dissolved and for a fresh
election to be held – in light of Judge Nicholson's statement that he
was "not convinced that the applicant [Zuma] was incorrect in averring
political meddling in his prosecution". There are further statements
in the judgment that can only lead to the inference that, under
President Thabo Mbeki's tenure, instruments of state were abused for
political purposes in the ANC's factional struggles for control.
This means that Mbeki, and power brokers aligned to him, have
undermined the Constitution. It is untenable that he remain President
under such circumstances.
But the dissolution of Parliament could result in an equally untenable
situation, because it would merely clear the way for Zuma to become
the President with a heavy cloud still hanging over his head. Voters
cannot exercise an informed choice under these circumstances.
The factional battles in the ANC, and the ruling party's abuse of the
Constitution, have put South Africa between a rock and a hard place.
That is why two things must happen in the interests of the country:
Mbeki must step down as President, and Zuma must withdraw as a
candidate for the Presidency until he has had his day in court, and
his guilt or innocence has been established. Until these men put the
country before their own interests, South Africa will continue to be
dragged down by the unresolved consequences of the arms deal scandal.
The upside of the judgment is that it nullifies the demand by Zuma's
supporters for a political rather than a legal solution. A political
deal would have had profound consequences for the future of our
constitutional democracy because it would have placed an accused above
the law, on the basis of his political status. The question of a
political solution cannot be revived, even if the NPA decides to
appeal the High Court judgment.
The judgment also provides proof to Zuma's supporters, if any were
necessary, that the judiciary is impartial and will rule according to
the law. It is now incumbent upon them to demonstrate their respect
for the judiciary when judgments go against their political
preferences. If Zuma has his day in court, as we believe he must in
the interests of the country, his supporters will have no reason to
believe that he won't have a fair trial.
Our judiciary has shown that it will not be complicit in power abuse.
The Constitutional Court's action against Judge Hlophe shows this, as
does the ruling two weeks ago that the Erasmus Commission of Inquiry
was unlawful and unconstitutional.
I have already unpacked the importance of that judgment for
constitutional democracy, and will not repeat myself here, suffice it
to say that the verdict filled me with renewed hope for the future of
our country. It showed that the Constitution can successfully be
defended against the ANC's abuse of power, and that the courts have
the muscle to check such abuses.
That sets an important precedent for the future, and it also shows
that, institutionally, the judiciary will not be swayed by powerful
politicians. Institutions are the bedrock of constitutional democracy;
without them, the entire edifice crumbles.
As we move forward, all South Africans – Zuma's supporters included –
should take heart that we have a robust and impartial judiciary. This
gives us hope for the future.

Best Wishes

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2008-09-11T14:08:00.003+02:00

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DA@WORK 8 September - DA vindicated in Erasmus commission ruling

2008-09-08T17:20:00.001+02:00

DA@WORK 8 September

DA VINDICATED BY COURT FINDING ON ERASMUS COMMISSION
Rasool's establishment of the commission was not only an abuse of the
law, but also of millions of rands in taxpayer's money - money which
would have been far better spent on delivering much-needed services to
the people of the Western Cape, he concluded.

FAILING SCHOOL NUTRITION PROGRAMME LEAVES IMPOVERISHED CHILDREN STARVING
Amongst the problems are non-delivery of food, shortages and delivery
of poor-quality products.

DA CALLS FOR URGENT DEBATE ON THE ONSLAUGHT OF CRIME IN SA
The time has now come for Parliament, which represents the people of
South Africa, to debate this matter vigorously, and to compel the
government to seek immediate solutions to the country's crime
epidemic.

DA WELCOMES END TO POLITICAL INTERFERENCE IN MEDICINES REGULATION
decision on the Medicines Amendment Bill by Parliament's health
portfolio committee, which will see medicines registered only on the
basis of safety, quality and efficacy, was welcomed by the Democratic
Alliance last Wednesday.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"It seems like SASCOC (South African Sports Confederation and Olympic
Committee) officials are more preoccupied with flying business class,
staying at five-star hotels, and enjoying the best food than they are
with the interests of our athletes."

DA sports spokesperson Donald Lee comments on allegations that South
African athletes competing at the paralympic games in Beijing had not
yet received their training equipment and had to walk at least 2kms -
including those on crutches - to buy refreshments, as SASCOC had
failed to distribute the magnetic coupons which allowed them to
purchase items from vending machines.

DA VINDICATED BY COURT FINDING ON ERASMUS COMMISSION

Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille, vindicated by the High Court's
finding on the unlawfulness of the Erasmus Commission, has called for
the dismissal of former premier Ebrahim Rasool, now working as a
ministerial adviser, and provincial Police Commissioner Mzwandile
Petros.

She is also calling for the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to
investigate whether there had been misconduct by Judge Nathan Erasmus,
who chaired the commission.

"As a public servant, Rasool is required by the Constitution to
promote and maintain a high standard of professional ethics," Zille
said.

"In the light of the Cape High Court judgment, however, it is clear he
is unfit for this form of public office."

Rasool has been appointed special adviser to Minister in the
Presidency Kgalema Motlanthe.

Zille said DA chief whip Ian Davidson would write to Motlanthe, asking
him to dismiss Rasool. She also called for the dismissal of Petros,
found by the court to have illegally handed police evidence to Rasool.

"According to the court ruling, that information should have been
fully investigated by the police and then handed to the Director of
Public Prosecutions, and not to a politician for his own purposes."

The DA's provincial representatives have called on Petros to resign.

Zille said she had asked the DA's representative on the JSC, Sheila
Camerer, to approach the commission with a view to investigating
whether Erasmus had been guilty of misconduct.

Erasmus had compromised himself, and the integrity of the judicial
system, when he agreed to chair the commission, Zille said. The court
also found he had acted unlawfully by providing an interim report,
containing confidential information, to Rasool.

"For these two reasons, I believe Judge Erasmus may have a case to
answer to the JSC," Zille said.

She said the JSC gave vague terms of reference for what constituted misconduct.

"Here we have the Cape High Court saying very specifically that a
judge should not have accepted that appointment, and should definitely
not have given the outcome of the investigation to a politician,
saying that it was illegal."

Zille said her position that a judge should not chair an
illegally-constituted commission had been 100 percent underscored by
the high court.

Zille said she had known from the beginning that there could only have
been a political motive for the commission.

The DA's legal advisers are to investigate whether Rasool or any other
official involved in the Erasmus Commission may be personally liable
for costs incurred.

Zille has written asking the Public Protector to investigate whether
the commission was an abuse of funds.

"The (court) decision declaring the Erasmus Commission unlawful and
invalid was a landmark ruling for constitutional democracy. As such,
it will have repercussions far beyond the City of Cape Town - by
reaffirming the supremacy of the Constitution."

Speaking after judgement was handed down by the court last Monday,
Chairperson of the DA's Federal Council, James Selfe said that the
court's decision was a full vindication of the DA's long held view
that the commission was established by Rasool out of political malice,
and with the overriding objective of smearing the DA.

"It is now clear for all to see that both Rasool and the ANC's zeal in
establishing the commission and misusing the judiciary was a desperate
attempt by the governing party to strengthen its dwindling prospects
ahead of next year's election," he said.

Rasool's establishment of the commission was not only an abuse of the
law, but also of millions of rands in taxpayer's money - money which
would have been far better spent on delivering much-needed services to
the people of the Western Cape, he concluded.

FAILING SCHOOL NUTRITION PROGRAMME LEAVES IMPOVERISHED CHILDREN STARVING

A Public Service Commission (PSC) report into the functioning of the
National School Nutrition Programme in two provinces has shown that
many impoverished children are going hungry due to unreliable food
suppliers, the Democratic Alliance revealed last Thursday.

"Suppliers often do not deliver at all, or do not deliver what they
are contracted to supply," said party education spokesperson, George
Boinamo.

