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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
R200m costs for WC2010 electricity to be paid by taxpayers
14:46 | 
Posted by
A Stuijt |
FIFA and the football community will laugh all the way to the bank while SA rate- and taxpayers will have to foot the electricity bills for the lavish two-week WC2010 football tournament in June 2010…
August 25 2009 – PRETORIA, South Africa. It has been revealed today that South Africa’s 5-million taxpayers will have to cough up the extra R200 million just to provide power to all the WC2010 football stadiums during the two-week tournament in June 2010.
This was disclosed in Parliament by the country’s Minister of Energy to a question tabled by Dr. Corné Mulder of the Freedom Front Plus opposition party. The minister replied that “FIFA’s requirements stipulated that back-up generators have to be in place at al stadiums during the tournament.”
Dr Mulder was livid, noting that ‘the government expected ordinary electricity consumers and ratepayers of municipalities’ to pay these accounts for the back-up generators for which R200 million was budgeted. ‘
“The money will be paid through the increased tariffs payable by consumers, i.e. ordinary people on the street. However any financial gains which will be derived from the football (soccer) tournament, will however not go to ordinary taxpayers but into the pockets of FIFA and the soccer community,” Dr. Mulder, Chief Whip of the Freedom Front Plus said.
“Municipalities however are also carrying an extra financial burden because network layouts will, according to the Minister’s answer, be re-configured so that, should there be a shortage of power due to ESKOM’s poor management of the electricity grid, the stadiums will not be affected by their by now routine load-shedding during the World Cup Tournament.
“Expenses for these changes are being carried by municipalities. The Pretoria city council already owes Eskom nearly R400 million for electricity which it had purchased and sold on to consumers,” he noted, adding that if the Pretoria Metro now already has fallen behind so massively in payments for electricity, “it can be expected that the debt will increase.”
This is a lose-lose situation for taxpayers, he warned: “ Should the national government bail the Metro Council out, the money will once again come from taxpayers,” Dr. Mulder said.
The Freedom Front Plus expressed its strongest opposition to ESKOM’s application, expected to be submitted to NERSA next month, asking for a whopping 40% tariff increase. “This increase in tariffs will merely place extra money in the pockets of FIFA and the football/soccer community,” Mulder warned. http://www.vf.co.za
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SA health care now the world’s worst
August 25 2009 -- The world’s top medical magazine, The Lancet, this month has focused on South Africa’s excruciatingly poor health-care provisions -- spelling out in painful detail exactly how many of the country’s ‘ health indicators’ now have become the worst in the entire world. During apartheid, South Africa’s free health-care provisions for the poor were famous -- and so excellent that they had managed to bring down tuberculosis infections, infant-death rates and child-birth deaths equal to those of first-world countries.
In fact South Africa has thus far, been the only country on the African continent to ever manage such a high level of medical excellence… So how could things have gotten this rotten, and this quickly?
One can of course blame the old scapegoat -- the ‘legacy of apartheid’ -- or one can become truthful, by examining what really went wrong. The Lancet does not mince its words…
Read the entire copyrighted article on http://www.thelancet.com/series/health-in-south-africa
Dutch language report:
Gezondheidsbeleid Zuid-Afrika faalt
25-08-09 LONDEN. De gezondheidszorg in Zuid-Afrika heeft zwaar te lijden onder falend overheidsbeleid, schrijft het medisch tijdschrift The Lancet. Hoewel het land niet arm is, is de gezondheid van de Zuid-Afrikanen vergelijkbaar met die van inwoners van een ontwikkelingsland.
Kindersterfte
Meer dan tien procent van de bevolking is besmet met hiv-aids. Toch liet de vorige president Mbeki medicijnen niet toe, omdat de ziekte te behandelen zou zijn met bieten en knoflook. Daarnaast eisen de vele mishandelingen en verkrachtingen veel van de gezondheidszorg.
- Ook is de kindersterfte wegens ziekten in Zuid-Afrika sinds 1990 drastisch toegenomen. http://www.nos.nl/nosjournaal/artikelen/2009/8/25/250809_zuidafrikafaaltingezondheidsbeleid.html
Mom of 7 murdered behind police station
Leandrá van Greunen, mom of 7 raped, murdered behind POLICE STATION
2009-08-24 Hilda Fourie of Beeld newspaper reports from Pretoria that the body of a gang-raped and murdered 33-year-old mother of seven was found behind the Eersterust police station on Saturday morning.
