LEADING Congolese musician Defao Matumona Lulendo, was charged in a Nairobi court on Friday with obtaining a credit from a Nairobi hotel fraudulently, Kenyan newspapers reported on Saturday. Lulendo, popularly known as General Defao, was charged with obtaining 594 400 Kenyan shillings (about $7 600 dollars) credit from a Nairobi hotel between October 2001 and March 2002, pretending he was in a position to pay for services rendered. The prosecutor, Chief Inspector William Kemboi, told the court he had instructions to object to the musician’s release on bail, because being a foreigner of no fixed abode in Kenya, he could abscond. Kemboi also told the court that other members of Defao’s band were being investigated and might be charged alongside him after investigations are completed. The case was adjourned until Monday for a French expert interpreter to come to court because Defao understood neither English nor Kiswahili. – AFP
THEY SAID IT, from Sapa
“It would be odious to calculate the number of lives one could consider affordable in order to save the respondents (the government) the sort of inconvenience they foreshadow. I find myself unable to formulate a motivation for tolerating preventable deaths for the sake of sparing the respondents prejudice that cannot amount to much more than organisational inconvenience.”
– Pretoria High Court Judge Chris Botha, ordering the government to provide nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women at all state hospitals with the capacity for testing and counselling.
“Nobody from elsewhere in the world should presume they have a superior right to tell us what to do with our challenges.”
– African National Congress representative Smuts Ngonyama, reacting to former US president Jimmy Carter’s remarks that South Africa could learn from poorer countries with better success in curbing the spread of HIV/Aids.
“If one sees a five-year-old raped girl’s torn body and the plea for help in her eyes, you do everything that any doctor should do. You help her with all the knowledge and means at your disposal.”
– Dr Thys von Mollendorff who lost his job as superintendent of the Rob Ferreira hospital in Nelspruit for allowing a group that provides anti-retrovirals to rape victims to work in the hospital.
“If my appeal does not succeed, the 20 years I have been in the medical profession will be like a bad caption for the Hippocratic oath, which I tried to exemplify.”
– von Mollendorff.
“It is believed that the animals did not eat him as they had been fed shortly before he gatecrashed into the enclosure.”
– Police representative Milica Bezuidenhout, referring to an incident at the Rhino and Lion Reserve in Krugersdorp where tigers mauled a robber to death.
“You reporters can go and play golf.”
– Herstigte Nasionale Party secretary Louis van der Schyff. The media was barred from the party’s annual congress this year. Last year van der Schyff chased a coloured Beeld reporter from the congress.
“For two to three years, let’s not mind losing international competitions because we are bringing our people into those teams. Let’s build a 100% South African team rather than a 30% one.”
— President Thabo Mbeki.
“Is the president implying that black sportsmen and women can’t win?”
–Democratic Alliance representative Paul Steward, reacting to Mbeki’s statement.
“I hoped and prayed the camera had fallen.”
— South African batsman Neil McKenzie, who lost his wicket after 99 runs in the second test against Australia.
“It hurts to see how the Bulls are the joke of South African rugby Saturday after Saturday… The way the Bulls play now, they cause irreparable damage to the image, tradition and legacy of the Blue Bulls.”
– Piet Uys, chairman of the Blue Bulls’ Trust of Former Players.