He said the DA would be asking questions to the Minister of Education
to ascertain what steps were being taken to improve levels of
accountability of those contracted to provide school meals.

The study, conducted in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo, showed that the
Nutrition Programme was a significant benefit to the children who
received it and had improved their attendance, concentration and
academic ability.

"It has proven itself as an essential tool in helping poor children to
lift themselves out of poverty and thus problems that still prevent
some children from being able to benefit from the programme must be
resolved," Boinamo said.

The report stated that amongst the problems were "non-delivery of
food, shortages and delivery of poor-quality products"

"In 20% of Eastern Cape schools, food was not provided five days a
week, as required, but sometimes on only two or three days, and
deliveries were also often late."

"While deliveries were more reliable in Limpopo, a quarter of
principals said that the food they received was not fresh, 32% of
principals said there were problems with delayed delivery and 20% said
too little food was delivered," he said.

"It appears that suppliers are often more interested in profits than
in supporting children."

Boinamo added that, in some cases, the schools were partly to blame in
that many did not monitor feeding programmes through nutrition
committees and that only about 20% of principals actually monitored
the delivery of food and evaluated the performance of suppliers as was
the requirement.

"As most of the children in the schools surveyed come to school
without breakfast, it is imperative that the importance of the
nutrition programme is acknowledged and improved in order to ensure
that all children living in poverty can benefit properly from it,"
Boinamo said.

DA CALLS FOR URGENT DEBATE ON THE ONSLAUGHT OF CRIME IN SA

Reacting to the brutal slaughter of the Sham family over the weekend,
DA safety and security spokesperson, Dianne Kohler Barnard said she
would move a motion in the National Assembly, when parliament
reconvened in mid September, calling for an urgent debate on the rapid
onslaught of crime in South Africa, and what immediate steps may be
taken to stem it.

"Naren and Meera Sham, and their 20-year-old son, Kavir, were gagged,
had their hands tied behind their backs, and their throats slit by a
band of armed men who had forced themselves into the family's Stamford
Hill home."

"The fact that Kavir was best friends with my own son, Peter Barnard,
makes this tragedy all the more personal to me," she said, "but what
is even more tragic is the fact that my family and the Shams' many
grieving friends and relatives represent only the smallest drop in the
ocean of South Africans who have lost their loved ones to the scourge
of violent crime."

She called on parliament to debate the issue urgently in light of
mounting indications that the ANC government was simply not up to the
task of tackling South Africa's debilitating crime epidemic.

Earlier in the year, Justice & Constitutional Development
Deputy-Minister, Johnny de Lange admitted: "The situation is sometimes
so overwhelming that we don't know what to do about crime. We have not
necessarily taken the right decisions over the past 15 years or used
resources efficiently."

In addition, the most recent crime statistics released by the SAPS
showed a 14.5% spike in the number of residential robberies throughout
the country , as well as a 4.4% increase in the frequency of car
hijackings, and a staggering 47.4% increase in the regularity of
business robberies.

"In August, the DA released a comprehensive crime plan, aimed at
addressing the problems within our criminal justice system, which
includes putting more police officers on the streets and training more
detectives in order to beef up the SAPS' investigative capacity."

"We called for the reinstatement of SAPS' specialised units, and put
forward proposals for the improvement of South Africa's prisons by,
amongst others, involving prisoners in productive labour and community
upliftment," she said.

"The time has now come for Parliament, which represents the people of
South Africa, to debate this matter vigorously, and to compel the
government to seek immediate solutions to the country's crime
epidemic."

DA WELCOMES END TO POLITICAL INTERFERENCE IN MEDICINES REGULATION

A decision on the Medicines Amendment Bill by Parliament's health
portfolio committee, which will see medicines registered only on the
basis of safety, quality and efficacy, was welcomed by the Democratic
Alliance last Wednesday.

DA health spokesperson Mike Waters lauded the committee's decision to
'reject ministerial interference' in medicines regulation.

"We hope that this decision will finally put an end to a proposal
from the health ministry that would have delayed or denied access to
life-saving drugs to South Africans by politicising the approvals
process," Waters said.

Over the past few weeks, the committee had been discussing a proposal
in the bill for a two-tier system for the regulation of medicines,
with the second tier involving approval by the minister on political
grounds.

"However, in debate on the clause today, ANC members were slowly
convinced of the danger of the minister's proposal and eventually
agreed to reject it," he said.

"The clause has now been removed from the Bill which is being voted on
today and which will be presented to parliament later this year for
voting."

DID YOU KNOW?

Contrary to Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula's
assertions that the amalgamation of the Scorpions with the SAPS would
run smoothly a reply to a DA parliamentary question has revealed that:

• Only 121 members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) had
completed the new five week organised crime course which began more
than one year ago.

• Furthermore, according to the SAPS's own figures, only 17% of staff
belonging to organised crime, serious economic offences and commercial
branch units had tertiary qualifications.

• Of the total 24,343 members, each member had completed an average of
only five SAPS courses - which included any course offered by the
SAPS, and not necessarily related to investigative expertise.

It is critical that all units that investigate organised crime have
the required training and expertise. The DSO's successful record is a
direct result of having highly-skilled and -qualified staff working on
complex cases.

EYE ON CRIME

NOT IN THE SAME LEAGUE
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/428

DO YOU FEEL SAFE AT HOME?
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/427

BRIBES AND THREATS
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/426

"MAXUIMUM SECURITY PRISON" – NOT SO SECURE AFTER ALL
http://www.eyeoncrime.co.za/?q=node/425

THE REAL ANC TODAY

In this week's edition we provide 'The Idiot's Guide to the Erasmus
Commission' http://realanctoday.wordpress.com/2008/09/05/an-idiots-guide-to-the-erasmus-commission/
– a simple overview of the 157 page judgment handed down last week by
the Cape High Court, and what it means for the ANC and our democracy.
Click through http://realanctoday.wordpress.com/ , read it, tell us
what you think. You can also, subscribe to the RSS feed, or to
subscribe by e-mail.

Heritage Day 24 September 2008 - South Africa

2008-09-08T11:33:00.001+02:00

To: press.office@bbc.co.uk, yourpics@bbc.co.uk, margaretha@publicy.nl,
foxnewsonline@foxnews.com, news@sky.com, ireport@cnn.com,
InsideAfrica@cnn.com, news@newsday.com, dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
Cc: afriforum@solidariteit.co.za, ernst@afriforum.co.za,
atkv@atkv.org.za, hoofkantoor@abond.co.za,
hoofkantoor@voortrekkers.org.za, info@da.org.za, admin@kzn.da.org.za,
sec@kzn.da.org.za, info@vf.co.za, info@hnp.org.za,
nmtyelwa@anc.org.za, ntshabalala@anc.org.za

From: Jacob Mouw <iid@vodamail.co.za>
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 05:15:20 +0100
Subject: Open Letter to Premier Ndebele about Dingane and God's General

8 September 2008

Dear ANC-Premier of KwaZulu: Mr Joel Ndebele,

In your reference to the legacy of King Dingane on 4 September 2008,
you state: "King Dingane has been misrepresented by some white
historians as a murderer, ..."

But on the 14th of August 2004, the black Zulu King unveiled in your
and Jacob Zuma's presence, a monument in honour of a great general
and prime minister to the Zulu Nation - Ndlela kaSompisi, as depicted
at http://eshowe.com/article/articlestatic/53/1/18/, where it says:

"It is not an exaggeration to say that the unstinting bravery of
Ndlela ensured the perpetuity of the Zulu Royal family."

"Ndlela with characteristic astuteness and deftness, survived
Dingane's purging..."

"Ndlela performed a high wire and dangerous act, which was ultimately
to result in his violent death. Dingane to prevent contenders to the
throne, had many of his fathers children murdered."