Leandrá van Greunen's eldest daughter Bianca, 16, was one of the last people to see her before she was attacked and dragged into the field where she was raped and her throat was slit.
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Virgee Naicker, 56, was emotional on Sunday as she related how her only daughter had been on her way to her house in Eersterust at about 22:00 on Friday night, when the tragedy occurred.
The field, which is thick with bushes and overgrowth, is about 1km from Naicker's home, and a few hundred metres from Van Greunen's home. It is not exactly clear how many men attacked Van Greunen.
According to Naicker, a man who had been walking through the field on Saturday morning came upon Van Greunen's body next to the foot path. She was naked. The man ran to the Eersterust police station next to the field to report what he had seen.
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"A policeman came here on Saturday," said Naicker. "I said it's not my child. It couldn't be my child. Then I went to take a look and I saw it was my child. My heart is broken."
Criminals 'fearless of the police'
Eersterust councillor Winston Campbell said the fact that the crime took place behind the police station just goes to show how fearless the criminals in this suburb are of the police.
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"When we go to sleep at night, there are murders, rapes and sodomies," said Campbell. "The police must come to the party and help us, because these people (the criminals) are fearless and lawless."
According to Campbell, the stretch of field - which is also across from Norridge Primary School - belongs to the Tshwane metro council. He has asked that the field be cleared on numerous occasions, but the complaints seem to have fallen on deaf ears. – Beeld http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/06fbf2bcaed2494fa938c1099cbf9124/24-08-2009-10-07/Mom_of_7_raped,_murdered
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'People continue to die at an ever-increasing rate…’
Comment by George Annandale, News24.com reader
2009-08-24 “An innocent woman was senselessly shot dead by fleeing armed robbers in the driveway of a petrol station in Johannesburg. She was minding her own business and was no threat to the robbers. In Durban, a woman was shot to death by armed robbers, this time in broad daylight on a busy street. Yesterday another woman, shot dead in her house by robbers for a TV set, was buried.
These senseless acts, many similar acts and the daily raids on shopping centres fly in the face of promises made by (South African President) Jacob Zuma, (Security Ministers) Mthetwa, Mbalula and (Police Minister) Cele.
- Why kill these unarmed victims in such a savage manner?
- “Having been a victim of armed robbers on two occasions, I am concerned and worried. I find it particularly difficult to understand why these violent criminals have to kill their victims, often in the most savage manner.
Thanks to the police, the anti-gun lobby and with the assistance of the new firearms act a great number of firearms were transferred from legal and registered owners to criminals.
- Reports of missing guns handed to the police are rife. The criminals must know they have the balance of firepower, they know - in most cases - the victims are unarmed yet they still kill them.
“This begs the question, why the senseless killings? I came up with quite a few possibilities ranging from naked hatred of assorted things, to xenophobia, hunting instincts, hero worship, obsessive-compulsive-behaviour syndrome (CBS), fear of prosecution, lack of life-skill education and projection.
- We have already seen the effects of xenophobia in South Africa and in many cases; the robbers consider their victims "non-indigenous" and therefore fair game.
“Many robbers believe they have to kill the victim in order to get what they want. Complicated psychological conditions like, Borderline Personality Disorder, various forms of CBS , Bi-Polarity and heaven knows what else, contribute to the apparent senseless killings stemming from the seemingly petty robberies.
High levels of insanity in South Africa -
“It is obvious that the government and police can solve the problem by establishing sufficient number of lunatic asylums that will cope with the abnormally high levels of insanity prevailing in the county. Potential lunatics can be locked away in padded cells where they will pose no threat to society.
“Jacob Zuma, in his first 100 days (as President), has clearly not made the impression on crime he promised. Whilst the Minister and the Deputy-minister are playing the “Mine-is-bigger-than-yours” game and Bheki Cele takes a grand tour, people continue to die at an ever-increasing rate. ..
“Given the number criminals in the police, the incompetence of others, the corruption at high levels and the ease with which dockets disappear, I fail to see how Cele's “shoot to kill” attitude will change the situation..”
