The Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) is probing the death of builder Pieter Wheeler in a police cell in Grabouw, Western Cape police said on Tuesday. Wheeler (51) was found dead in the cell he shared with three other men at 11pm on Saturday, just over six hours after his detention for alleged drunkenness.
Western Cape African National Congress (ANC) provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha on Tuesday accused the Paarl town council, led by the Democratic Alliance and Independent Democrats, of organising a witch-hunt against duly appointed council officials. He was responding to reports that the council had suspended municipal manager Sidima Kabanyane.
Western Cape police are investigating charges of rape and abduction after a five-year-old girl, who had been reported missing in the Karoo, was found alive, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Tuesday. Police spokesperson Captain Malcolm Potje said that he was relieved that the girl had been found.
The Independent Democrats (ID) will campaign to take over the provincial Western Cape government in the 2009 elections, party leader Patricia de Lille said on Saturday. ”The signs are there; written in the results of most of the by-elections we have fought this year,” she said at the party’s national conference in Cape Town.
The N1 to Beaufort West in the Western Cape has been reopened to traffic after a collision involving two trucks and three buses outside Laingsburg earlier on Friday. Seven people were killed and 17 seriously injured, among them a seven-year-old girl. The accident started when a bus heading toward Cape Town collided with a truck.
Thirteen years after the African National Congress came to power promising to right the wrongs of colonialism and apartheid by returning lands seized by white settlers, the snail’s pace of delivery is prompting poor black communities to fend for themselves through land grabs.
Western Cape police declined to comment on Thursday on contradictory news reports that the suspected killers of two-year-old Sonja Brown were about to be arrested, and that an autopsy showed she was not murdered. The reports were carried earlier in the day by a Cape Town newspaper and a local radio station.
The only people who said crime was out of control in the Western Cape were the Democratic Alliance, Western Cape provincial community safety minister Leonard Ramatlakane said on Wednesday. He said calls for him to step down were ”frivolous” and something to which he would not respond.
Capetonians have been asked to use water sparingly this month as the dam supplying much of their water is being worked on. The distribution of water will be limited until the end of the month as the Berg River Dam, which is near completion, is being connected via a tunnel to the province’s main supplier, the Theewaterskloof Dam.
The latest crime statistics released on Tuesday prove crime is out of control despite government assurances to the contrary, opposition parties said. ”We are alarmed at the increase in murder [2,4%], the 118% increase in bank robberies … and the sharp increase in robberies at residential premises,” Inkatha Freedom Party spokesperson Velaphi Ndlovu said.
The African National Congress (ANC) is to contest the legality of the decision to reinstate Truman Prince as municipal manager of the Central Karoo district municipality. Western Cape ANC secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha described the move as ”improper and wrong”.
Education Minister Naledi Pandor and leaders of teachers’ unions will meet on Tuesday to discuss an education recovery plan designed to help pupils catch up on the 10 days of schooling missed during the recent public-sector strike. Also expected to be discussed is a review of the results of the interrupted June examinations.
A decision on winter schools in KwaZulu-Natal is expected on Monday when various stakeholders will meet to discuss it, the provincial department of education said on Saturday. Similar plans are afoot in North West and the Western Cape to recover from the effects of the lengthy public-service strike.
The Western Cape’s newest — and potentially second largest — cycle race, Die Burger Fietstoer, was unveiled on Friday and will take place on Sunday December 2. This road race will take place in and around Stellenbosch and is an official seeding event for the Cape Argus Pick ‘n Pay Cycle Tour.
Grahamstown’s arts festival is the most varied in the country, but still lacks diversity, writes Brent Meersman.
Thursday was described as the ”toughest yet” by a delegate at the African National Congress (ANC) policy conference in Midrand. ”It was the toughest … there are different views in terms of the decision to nominate a presidential candidate,” said Ernest Makopo from Gauteng.