"Ndlela persuaded Dingane not to murder his brother Mpande, arguing
that it would diminish his greatness and that, in any case, Mpande did
not aspire to the throne. The Battle of Maqongqe where the forces of
Mpande and Dingane clashed in 1840, culminated in Dingane calling
Ndlela a traitor."

"Ndlela's death was a cruel death that our hero had to endure, when
(Dingane), who he had served so well, ordered his death through slow
strangling with a cow hide throng."

"It would be no exaggeration to say Ndlela paid with his life for the
preservation of the Zulu Royal Line that we have today."

Honourable premier, are the amaKhosi today to believe that white
historians misrepresented Dingane as a murderer, and that the mortal
enemy of the Royal Zulu Line: Dingane - the death torturer of the hero
Ndlela kaSompisi - was not a murderer?

Premier, you have spoken in public how God himself blessed Africa with
Renaissance, via King Mpande's Christianity. This is the same prince
Mpande whom Dingane sought to kill, due to his Christian co-operation
with the Voortrekker Andries Pretorius - after whom Pretoria was named
as the capital of the Christian Civilization of the Transvaal.

Instead of a barbaric murderer, let us together honour our common
heroes, like Mpande's protector General Ndlela, who also protected the
Voortrekkers at Dingane's bloodthirsty battle of Bloodrivier, where
Ndlela in his destined role of God's General, single handedly thwarted
Dingane's plan to exterminate the ancestral fathers, mothers and
children of the Afrikaners on that sunny Sunday of 16 December 1838.

By siding with Mpande and Pretorius on that historic Holy Day, that
giant strategy genius en intelligent chief Induna, God's General
Ndlela, decapacitated Dingane's almighty military powerbase, whilst he
simultaneously saw to it that not a single Voortrekker was harmed in
his and Pretorius' perfectly planned "attack" tactics.

By waiting till daylight, by containing Dinganes' impis until all
traces of morning moisture and mist had cleared, by ordering the
frontline troops to take a relaxed posture close to the opposing
defensive position, and by synchronising repeated storm attacks with
the arduous reloading cycle of pre-modern muskets, the genial General
Ndlela won the day in his political power struggle against Dingane.

Due to Ndlela's brilliant brain, Dingane's symbol of centralised
political power, UMgungundlovu went up in a whiff of smoke, and soon
there-after, so Dingane's racist supremacism over the legitimate royal
Mpande and white aristocratic Voortrekkermen as well.

With Pretorius' and Mpande's further final co-operation, Dingane's
murderous manipulations and dreams of dictatorial domination
disappeared, and so the last humanitarian disasters emanating from the
great Difaqane came to an ignominious end.

The Great God of Bloodriver, is not only God of the Voortrekkers, but
through the victorious King Mpande and his political alliance with
Andries Pretoria and General Ndlela, for ever also the God of the
Zulus and their Royal Line till today, till tomorrow, into all
eternity.

Dingane the murderer is dead. Long live the Zulu Nation thanks to the
Royal Line of Mpande and his friend Andries Pretorius, and their
mutual friend: God's General Ndlela.

We thereby invite you, as well as the honourable president of the ANC
and future president of South-Africa, Zulu Zuma, together with the
Royal descendants of his majesty King Mpande, to honour Ndlela
kaSompisi as God's General on 16 December 2008, when God reveals
himself visibly via the African Atendisc on the sarcophagus in
Pretoria with the wondrous words and heavenly vow: ONS - GOD - VIR JOU
SUID-AFRIKA.

It is our intention to ask the management of the Voortrekker Temple in
Pretoria - which, as religious symbol of the real African Renaissance,
and as South-Africa's world renowned international tourist attraction,
and as the Eighth Wonder of the modern world, for permission to
position at the centre in its holy Hall of Heroes, under the African
Aten, a miniature replica of the Ndlela-Monument, in order to
commemorate our common heritage and honour God and his General in
history.

For God has created holy history with human hands, and by the
brilliant brain of the biggest hero of them all: Ndlela kaSompisi, who
was murdered and mutilated by a demonic Dingane, as were Piet Retief
and seventy unarmed Afrikaner sons of God.

Premier Ndebele, we trust that you will inform Mr Zuma and the
amaKhosi of KwaZulu of our intention to honour Zulu Ndela as our
national hero and God's General on 16 December in Pretoria, and are
awaiting your favourable response as a sign of your support for a
renewed African Renaissance, based not on murderers, but the life
sacrifices of just and righteous leaders, like our Lord Jesus the
Christ from Galilee.

Yours Sincerely
Beert Mouw

Cell: 082 802 7573
16 Njala Street
Middelburg
1050

Die the beloved country

2008-09-07T16:59:00.001+02:00

A Simple Example Of Communal Decline

A Letter From South Africa by Jim Peron (September 1998)

When a country begins sliding into oblivion it really is the little
things that get to you. You wake up in the morning and turn to see
what time it is. The clock is off. The electricity is off again.
Sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for a few hours, but it seems
to happen more regularly than before.

You pick up the phone at work to make a call. Nothing. Your
neighborhood is without telephone service again. You breathe a sigh of
relief—at least if all the phones are out, they'll do something
relatively soon to fix it. If it's just your own line, it can take
days before they'll do anything.

After the power comes on, you turn on the television to watch a
favorite program, and hope you get the right sound with the right
picture. Sometimes you get the sound of one show with the picture of
another. Sometimes it's just the one or the other. Or a radio station
instead of the soundtrack. You've read the papers—a large number of
the "old" employees have walked out of the broadcasting studios. They
couldn't take it anymore. And since television is an arm of the
government, their replacements are appointed politically, not because
of their experience or ability.

You drive home after going out for dinner. Entire neighborhoods are
without street lights. Well, to be more accurate they are without
lights that work. And the lights have been out for months. The city
has said it won't fix them.

These are the little things in South Africa today. These are the
things that annoy. The big things are too frightening even to
consider.

Kafkaburg

For two years I couldn't get a water/electricity/tax bill from the
city of Johannesburg. Water and electricity are socialist enterprises
here. I didn't have an account number, nor did I know how much to pay.
I tried calling the bureaucrats, but no help there: they said they'd
get back to me, but they didn't.

On September 25th, they showed up to turn off my electricity for
failure to pay. The city workers refused to show identification,
wouldn't say whose account they were turning off, and wouldn't show
any legal authorization to do so. In fact, they told me they didn't
have to speak a language I understood (English). I called the police.
I have a videotape of these civil servants telling me they aren't
obligated to identify themselves, and that if I refused to allow them
on the property they had the right to tear down my gate. When I asked
one of them for anything that would show them to be city workers, he
replied, "This isn't America you know." I know! I know!

I told him, "It's not Nazi Germany, either." He later chastised me for
running down "Nazi Germany." "I'm sorry," I said, "I didn't realize
you were a Nazi."

I went to the city hall and waited hours for someone to see me. I was
finally told to make a plan to pay the account. I was willing. I had
R7,000 (7,000 rand) cash on me. But the bureaucrats wouldn't let me
pay or make a plan. They had forgotten to transfer the account to my
name, you see; it was still in the old owner's name and the bill was
going to the wrong address. I was ordered to wait until they changed
it over and sent me a statement.

I pay a R700 deposit and go. Two days later they turn on the
electricity. Two months later, and still no statement has arrived. I
call and call. "I'll call you back," they say. They don't. I keep
calling. Finally I get a sour bureaucrat who tells me I'll have to pay
R9,000 immediately and the rest over six months. I asked about the
year payment plan. That was discontinued in November. "But I wanted to
pay in October and you people wouldn't let me," I protest. "That's
your problem," she says.

Back at city hall, I see another woman who spends the entire time
screaming at everyone who comes near her. She screams in the phone.
She screams at the switchboard for "bothering" her with phone calls.
She informs me that it's my obligation to pay my account whether or
not the city sends me a statement. It doesn't matter if I don't know
the amount owed. It doesn't matter if I don't have an account number
to which the money is to be credited. My obligation is to pay an
unknown sum into an unknown account, and if I don't get it right
they'll turn off my electricity.