Anna-Marie Saaiman, 78, fights off attackers at Pretoria smallholding
Bleeding pensioner fights off 'mad' attacker who bit off a finger tip…
Graeme Hosken reports in the Pretoria News on August 21 2009
"I was not going to let that man kill my husband. I got angry and I fought back."
These were the defiant words of Pretoria pensioner Anna-Marie Saaiman, 78, who although bleeding heavily after her attacker bit off the tip of her ring finger to try and get to her wedding ring, beat off the man trying "to kill" her husband, Koert, 80, at their smallholding in Kromdraai, north of Pretoria on Thursday. The Saaimans had just returned from Pretoria where they had done their weekly shopping, when they were attacked at their modest home.
As Koert unloaded the shopping and Anna-Marie opened up the kitchen door, their attacker, who they had seen walking past their home as they left for the shops earlier in the day, attacked them. 'I thought it was over but he came back at us again'
Hitting Saaiman over the head before holding her around the neck and throttling her, the man told her to keep quiet.
Instead a defiant Saaiman screamed to her husband for help as she wrestled with her attacker who beat her over the head with a spanner before he grabbed a knobkerrie and proceeded to hit her.
- As her husband ran inside to help, the man turned on him kicking him to the ground before he hit him repeatedly with the knobkerrie, eventually breaking it over his arm.
He wanted to kill us…
It was at that point that Saaiman launched herself at her husband's assailant, hitting him on the back and head with a sjambok before grabbing a piece of the broken knobkerrie and beating the attacker with it.
As she did so the man turned on her grabbing her hand biting the tip of her ring finger off in an attempt to get to her wedding ring.
Saaiman, who often play wrestles with her grandson when he comes to visit, managed to kick her attacker "where it hurts" causing him to let go of her as he fell to the ground. Her husband, seizing the opportunity, managed to push him out of their home. "I thought it was over but he came back at us again. As my husband held the door shut the man broke a window and pulled off the burglar bars.
"He was mad. He wanted to get to us. You could see that he wanted to kill us," she said. Saaiman and her husband eventually managed to scare off the man when he heard them phoning the police and friends for help. Bleeding profusely Saaiman was rushed to Eugene Marais Hospital by her son-in-law where doctors examined and treated for her injuries before sending her home. Saaiman said if it had not been for the wrestling lessons from her grandson they might have been killed. "He taught me what I needed today to keep us alive. When the man grabbed me around the neck I knew what to do."
- Police spokesman Inspector Llifi Ramatlo said the attacker had fled empty-handed and that no arrest had been made. He said “a case of housebreaking” was being investigated. (not attempted murder?)
- This article was originally published on page 1 of Pretoria News on August 21, 2009
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20090821034626466C968765
Tracey-Leigh Frankish, Marius Labuschagne murdered, Farmall AH
Flower child’ mom shot dead
Lauren Cohen reports on August 18 2009 that five days after “flower child” mom Tracey-Leigh Frankish’s screams scared off would-be burglars, house robbers struck again, this time taking her life.
A cheap TV set, hi-fi and a small amount of money were the only things stolen from the murdered 33-year-old Gauteng sales representative’s cottage in Farmall, an agricultural holding north of Fourways. She worked at the food manufacturing company Ma Baker.
Johan Burger, senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, who last year co-authored a report on crime and public security in South Africa, said the murder highlighted how political promises had not been kept as far as the eradication of farm attacks was concerned. “The conclusion we came to in our report was that there was a vacuum [in crime-fighting regarding] rural safety.” Burger said this was a result of the phasing out of South African National Defence Force units, or commandos, deployed specifically to patrol rural areas in South Africa since 2003.
“[The phasing out] was not supposed to happen until sector policing, police reservists and crime-combating units were in place. In almost all [rural areas] we visited in our research, none of this had been done,” Burger added.
Frankish’s murder means that her seven-year-old son, Taidg, will grow up without a mother. The break-in happened in the early hours of Sunday morning, when Taidg was with his grandparents, Fred and Helen Britz, at their Bryanston home.
- “We’ve told him what happened, but I don’t think he realises what death is all about,” Fred Britz said.