Freezing weather and snowfalls in parts of South Africa have seen the death of a homeless man in Johannesburg, the delay of airline flights and the closure of mountain passes. Snowfalls left more than 300 bus passengers and 20 truck drivers trapped between Harding and Kokstad in KwaZulu-Natal.
Johannesburg’s first real snowfall in more than 20 years and the freezing temperatures that accompanied it claimed at least one life on Wednesday morning. Motorists were warned to avoid all passes in the Eastern Cape on Wednesday due to snowfalls, the South African Weather Service said.
Many residents of Gauteng woke up on Wednesday morning to a layer of snow turning lawns, rooftops and cars white, while the South African Weather Service predicted a freezing day with temperatures staying below eight degrees Celsius in Johannesburg. A number of roads in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal were closed to motorists due to snow on Wednesday morning.
Trade-union leaders will meet on Wednesday to discuss suspending the public-service strike during the 21 days they have to consider the government’s final offer. It is understood that the unions discussed the possibility of suspending the strike at a meeting on Sunday, but some wanted more time to consult their members.
Severe cold and more snow is to hit large parts of the country later on Tuesday and Wednesday, the South African Weather Service has warned. It said temperatures will drop as low as minus nine degrees Celsius in places such as Sutherland in the Northern Cape. The town was blanketed in snow on Monday.
A Cape Town woman on Tuesday continued her testimony about her horror taxi ride at the hands of a ”taxi conductor”. One of the two women named in the case, Lorraine Pindela, told the Cape Town Regional Court the shock of the ordeal caused her to menstruate in the taxi.
The Wynberg Regional Court in Cape Town was packed to capacity on Tuesday during the bail application of Najwa Petersen, who is alleged to have murdered her husband, popular entertainer Taliep Petersen. Magistrate Jackie Redelinghuys postponed the combined bail application of Petersen and her three alleged accomplices.
Severe cold is to hit large parts of the country later on Tuesday and Wednesday, the South African Weather Service has warned. It said temperatures would drop as low as minus nine degrees Celsius in places such as Sutherland in the Northern Cape. The town was blanketed in snow on Monday.
The Cape High Court has ordered the Western Cape government to ensure that health services in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha area are fully reinstated with immediate effect. Handing down judgement in an application for the reinstatement of 41 sacked Khayelitsha health workers on Tuesday, Judge Siraj Desai said the court was not the right forum to rule on their dismissal.
Confusion reigned at a press conference of the Western Cape branch of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in Cape Town on Tuesday. After calling a media briefing on the ”suspension” of the public-service strike, Cosatu organiser in the province Mike Louw told journalists: ”We’re not suspending the strike.”
A national warning was issued by the South African Weather Service on Monday morning with regards to a strong cold front affecting the country this week. Already prevalent in the south-western Cape, the cold, windy conditions are expected to sweep across the central interior of the country on Tuesday.
A committee of the Western Cape legislature has cleared former provincial transport and public works minister Mcebisi Skwatsha of claims that he failed to disclose an interest in two companies. Skwatsha is the African National Congress’s Western Cape provincial secretary.
Lawyers for Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool on Monday called for the recusal of most of the members of a special committee probing whether he misled his legislature. The committee, which was to have begun formal hearings on Monday morning, was postponed indefinitely following the application.
Gauteng residents should brace themselves for a strong cold front and isolated showers accompanied by wind in the coming week, the National Forecast Centre said on Sunday. Forecasters said the chilly weather should be expected in the middle of the week, with chances of light isolated showers on Tuesday.
South Africa lacks women in high positions, the Public Service Commission (PSC) has found. A lot still needed to be done to empower women, the PSC said in a report released on Friday. ”Critical in this endeavour is the creation of an enabling environment to ensure that women’s talents and potential are harnessed …,” it said.
One of President Thabo Mbeki’s VIP protection-unit bodyguards has appeared in court in Cape Town after allegedly shooting a man dead in a shebeen on the weekend. The Western Cape head of the Independent Complaints Directorate, Thabo Leholo, confirmed on Friday that Sergeant Sabata Vula faced charges of murder and attempted murder.