I got off relatively easy, though. Today's newspaper told of one man
who received an account for R500,000 in water use. The man owns a well
and doesn't even use city water. When he went in to talk to the
bureaucrats, they were very sympathetic. They told him to pay 50
percent now or have his electricity cut off.

The Rise of Violence

Recently, I went into a print shop to get some flyers printed. The
woman there was quite pleasant and we talked about the short blackout
that day. She asked what I was doing in South Africa and told me that
she and her family want to flee. Her family originally immigrated from
India; like some Indians she was quite dark. Clearly she was not a
member of the class "privileged" by apartheid. But what she said
surprised me.

"My husband and I decided we were better off under apartheid. Sure now
we can live next to white people and ride the same bus. But those
things aren't important."

What is important? Not being afraid.

Today, the murder rate is ten times greater in South Africa than in
the United States. One world atlas reports: "South Africa is the
world's most dangerous country (beside war zones), with 40,000 murders
a year." It wasn't this way four years ago, before the ANC took power.
But the government says the murders are a "legacy of apartheid."

That's part of the problem. Everything that goes wrong is "a legacy of
apartheid." The violence in the rest of Africa is a "legacy of
colonialism." It's a legacy that has gone on for almost 40 years.
Every time something goes wrong (and that happens constantly), the
same litany of excuses are recited. "We inherited this problem from
the corrupt apartheid regime."

I lived for thirty-some years in the U.S. and never met anyone who had
been shot. I was never near a bank robbery. Never heard of a friend's
car being hijacked. Only one person I knew suffered a burglary.

In the last two years many people I know have been burglarized. In
fact, burglary is so common that people have stopped talking about it.
One of my friends was hit six times in one year. The last time I saw
him I asked what he had done that day. "I got a new TV," he said. "Oh,
how generous of you," I replied. He has since left for England.

White farmers in particular are being targeted. Some, like Werner
Weber, president of the Agricultural Employers Organization, believe
there is an orchestrated campaign to force whites off the land so it
can be redistributed. Farm attacks rise almost every year: 92 killed
in 1994, 121 in 1995, 109 in 1996 and 140 last year. In some attacks
people are murdered but nothing is stolen, indicating that robbery
isn't the motive. Farmer Dudley Leitch told an AEO meeting that while
the murder rate among South Africans in general is 13 per 100,000, it
is 120 per 100,000 for farmers.

A major cellular phone company placed an anti-crime ad in a newspaper
saying, "President Mandela—you were in prison. Now we all are." A top
official of the bureaucracy that regulates telephones called the
company and the ad was withdrawn. I guess it was too rude to state the
obvious.

In America, you don't see what's happening. I know; I watch CNN. It
doesn't even come close to telling the truth about the decline and
death of South Africa. The American media can't tell the truth
now—they have invested too much in telling everyone what a saint
Mandela is.

Meanwhile, we live in prisons. My house has a set of bars on the
outside of the windows and another set inside. I have a Rhodesian
ridgeback dog patrolling the yard. I had a big, spiked,
remote-controlled gate put in the drive. I can't afford the
precautions that others are taking. You now see individual homes with
security guards. Walls over eight feet tall are common, with barbed
wire or spikes on top. Across the street, my neighbors put an electric
fence on the wall—now a commonplace sight. People are armed and have
hired private security companies. In the U.S. following all these
precautions would be considered paranoid. Here it's average.

Police Story

On the street where my bookstore is located, a grocery has been robbed
a couple of times. So were the post office and bank.

In the last few months, four of my customers have been hijacked by
armed gangs, one of them in my parking lot. One was shot through the
leg, another was shot at but missed. Another was beaten and spent
weeks in the hospital. Well over 3,000 hijackings are reported each
year. A family driving to Durban for holiday pulled to the side of the
road so the two little boys could get out and take care of business.
Several hours later the police found the two children sitting against
the bodies of their dead parents; murdered for a car.

The new president of the ANC, Terror Lekota, told the press that the
hijackings are the fault of apartheid. He claims the "apartheid
regime" gave immunity from prosecution to hijackers in exchange for
"intelligence" gathering on the ANC. Last year, another top government
official blamed the spate of hijackings on whites. He said there was
no crime wave at all, and that whites were inventing crimes just to
collect insurance.

The acting head of the Licensing Department for the Johannesburg area,
Gerrie Gerneke, issued a report in July 1997 confirming that the
department was in the control of criminal syndicates. He said that
half of all cars stolen in the Johannesburg area are "legalized" with
new official documents within 30 days of being stolen. He said that
cooperation between criminal gangs and union members has made it
impossible for senior staff members or security staff to take any
action. After Gerneke's report to the government was made, two
anonymous letters accused him of being a racist. As a result of these
anonymous complaints, Gerneke was suspended for five months. A year
later Gerneke says the government has not acted on any of his
recommendations to deal with corruption. When a car theft ring was
recently exposed, five of the 16 individuals arrested were policemen.
The chief investigator said, "We found that policemen were receiving
stolen cars and then selling them to their clients."

In 1997 corruption reached such a level that Mandela appointed a
Special Investigating Unit to look into the matter. According to Judge
Willem Heath, head of the unit, there are currently more than 90,000
cases under investigation. If Heath and his crew manage to resolve one
case of corruption per day, including weekends and holidays, it will
take about 247 years to clear the current backlog. This doesn't
include any new cases that will arise. Heath thinks the cases involve
a sum of around 6 billion rand.

In 1997 approximately 2,300 police officers were charged with
corruption —just about one every three hours. Almost 500 police
officers have appeared in court on charges of working with criminal
gangs. In the Johannesburg area alone 700 police officers are facing
trials for committing crimes ranging from murder to burglary. And
everyone assumes this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Over the last two years, there have been dozens of major highway
robberies. In broad daylight gangs of a dozen men armed with AK-47s
and other "military" weapons attack security trucks carrying large
amounts of cash. These robberies have netted millions for the gangs.
Government officials blame security companies, banks, and anyone else
they can think of. But some arrests have finally been made, the
ringleaders have turned out to be ANC activists. The leaders who were
arrested were officials in the so-called "armed wing" of the ANC,
Umkhonto weSizwe. One gang leader had been Youth League secretary for
the Johannesburg area. A close associate of his, also a gang leader,
was arrested but "escaped" from jail. Both were recent guests at the
birthday party of Peter Mokaba, Deputy Minister of Environmental
Affairs and Tourism. There is evidence that Umkhonto weSizwe activists
are not only behind some of the robberies, but that they are working
with other armed cadres associated with so-called liberation movements
from bordering countries.

In 1997 alone, there were 465 bank robberies. In all about $40 million
was taken. Banks are raising their fees substantially to compensate
for the losses.

Crime seems to be the only thing that works in South Africa—the risk
of being arrested, tried and convicted is minuscule. In 1997, only
14.6 percent of murders led to arrest and conviction. Of 52,110 rapes
there were only 2,532 convictions—about 6.7 percent. For the 330,093
burglaries there were 15,710 convictions, about 4.8 percent.

Experienced prosecutors have quit their jobs, replaced by novices who
owe their positions to affirmative action.

During the 1997 Christmas season, the police and prisons "lost" almost
300 prisoners. In one instance a policeman took two prisoners to a bar
for drinks. One of them borrowed his keys and returned to the jail to
release 23 other prisoners. At another jail nine prisoners walked out,
leaving behind a note: "We are out for Christmas and will be back on
January 3." (They didn't come back.) Several prisoners left a police
van when guards didn't bother locking it.

In 1995, Sylvester Mofokeng was taken out of his cell for a soccer
game. When he was returning to prison, he simply jumped out of the
truck and ran through gates that were left unlocked. He was rearrested
three months later, but in August 1996 he escaped again. Somehow he
obtained a gun from a visitor and used it to force guards to release
him.