“He said: ‘They’ve killed my mom, they shot her’. It’s tough, the circumstances of her death. We never thought it would happen to us.”
Frankish, who was in the process of divorcing her husband, who lives in the UK, had been leasing a cottage on a plot.
Private security company RSS Security responded to a panic signal followed by an alarm signal at 12.47pm. A security officer who arrived at the premises six minutes later found the security gate on the front door had been forced open.
Frankish was found kneeling in front of her bed, with a gunshot wound in the head.
- “When the security officer went outside to radio for medical back-up he saw three suspects fleeing into the bushes and gave chase,” said RSS Security managing director Sean Mooney. The unidentified men got away.
Dion Stephens, a school friend, told The Times that Frankish had been a humanitarian. “She wanted to fix the world we live in, quit her job, teach people how to grow vegetables and live a self-sustainable life. The people she wanted to help were the people who murdered her,” he said.
Friends have been posting messages on Frankish’s Facebook page, where Stephens yesterday asked people to honour her memory by wearing purple or turquoise, “her favourite colours”, to her memorial service.
Dean Dawson, of food manufacturing company Ma Baker, where Frankish worked, said staff were distraught at her murder. “It feels surreal. It’s disturbing. She was a flower-power child, if I can put it that way, friendly to everybody.”
Murder blamed on victim by cop: ‘the door was left unlocked…’
Douglasdale police spokesman Inspector Balan Muthan confirmed a murder case was under investigation – and blamed the murder on the victim:
- “There are no suspects. The front door was left unlocked. Police and the security firm reacted within minutes, but the suspects had fled and the area is so dark at night,” Muthan said.
A memorial service is being planned at the Emmarentia Botanical Gardens in northern Johannesburg this weekend.
http://www.newsvibe.co.za/external.php?node=135471
Marius Labuschagne murdered August 1 2009 Farmall smallholdings
Lauren Cohen also reported on August 20 2009 in The Times of Johannesburg that in the wake of Farmall resident Tracey-Leigh Frankish’s murder, the northern Johannesburg community had been living in fear of “marauding gangs”. Jerry de Beer, who lives on a plot not far from where burglars shot and killed Frankish, 33, last weekend, told The Times that the single mother’s murder was the second in the area in just two weeks.
“Marius Labuschagne, living on a plot in a caravan, was murdered on August 1. Only his cellphone was taken,” De Beer said. “Residents are living in absolute fear every night as the marauding gangs go about their deeds unhindered,” he said.
- De Beer has been keeping track of crime in his area and his records show that there have been nine armed robberies and 27 burglaries in the area this year alone.
“Barely half of the 114 plots in Farmall are occupied; residents are starting to abandon their properties out of fear and desperation.
“We have no means to protect ourselves — normal electric fences, beams and alarms are not a deterrent anymore.
“Even armed response when activated cannot guarantee that you will survive an attack from these ruthless, murdering thieves,” De Beer said. And the police, he claims, are not pulling their weight because they have failed to investigate three armed robberies committed on his property alone.
There are so many trees, whine the cops….
Balan Muthan, spokesman for the Douglasdale police, who are responsible for the area, said extra police officers and vehicles have now been brought in. “We have also stepped up the number of patrols and the mounted unit is coming in,” Muthan said. “The problem is that the plots are so big and there are many trees. If there are people hiding on the properties, you can’t see them.” http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1052518
Kathrina Fourie, 85, attacked at FS farm
5 men attack 85-year-old Afrikaner farm woman with knives
2009-08-19 Bloemfontein - Three of five armed men were arrested after a gang of five attacked 85-year-old Afrikaner farm woman Kathrina Fourie near Soutpan, Free State police said on Wednesday. Sergeant Thandi Mbambo said five men attacked the woman on the farm Goedverblijf near Soutpan while her partner was fetching farmworkers on Tuesday morning.
Police said the farmer returned around at 07:00 on Tuesday to find footprints leading to the garage door, which connected with the house. When he went to the front door of the house he heard screams. "He found Kathrina Fourie in the passage bleeding heavily. She had several stab wounds."
Mbambo said Mrs Fourie was taken to the Pelonomi regional hospital in Bloemfontein and was in a critical condition.