Josiah Rabotapi is believed to be the leader of an armed robbery
syndicate involved in the theft of up to $14 million in 30 armed
robberies. He is also wanted for 16 murders. So far he has been
arrested three times and escaped every time. Jan van der Westhuizen, a
convicted murderer, has escaped from prison or police custody seven
times.

When the police aren't "losing" criminals, they are killing them. A
recent government report showed that one person dies every twelve
hours either while in police custody or as a result of police action.
Two-thirds of these deaths take place during apprehension. According
to one report, "an overview of 100 shooting incidents between police
and civilians" showed a heavy "imbalance in casualties." David Bruce,
a researcher for the Centre for the Study of Violence and
Reconciliation said, "In only five of the cases was a policeman hurt,
and in one case a policeman was killed."

In the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, citizens are fighting back.
In some areas they have put security guards at the entrance to a
subdivision. Entrances are closed off with gates to control who comes
in and who goes out. Criminals can no longer simply load their cars
with stolen goods and speed out when security guards stop them at the
gate. These areas have seen dramatic reductions in crime. But the ANC
has ordered the gates removed. It claims these efforts force crime
away from white areas and are therefore racist.

This is life in South Africa today.

I've lived in South Africa for six years and I've seen a lot of
changes. Even a few for the good. But the standard of living has
declined. And people's attitudes have changed: hope is gone, replaced
by fear, anxiety, even horror. There is a joke going around: Americans
have Bill Clinton, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope. South Africans have
Nelson Mandela, no cash and no hope.

The Return of Apartheid

Another popular joke is that Mickey Mouse has a watch with the picture
of our Ministers of Finance. In the six years that I have lived here
the South African rand has depreciated by 50 percent. In just the last
year it has dropped 30 percent.

The government has conducted a massive "jobs" program. But since the
ANC has taken power the number of jobs has declined, despite sanctions
being lifted and increased trade with the rest of the world. The only
job increases are in government departments.

South African workers are not particularly productive. But the
government has been pushing new labor legislation that continues to
drive up the cost of South African labor. No wonder that fewer and
fewer South Africans are employed.

The ANC is pushing a new "Equity Employment" bill through Parliament.
This bill will force all employers to reserve a number of jobs for
blacks. Businesses that don't comply with the mandatory racial quotas
face heavy fines. And so apartheid is back—the old laws in new
packaging.

Recently, ANC members of Parliament have announced that they intend to
introduce legislation applying racial quotas to sports. Specifically,
the government wants to control rugby, a sport played traditionally by
whites (unlike soccer, which is dominated by blacks). Mandela ordered
a commission to investigate racism in the South African Rugby Football
Union. SARFU took the issue to court and the court ruled against the
commission. ANC officials then proclaimed the judge an unpatriotic
racist for requiring Mandela to testify on why the commission was
created.

ANC MPs, unable to get control of rugby legally, resorted to
intimidation. They announced on the floor of Parliament that unless
the leadership of SARFU resigns, ANC members will forcibly close
airports to prevent other rugby teams from entering South Africa.
Major corporations, all fearful of the ANC, threatened to remove
financial support from SARFU unless the ANC got its way. Rugby head
Louis Luyt, who had defeated an ANC partisan for the job, was forced
out by the threats. After Luyt resigned, SARFU apologized to Mandela
for making him go to court.

Communists in Government

The government of South Africa is actually a coalition of three
groups. The ruling triple alliance is made up of the Congress of South
African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African Communist Party
(SACP), and the African National Congress (ANC), which leads the
coalition. The SACP has a lot of influence in COSATU and together they
exercise a great deal of control over the ANC. Thabo Mbeki, who just
replaced Mandela as leader of the ANC, and is pegged to be president
of South Africa when Mandela steps down, was trained in Moscow. His
father, Govan, is an old line Marxist and SACP activist. At a recent
ANC conference the hard left solidified its control over the ANC by
capturing nine of its eleven top positions. Of the ANC's 240 MPs in
Parliament, 80 were appointed by the SACP. The ANC and COSATU also
used some of their quotas to appoint SACP members to Parliament.

When Chris Hani was assassinated by Janus Waluz, a Polish immigrant,
CNN called Hani, "a top ANC official" or "anti-apartheid activist."
But CNN didn't mention that Hani was the head of the Communist Party
and that Waluz was a refugee from communism. Instead, the impression
was given that Hani was another Martin Luther King.

In the same way, many facts about Mandela and the ANC are never
reported by the media. For example, Mandela awarded South Africa's
equivalent of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom to Libya's
Muammar al-Qaddafi. Mandela has publicly said that Cuba is a model for
a free, democratic society that is, in fact, more democratic than the
United States. Castro has been here for friendly visits. When U.S.
officials complained about Mandela's cozy relationship with dictators,
Mandela said that no other nation has the right to interfere in South
African affairs—this from the man who supported sanctions against the
old government. Curiously, Mandela dropped recognition of Taiwan at
the demand of Communist China.

The ANC's Bill of Wrongs

Gay rights are now enshrined in South Africa's Bill of Rights. Gay
publications around the world have praised the ANC for this. But in
fact gay sex remains illegal. The government has taken no practical
steps to legalize homosexuality. When a gay rights group took the
sodomy laws to the Constitutional Court, the government opposed its
effort. After a world-wide outcry, the government backed down. It
appears the ANC is hoping the courts throw out the law, thereby taking
credit for being pro-gay while not being responsible for the change.
Yet the South African government continues to deny foreign gay
partners of South Africans the right to stay in the country legally.
The issue is in court, but the government is opposed to changes in the
policy.

The ruling ideology is that "there are no absolute rights," so the ANC
put "weasel" clauses into the Bill of Rights. Any right guaranteed by
the Constitution can be ignored. For instance, the right to engage in
enterprise is absolute—unless infringed "by law." Thus the government
can do what it wants since it passes the laws. Other constitutional
clauses say rights can be limited by government consistent with the
operation of an "open" and "democratic" society. And remember, Mandela
considers Cuba democratic.

The bill of rights negotiated by various political parties guaranteed
freedom of speech. Repressive censorship laws were relegated to the
dustbin. But the ANC has been pulling them back out and wiping them
off.

A bill to repeal censorship was introduced in Parliament. I even
testified in favor of it. The bill was mediocre but livable. Later,
the ANC rewrote it in secret and passed it without making a written
version available. The new bill actually creates a censorship body.
All videos and films must be approved by the censorship board before
they can be distributed. So-called "x-rated" material can be sold only
in licensed adult shops. Anything deemed "hate speech" is illegal. The
new "obscenity" standard is that anything "degrading" is illegal.
Another victory for clear, concise legal concepts.

Lindiwe Sisulu, deputy minister of home affairs, said the government
"tries" to balance free speech with the rights of "society, in
reality, however, there can never be an absolute balance." This means
"not all speech can be equally protected." Sisulu interprets the new
censorship legislation much more strictly than in the past. She claims
that "anyone who downloads pornography from the Internet will commit
an offense." Note that she has broadened this beyond the act which
banned "degrading" pornography, bestiality, child porn, and hate
speech. Now she says that any downloaded porn is illegal. Expanding
the prior censorship of films and videos, Sisulu says all photos must
be classified by the government before distribution. "No person may
screen a film or photograph, including on a computer screen, which has
not been classified by the Publications Board. This means that anyone
placing material on the Internet must have a classification
certificate for that material." In other words the government now
claims the right to classify—and ban—all photographs before they are
distributed to anyone.

Yet the ANC stills finds the bill of rights too restrictive of
government. Peter Mokaba recently gave a speech in a black area
demanding that all blacks vote for the ANC so it can get two-thirds
control of Parliament. He said this would allow it to rewrite the
constitution and end all restrictions on government power. ANC
secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe said that if the ANC won
two-thirds control in the next election, it could govern "unfettered
by constraints."

Supine and Pusillanimous

In the last four years, the nation's largest string of newspapers has
lost its independence from the government after being taken over by
Irish press baron Tony O'Reilly. O'Reilly's Independent group is cozy
with the ANC. An article in The Times of London says O'Reilly has been
criticized for "his unhealthily close relationship with the ANC
government. He began by appointing an advisory board stacked with ANC
supporters and has been vocal in his support for all manner of ANC
causes and watchwords." Journalists have been unhappy that O'Reilly
brought in his biographer, Ivan Fallon, to run the newspapers because
Fallon "is disliked for his refusal to stand up to Government attempts
to bully the press into uncritical support."

According to The Times O'Reilly's newspapers have downplayed scandals
within the ANC government. In the Virodene scandal, ANC politicians
promoted—and still promote—the so-called AIDS drug. Documents show
that the company producing the drug was planning to offer a six
percent share of the profits to the ANC. O'Reilly's papers "have
played down the whole matter, neglecting to cover key press
conferences."

Other newspapers, however, still manage to criticize the government,
and the ANC and Mandela don't like it. Mandela constantly attacks the
press for being "opposed" to the "transformation." In fact the press,
on the whole, was staunchly critical of apartheid. Still, Mandela says
the media, with the exception of television, are racist. In the next
few years, legislation directed against the newspapers is almost
certain. Mandela's hero, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, wiped out
recalcitrant newspapers by simply turning them over to the government.

Television is exempt from Mandela's criticisms because the three main
television stations are already controlled by the government. ANC
officials run the stations and they are often deathly silent about the
problems in South Africa. But they do have time for endless
documentaries on Mandela and the ANC, with titles like "Our Heroes."
One new news director is a long-time ANC supporter with no
broadcasting experience.

Two new mini-series have been produced for the coming season: one is a
glowing film about the life of communist Helen Joseph and her fight
for the ANC, and the other is about ANC partisan Bishop Tutu. A new
television series, funded by the Labour Ministry, is called "Let's
Talk." A recent episode showed the workers, all of whom are called
"comrades," on strike. The owner of the factory, who for some reason
had an American accent, locked out the strikers. But the company
management didn't know how to build their own product, houses, and
built them upside down! The government and the trade unions seem to
believe that entrepreneurs and management are useless, and that all
productivity comes from labor.

The South African Broadcasting System's political allegiances are no
secret: one station's promotional commercial shows its on-air talent
in "rainbow" clothing and marching with colorful flags to triumphant
music. Several flags feature the face of Mandela. In another Stalinoid
presentation, the television producers' award show included a musical
number with the chorus, "Oh, Mandela, we sing praise to you." Not long
ago, the son of the former president of the ANC, Oliver Tambo, who
hosts an SABC talk show, ran an hour-long special praising media mogul
Tony O'Reilly. No doubt the fact that O'Reilly has cuddled up to the
ANC had nothing to do with the praise heaped upon him.

Fascism, South African Style

Civil society is being politicized. Everything must be solidified in
the hands of the State and the State must be in the hands of the ANC.

Last year the government nationalized all water resources in South
Africa. Under new legislation it will be illegal to dig a well without
prior approval from the central government. The ANC attacked critics
of the legislation as "racist whites" who want to protect their luxury
swimming pools. Meanwhile the new rulers admit they can't find 45
percent of all the water shipped to Johannesburg. Only 55 percent of
the water is metered out—the rest simply disappears. But considering
that meters are found almost exclusively in white areas, while black
areas have unmetered taps, this should be no surprise.

But water is only the camel's nose in the tent. The ANC Minister of
Mineral Affairs, Penuell Maduna, called for the nationalization of all
minerals, saying that "private ownership of mineral rights is
unacceptable to the government." Government spokesmen call private
ownership "racist" because not everyone owns mineral rights in a
private system. Maduna previously floated the idea that the government
should also control all oil companies. Under the current system, price
competition in petrol is forbidden and all prices are set by the
government.

The hospitals in South Africa have become nightmares. Two years ago
Mandela announced free medical care for children. The hospitals are
now filled with unemployed women and their children. They sit there
for hours to have a cough or a runny nose checked.

Dr. Zuma, Minister of Health, seems determined to make health care in
South Africa equally bad everywhere. She has conscripted all medical
students to be servants. They are to give two years of their lives to
the State, to do what the State orders, anywhere the State orders. The
legislation doesn't even specify that the service has to be in South
Africa. Speculation is that at least some will be assigned to Cuba.

When it was pointed out to Zuma that huge numbers of doctors and
medical students are now emigrating, she called them "traitors," and
attributed their fleeing to "racism." Wits School of Medicine reported
that 45 percent of all students who graduated in the last 35 years
have already left the country. A recent survey of the top doctors in
South Africa revealed the almost unanimous opinion that Zuma is
destroying the nation's health-care system. The Independent wrote,
"Many doctors said that Zuma's apparent intention to introduce a
communist or socialist national health system was stifling private
practice and initiative. This, coupled with excessive control and
interference, has left doctors despondent." A spokesman for Zuma
responded by saying that if the proposals are "seen as socialist, then
we will continue to do so and offer no apologies."

The destruction of health care has even affected the food supply.
Vaccines that are urgently needed to protect livestock have run out.
The only legal source for purchasing the vaccines in South Africa is
through the government, and the government labs are empty. Farmers who
send in their checks to buy the vaccines have the money returned. The
top veterinary scientists are also leaving the country. At the
Onderstepoort Research Centre only one of the original six specialists
is still there. Onderstepoort, once considered one of the best
research centers in the world, is now limping along. Scientists say
there is a good chance that mutated viruses will decimate the beef,
pork, and lamb industries before new vaccines can be developed. They
warn that the public should expect a shortage of meat and milk as a
result.

Under the old apartheid regime, government schools in black areas were
woefully deficient. When the ANC took over the education system things
changed. Now all the schools are woefully deficient.—equality has been
achieved. But the number of students graduating from high school has
declined under the ANC. Those who do well in school prosper only if
they are the right color. The student who passed more courses with
distinction than any other student in South Africa can't even get a
scholarship. Each application he has made has been rejected because
he's the wrong color. He has the best scholastic record in the country
but no one cares. It isn't wise to give money to anyone not approved
by the ANC.

In the Eastern Cape, near Port Elizabeth, is the impoverished Khwezi
Lomso Comprehensive School. The principal is Cecilia Behrent. During
her tenure the school has achieved a pass rate of 84 percent, well
above the national rate of 47 percent and double that of the
provincial pass rate of 42 percent. The teachers' union, in
cooperation with the government, has been trying to have a union
official replace Behrent, who is white. Her ouster is opposed by
almost every one of her 1,100 students, almost all the teachers, and
over 700 parents who have signed a petition on her behalf. The
government refused to accept the petition.

Johannesburg Besieged

Johannesburg was a relatively safe and clean city when I moved here. I
moved into a racially mixed area in the city center. I left a year
later. Today, I won't drive there in broad daylight. The streets are
controlled by criminals. Some gangs sit at street corners and rob
passing motorists. They break the car window, take what they want,
pile it on the curb, and then wait for another car. They don't even
run with the stolen goods. They don't need to; no one will arrest
them.

Residents of my old neighborhood, Hillbrow, have discovered a new
game: take cans of trash and throw them from 15th floor windows at
pedestrians. The streets are filthy and reek of urine. Businesses are
moving out. The luxury Carleton Hotel held on for awhile but finally
gave up the ghost. No one would stay there, so the hotel closed its
200-plus rooms, and now sits empty.