Neighbouring farmers were alerted about the incident and “suspicious-looking men” were seen running through the fields in the direction of the adjacent squatter camp.
- Three men were arrested with the help of farmworkers on their way to work. A laptop computer, two cellphones and batteries allegedly stolen from the farm were found in their possession. It’s not known when the other two men are expected to be arrested.
Mbambo said a case of attempted murder was opened and the three men, aged 18 and 19, from Bultfontein and Soutpan, would appear at the Brandfort Magistrate's Court on Friday. SAPA
http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/0a60ae7b74314c66a6402cf928394879/19-08-2009-10-10/5_men_attack_woman,_85
German woman in horror killing Cape Town
Kristina Gebhardt, 28, beaten to death, dumped in boot of her Fiat Uno over a R20 parking row with guards…
August 23 2009 - Ester Lewis and Laverne de Vries report in the Cape Argus that bloodspatters on a wall in a dingy closet-like room in a city parking garage marked the violent murder of German immigrant Kristina Gebhardt, who was beaten to death and then dumped in the boot of her car. The German woman, who had been living in Cape Town for more than five years, would have turned 28 on the day of her murder. http://www.capeargus.co.za/?fArticleId=5134048
Gebhardt's bloodstained body was found in the boot of her Fiat Uno on Wednesday night. Her hands had been bound with electrical wire, believed to have been taken from supplies belonging to a company contracted to do renovations to a building on the corner of Loop and Bloem streets in the city centre. Police are waiting for the results of the post mortem to determine whether she was raped.
A police source revealed that one of her alleged assailants had been found driving her car in his boxer shorts and a blood-soaked T-shirt.
Gerbhardt worked part-time shifts at the Baobab book store just metres away from where she was beaten to death. Her employer, Julie Aitchison, told the Cape Argus she had been approached by a security guard last week and told she could use the Bloem Street basement parking. It had been agreed that she would pay the guard R20 a day.
The book store owner had offered the parking bay to Gebhardt in her absence.
A police source said that on the day of Gebhardt's murder, an argument had allegedly ensued between Gebhardt and a security guard over the R20 payment for the parking. The guard, arrested after Gebhardt's body was found in her car, which he had been driving, lived in a musty little room at the entrance of the basement parking lot. Police said they were looking for two other day-shift guards.
It is believed that they had been present when the alleged argument between Gebhardt and the guard took place.
The three are alleged to have kept her captive in the little room where they allegedly bound her hands, beat her and possibly raped her. Inside the room was a single mattress, a French tutorial, a prayer mat and prayer books. A pair of jeans was still hanging on the back of the door. A few bloodstains were splattered against the faded cream wallpaper.
When members of a Central Improvement District (CID) patrol pulled over the driver of Gebhardt's Fiat Uno on Wednesday night, the back seats of the car had been dropped. Her body was found shoved into the enlarged boot space. Gebhardt's laptop computer and cellphone were missing but her wallet was still on her battered body.
More than an hour after she left work, Gebhardt's boyfriend had called her on her cellphone and tried the bookstore, but to no avail. He had then driven to a Loop Street coffee shop where the couple had often gone, hoping to find her there. Instead, he had seen her green Fiat Uno being driven by a stranger, prompting him to launch himself at the car in an attempt to stop it.
- The CID patrol, who had witnessed his desperate rescue attempt, had come to his aid and had forced the car to stop.
Aitshison labelled the murder a "tragic loss and waste of life". She said she had met the "bubbly" Gebhardt through friends and had occasionally asked her to mind the book store while she was out. "I can't begin to imagine what her family is experiencing in Germany," Aitshison said. Another friend, Fuad Matthews, described Gebhardt as a vibrant person. Matthews, who celebrated his birthday yesterday, said: "I wondered why she wasn't calling me. I was going to send her flowers for her birthday today. "You could not have found a more beautiful person, inside and out. It's really not cool for any human being to experience what she did. "Cape Town is not going to be the same again."
Police said they had very few leads because they were having difficulty identifying the two alleged accomplices and had no addresses for the men, who are still on the run. Police inspector Carin Loock said the suspect would face a murder charge when he appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court on Monday. No further arrests have been made.