Mayhem reigned on New Year's Eve. In the Hillbrow section of the city,
nearly 200 police officers patrolled an area of just a few square
blocks —to no apparent effect. Three people were murdered on the
streets that evening. Police who tried to stop looters were pelted
from the high-rise apartment buildings. Paramedics were attacked when
they tried to aid the injured.

So the ANC took action. Johannesburg is a massive city, and the ANC
promised to break its management into several regions. "Local control"
would then be achieved with four gerrymandered districts. Each
district was drawn in the most convoluted way possible, ensuring that
each had enough blacks. The ANC knows where its voters live.

The city hired thousands and thousands of new bureaucrats. In many
cases two people did the same job—one black worker with the title and
one white worker to do the work. Money was redistributed to the
"previously disadvantaged." While black townships haven't improved,
white areas have declined. Now Johannesburg, once the wealthiest city
in Africa, can't pay its bills, and can't get bank loans. It went from
budget surplus to bankruptcy in just two years. More ANC magic.

This black magic is being worked throughout South Africa. The
British-based Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy
recently said that 281 municipalities in South Africa are now
technically bankrupt. That's one out of every three cities in the
country.

Public parks are now squatter camps. Broken water mains gush for days
before they're fixed. Pot holes remain unrepaired. The city budget
allocates less than $100,000 for street repairs for the entire city!
Inefficiency reigns. Under questioning in Parliament, ANC officials
admitted that roads in Gauteng have deteriorated under their
management. Transport Minister Mac Maharaj admitted that only 37
percent of the roads were in good or very good condition in 1997 where
this was true of 80 percent of the roads in 1985.

The Political Struggle

In Johannesburg the opposition party to the ANC is the Democratic
Party DP). Once a leading anti-apartheid party, it is now the only
real opposition to the ANC left, and it has become increasingly
libertarian. It supports the rights of gay people and free enterprise.
It opposes affirmative action and censorship.

The northern suburbs are now staunch DP territory. And they are in a
tax revolt. The government responds by sending in armed goons to
terrorize elderly couples. The ANC isn't happy. My area is the one
area where the ANC doesn't have a clear majority. It can't institute
one party rule here, so it intimidates, punishes, and withdraws basic
city services.

To counter the opposition, the ANC now plans to make the entire
Johannesburg area a "mega city." No more regions. The DP areas will be
swamped "democratically" by ANC supporters, allowing the ANC to
continue to steal from DP voters and give to ANC bureaucrats.

Critics of the mega city were, of course, branded "racists". (Today,
that term has lost all meaning in South Africa. In fact, if you're not
labeled a "racist" one time or another, you're simply not a decent
human being.) Various community groups asked for a referendum. The ANC
said that was undemocratic, and wouldn't have it.

Local DP politician Frances Kendall called for a private referendum.
Hundreds of voting booths were established throughout the city. The
ANC ordered its supporters not to vote. In black areas voting booths
were harassed and intimidated into closing. Then the ANC said the vote
didn't count because there weren't enough voting booths in black
areas. Just under 100,000 people voted. The vote was overwhelmingly
against the "mega city". The ANC said it didn't care and would ignore
it. After all the poll only expressed the views of racists.

When the ANC won power, the election was declared "free and fair" by
European Community observers. One observer admitted to a Federal Party
official that the election would be declared corrupt if judged by
European standards, "but this is Africa." For instance, more voters
voted than existed. A recent census showed the population at under 39
million, not 44 million as previously claimed. Since more than half
the population consists of children, there can't be more than 19
million voters in the country. Yet more than 19 million cast ballots.
No one seems to care that the ANC was elected with millions of
fraudulent votes.

I was receiving hourly vote tallies by fax from the Independent
Electoral Commission. I remember my amazement when I noticed that the
vote total for the Federal Party was higher at 6 p.m. than at 7 p.m.
Votes were disappearing. Vote counting went on for days when suddenly
it stopped. For two days no results were released. IEC officials met
with political party officials behind closed doors before the final
results were negotiated and announced.

For the last several years the ANC has done everything possible to
manipulate the voting system to increase its totals. First, it
proposed that the voting age be reduced to 14 years since the
overwhelming majority of youths are black. Public ridicule has quashed
this proposal for the time being. Next, the ANC tried to change the
laws so that non-citizens could vote provided they were from
"neighboring," i.e. black, countries. Because most white non-citizens
are from England, Canada, the United States, etc. the white vote
wouldn't have increased. Opposition parties managed to kill this
proposal as well.

Instead, the ANC achieved the same goal through the back door. The
vast majority of "illegal" immigrants in South Africa are blacks from
neighboring countries. The ANC granted them immediate citizenship.
Meanwhile, "legal" immigrants, who are mainly whites from Western
countries, find it increasingly difficult to stay in South Africa.
Permanent residency for "legal" immigrants has become more difficult
to receive, and the cost of simply applying has increased from less
than $100 to over $1,400.

The National Party (NP), once South Africa's dominant party, is fast
losing support. It has never really opposed the ANC on anything, and
it has made numerous backroom deals with the ANC to retain privileges
for its leaders. The job of standing up to the ANC is filled by the
"liberal" Democratic Party.

The DP has contested by-elections recently in several NP strongholds.
In each case the DP handily beat the NP candidate. White voters no
longer trust the NP, and with good reason. In the most recent local
election the DP garnered 90 percent of the votes. Just before the
election a top NP official said this seat was the NP's "safest" in the
country. But the ANC is launching a counter-offensive.

DP activists, many of whom were arrested for denouncing apartheid, are
now branded racists by the ANC. ANC media mouthpieces refer to the
"liberal racists" of the DP. ANC officials call liberals "bigots" and
use the term "conservative liberals" to denegrate ANC critics. Party
officials regularly give speeches denouncing critics as being
"unpatriotic." And recently they have started claiming that whites are
preventing its programs from succeeding.

Mandela openly denounces the DP as racist. His objective is to
sideline the DP. Of all the opposition parties—outside the Inkatha
Freedom Party, which is strictly Zulu-based—only the DP has a hope of
attracting black support. It must be destroyed if a one-party ANC
state is to be constructed.

What happens depends largely on how the rest of the world views South
Africa. If there is sufficient criticism and publicity, the would-be
ANC dictators will back down. They have before and will again. But the
ANC is whittling away at the rule of law and the world isn't saying
very much. The ANC won't ban its opposition outright—at least not in
the immediate future. Total government control of all the media isn't
in the cards yet either—but the newspapers will be attacked in the
guise of promoting "diversity." But there is a hope. International
pressure and continued support for the DP may at least hold things
off.

But the odds are against it. South Africa will most likely walk the
road to misery, corruption, despair and destruction. Give it time. It
won't be any different here than in the rest of Africa.

Source:ourcivilisation.com

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/die.htm

Why the title "Die, The Beloved Country"

Fifty years ago (1948) Alan Paton wrote a book " Cry, The Beloved
Country" about the horrors of apartheid in South Africa. It was an
overnight best seller, which was eventually translated into more than
20 languages and became a set book in schools all over the world. To
date it has sold more than 15 million copies and still sells 100,000
copies a year.

The sentiments in the prose which proved so popular have now been
embraced with the abandonment of apartheid, with predictable and
unpleasant results. So by altering one word of this famous title, the
true effects of the change are described.

Death has prevented the author witnessing the achievement of his
dreams, but his widow is still alive and has written a letter to the
London Times explaining why she is now fleeing the country her husband
loved.

Helen Zille : SA Today - The Constitution 1; Power Abuse 0

2008-09-05T21:04:00.001+02:00

A weekly letter from the Leader of the Democratic Alliance 5 September 2008
The Constitution 1; Power Abuse 0

Much ink has flowed over the Erasmus Commission of Inquiry, but what
few commentators have grasped is this: on Monday, when the Cape High
Court ruled that the Commission was unlawful and unconstitutional,
South Africa passed a litmus test of constitutional democracy.
What is that test?
It is when the ruling party's efforts to defeat its political
opponents through means other than the ballot box are rejected by
those institutions which the Constitution entrusts to limit – and
prevent – the abuse of state power.
As the High Court found, the Erasmus Commission was nothing but an
illegal attempt by the ANC provincial government to embarrass and
discredit the DA. The ANC's strategy was two-fold:
Firstly, it was an attempt to divide the multi-party coalition in Cape
Town so that it could take back the City. This became clear in May
when Jacob Zuma said: "We should not allow anyone to govern our city
[Cape Town] when we are ruling the country." The ANC has never
accepted its defeat in Cape Town; the Erasmus Commission was simply
another (and the most sophisticated) attempt to unseat the DA outside
of the electoral process.
Secondly, the establishment of the Erasmus Commission was part of a
strategy to prevent the DA from winning the Western Cape election next
year. The ANC believed that if it could smear the DA by giving a host
of aggrieved and dubious characters a public platform (under the guise
of judicial impartiality), it might be able to retain the Western Cape
despite the odds that are increasingly stacked against it.
The former Premier Ebrahim Rasool knew that executing this strategy on
behalf of the ANC would be his best chance of surviving the purge of
Mbeki allies that was always imminent when the political sands in the
ANC had begun to shift in favour of Jacob Zuma. Of course, this did
not work; once the ANC realised that the Erasmus Commission would
never withstand the scrutiny of the courts, Rasool was removed from
office and redeployed.
I said this week that the Court's verdict is not a victory for one
political party or even the City of Cape Town alone. It is a victory
for the Constitution. It shows that the judiciary is prepared and
willing to check the ruling party when it abuses state power in an
attempt to deprive its political opponents of power.
Because the DA and I (with the Desai Commission indelibly etched in
our memories), knew that the Erasmus Commission was nothing but an
unconstitutional smear campaign, we opposed it implacably. We knew
that allowing the ANC to abuse power in this way would set a
dangerous, and perhaps even irrevocable, precedent for our
constitutional democracy.
The allegations against us of illegal spying were a fabrication from
the start to give a cloak of legitimacy to all the illegal and
unconstitutional activities that followed. So too was the falsehood
that the City Council had paid for an investigation undertaken by the
DA. I welcomed the police investigation into these allegations and
called for us to be charged in a court of law if there was any
evidence of wrongdoing. This never materialised; instead the Premier
chose to bypass the police, the prosecuting authority and the courts
in order to set up his own political commission.
We made all these points at the time, but they were understood only by
a handful of commentators and journalists. The majority gleefully
seized on the possibility that it was the DA for once, and not the
ANC, that might have been involved in wrongdoing.
There were three main criticisms levelled at us when we decided to
fight the establishment of the Commission.
Firstly, several columnists, leader writers and satirists accused the
DA, the City of Cape Town, and me personally of rejecting the Erasmus
Commission because we wanted to conceal the truth.
In The Star, Jovial Rantao said: "What has Helen Zille got to hide?
What is it that the Democratic Alliance is desperately trying to keep
away from the public? What is it that the City of Cape Town, run by
the DA, is trying to hide from the ratepayers?"
Pierre de Vos, a Professor of Constitutional Law, no less, declared:
"One would have thought that if the DA – and Zille in particular – had
nothing to hide, it would welcome the chance to clear its name through
such a commission of inquiry".
That the City had asked Advocate Josie Jordaan SC to conduct an
exhaustive inquiry into whether the City had broken any law in
carrying out its investigation into Councillor Chaaban was lost on
them. So, too, was the fact that the City had opened up all its files
to the police to investigate, and withheld nothing. Despite a full and
protracted police investigation, no evidence emerged that the City of
Cape Town had contravened any law, or that the DA had engaged in
illegal spying. No charges were laid.
Even the interim report of the Erasmus Commission found that neither
the City nor the DA had engaged in illegal spying. The great irony is
that the only person who was illegally spied upon was me. My cellphone
records were illegally subpoenaed from Vodacom by the Erasmus
Commission and handed to the ANC. It was my home phone that was found
to be tapped at the time of the Erasmus Commission.
The simple reason for resisting the Erasmus Commission was because, as
far as we were concerned, in the absence of any charges or evidence to
the contrary, we had done nothing wrong. Why would we allow an
unconstitutional political hit squad set up by the ANC to smear us
through lies and innuendo that would be reported every day in the
media as if they were fact?
Secondly, I was roundly condemned for the comment I made on radio
that, "some judges allow themselves to be abused, and unfortunately
Nathan Erasmus is one of them".
At the time of my statement, the Cape Argus claimed that "…Zille has
resorted to…a ploy that…threatens to undermine the judiciary". The
Sunday Times suggested that my statement contained "the dangerous
accusation that a member of the judiciary is serving the interests of
a political party". Professor De Vos argued that my comment was "no
different from the ANC Youth League and Young Communist League
diatribes and shows a scandalous disregard for our Constitution".
What these commentators never grasped was that the Commission was not
a court and its chairman was not acting in his capacity as a judge;
therefore he could not expect the deference due to a judicial process.
This view has now been vindicated in the Cape High Court. Yet, as
recently as Wednesday, an editorial in Die Burger stated that
"although Zille is right [to have criticised Erasmus], she is also
wrong". The implication is that somehow my statement about Erasmus
constituted an attack on the independence of the judiciary.
In fact, it was Erasmus's acceptance of an appointment to a political
commission that undermined the independence of the judiciary, not my
criticism of him for doing so. In choosing to ignore the
Constitutional Court guidelines that "judges should not get entangled
in matters of political controversy", Erasmus opened himself up to
legitimate criticism.
The court ruling itself notes that it was inappropriate for a judge to
head a commission of inquiry which was so clearly political in nature,
as this risked compromising the independence of the judiciary. It
states: "That the government would want to use judges for their
purposes is one matter but that judges should allow themselves to be
used is quite a different one... The notion of being used by the
executive in this way is anathema to the judicial calling and is the
very antithesis of the separation of powers".
The third line of attack against us was that, by resisting the Erasmus
Commission, I was becoming bogged down in a local issue. The Cape
Argus accused me of suffering from "anxiety attacks" and asked: "Were
those critics right who suggested that it would be problematic for one
person to be both mayor and leader of the DA?"
Those who argued that I was allowing a parochial issue to distract me
from more pressing national matters missed the fundamental point that
the Erasmus Commission would have profound national repercussions if
it were allowed to continue. If the ANC could get away with this kind
of unconstitutional action, why would it ever have to accept the
result of an election that went against it anywhere?
We fought the Commission because it was power abuse and because we
agree with the old cliché that "bad things happen when good men do
nothing." Power abuse – particularly at a time when the ANC is making
menacing sounds about the Constitution – must be stopped in its tracks
wherever it occurs.
There are some who argue that it is hypocritical of the DA to have
opposed the Erasmus Commission but not the Zuma trial. They draw
parallels with the Erasmus Commission and what they believe is the
"selective prosecution" – a form of power abuse – by one ANC faction
to discredit another.
The key difference is that Zuma is before a court of law; the DA and
the City were not. The parallel would only have credence if a police
investigation had failed to provide the basis of a credible charge
against Zuma in court, only for President Mbeki to sidestep the
criminal justice system and set up an illegal commission anyway,
handpicking his own judge to chair it, in order to conduct a political
witch-hunt to discredit Zuma. If this had happened, it would have been
credible to talk about persecution. However it did not. Zuma is being
properly prosecuted through the criminal justice system.
As we move forward, we can be encouraged that we have a Constitution
and a judiciary that effectively protect us from power abuse by the
ANC. The High Court ruling marks a watershed judgment on the
separation of powers and the prevention of power abuse by the ruling
party. At a time when the ANC often seems to disregard the
constitutional constraints on its power, the fact that the courts have
acted decisively and emphatically is something from which we can all
take heart.
Best Wishes