april 16 2011 municipality firearm puts its in police’s ... · “you can spend your whole life...

Army moves into troubled Free State townBEAUREGARD TROMP

THE ARMY has been sent intoMeqheleng township, in Ficks-burg, where police have alrea-dy killed a man and wounded awoman who was eight monthspregnant.

Armed soldiers were seenon the back of military trans-port trucks driving through thetroubled Zone 2 in Maqheleng,as Elizabeth Mtshali was mak-ing her way home after al-legedly being shot by the policethe night before.

She said she had been fetch-ing water from a nearby tap,when a passing police Nyalaopened fire.

Mtshali was hit in the neckwith a rubber bullet and spentan anxious night in hospital,worried about her unbornchild, before being dischargedyesterday morning.

Yesterday, nearly every resi-dent on the streets of this town-ship, cradled between the pic-turesque Lesotho highlands,was carrying buckets.

Residents say they’ve beenprotesting for better service de-livery – and particularly readyaccess to water – for monthsnow, without an adequate re-sponse from the local council.

Free State MEC for corpo-

rate governance, Mamiki Qa-bathe, met with MeqhelengConcerned Citizens to try to de-fuse the still volatile situation.

Things turned violent onWednesday when 33-year-oldcommunity activist AndriesTetane was shot and killed.

Amateur video footageviewed by the Saturday Starclearly shows Tetane beingshot at point blank range by po-licemen in riot gear. The scenesare so brutal that it left a jour-nalist seasoned in violent serv-ice delivery protests, in tears.

In a moving cleansing cere-

mony earlier this week,Tetane’s weeping wife, Rose,stood at the spot where her hus-band was killed, in front of themunicipal offices, before beingovercome with emotion andcollapsing.

Mobs, mostly youths, haveattacked government build-ings, burning down the localmunicipal office in Meqheleng,a public works building andransacking a number of shops.

Among these was Jhonny’s,where the front verandah wasreduced to little more than ashand coal with the “spacial” of

chicken “levers” still visible onthe board outside.

Despite the ash and soot un-derfoot, a queue snaked out ofthe former supermarket, thetwo taps inside now acting asadditional water points for apopulation, who often walk atleast five kilometres and queuefor up to three hours, threetimes a day, to collect water.

“You can spend your wholelife waiting,” said Joyce Moloi,queuing for water with herseven-month-old daughter,Veronica, strapped to her back.

Molefe Manyane, one of the

local community organisers,said they had tried to calm aseething community, but onThursday night, youths ran-sacked the local library and setit alight.

Computers, printers andphones were stolen. An LCDscreen held in place with metalbrackets above a children’sreading circle was smashed.

Untouched on the rackswere titles like, Are you with us?

by PAC veteran Mxolisi “BraAce” Mgxashe, Nobel LaureateAung San Suu Kyi’s Freedom

from Fear and The Choice by ex-convict Gayton McKenzie.

In a room where names like“Pule”, “Rafube” and “Lese-nya” are still stuck to scattereddesks surrounded by shatteredwindows and glowing coals, li-brarian Gideon Taioe lookedaround incredulously. This wasthe room where Tetane tutoredpupils from the seven localschools the library services.

“Andries used to teach hereevery day, to help the youth toget out of this place. This is thework of thugs,” said Taioe.

Down the road from the li-brary, a group of women staredin disbelief at images in theStar of Andries Tetane beingshot by the police and finallydying, eyes on the heavens.

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LIFE GOES ON: Meqheleng residents start the day by walking far and standing in long queues for water. There is relative calm in the townshipwhere shops were looted and municipal property vandalised. PICTURE: ANTOINE DE RAS

FALLEN: A grab ofAndries Tatane.The footageshows him dyingin the arms of hisfriend, MolefiNonyane, afterbeing shot policeduring a servicedelivery protest.

PICTURE: MCC(MEQHELENG CONCERNED

COMMUNITY)

Municipalityputs itsmouth wherethe money is

THABISO THAKALI

CARLETONVILLE’Sembattled MerafongMunicipality hasspent huge sums of

public money to sway publicopinion, in the face of allega-tions that it has failed to deliverhouses to poor residents.

The Saturday Star haslearned that the municipalityspent almost R200 000 for a spindoctor to “coach” a municipalofficial, pay for refreshments,venue bookings and “futile”press briefings.

Additional funds were usedto hire laptops and sound sys-tems and pay for banners, andthe travel costs, internet andcellphone billsof consultants.

The munici-pality embarkedon a big PR stra-tegy for the localg o v e r n m e n telections after itemerged that of5 500 housesmeant for Khutsong residents,it had delivered less than 10percent in two years .

The R500 million housingproject was thrown into tur-moil in January when contro-versial businessman TheunisCrous served the municipalitywith a letter of intent to inter-dict the project.

The tender to build 5 500houses in Khutsong South –outside Carletonville wasawarded to Fikile ThemaneJoint Venture. Constructionwas supposed to start in 2009and finish in July this year.

But the project has beenmarred by delays and conflictsthat have seen constructiongrind to a halt on one site, leav-ing workers and suppliers un-paid and residents bitter.

Crous has claimed the ten-der awarded to Fikile Themanewas irregular.

This week, the SaturdayStar learnt that the municipal-

ity appointed PR company RitoConsulting Services in Janu-ary, without a tender.

The company was to deliverpublic relations services, in-cluding preparing media re-sponses, hosting press confer-ences and securing interviewsfor the municipal manager.

The deal was also to includepurchasing interview space onvarious radio stations.

In February, almost R150 000in public money was spent onattempts to sway opinion.

The consultants charged themunicipality more thanR121 000 for arranging mediainterviews, handing out presspacks and hosting a press con-ference that was attended by a

single localnewspaper.

A proposaleven suggestedwhat muni-cipal managerLucky Leseaneshould empha-sise during in-terviews.

Leseane defended the PRdeal, saying the municipalityhad no capacity to deal withnegative media perceptions.

“The municipality was un-der attack from the media,” hesaid. “All I did was to get a spe-cialist to assist us when the mu-nicipality was facing negativereporting in the media regard-ing its housing project. We paidfor the service, but we claimedthe money back from the maincontractors of the project.”

Leseane said the contractwith Rito Consulting was ashort-term one and that themunicipality had not spentmore than R200 000 on it.

Rito Consulting CEO BerthaDlamini admitted to the Satur-day Star yesterday that at first,plans included a proposal tobuy interview space on radio.

But she said this proposalwas never approved and allthey had provided was “normalpublic relations support”.

Officials pay spin doctors R200 000

All I did was geta specialist to assist us

Special vote applications open nowTHE Independent Electoral Com-mission yesterday launched itsapplication process for specialvotes for the Municipal Electionson May 18.

“We are encouraging people todownload the application formfrom our website and to apply forspecial votes,” the IEC’s chief

electoral officer for KwaZulu-Na-tal, Mawethu Mosery, said.

He said there were two cate-gories of special vote: ‘First,people who would be out of theirelectoral area on election day and,second, disabled people who couldnot get to their voting station.Mosery said out-of-town special

votes would be cast on May 16.Electoral officers would visit dis-abled people in their homes onMay 16 and 17.

Application forms were avail-able from municipal offices or onthe internet.

The IEC's website is www.elec-tions.org.za – Lyse Comins

Firearmused stillin police’spossessionDEON DE LANGE

THE police officers involved inthe beating and alleged shoot-ing dead of Andries Tatanewere still carrying their officialservice weapons – one of whichmay have fired the fatal shot.

Independent Complaints Di-rector (ICD) spokesman MosesDlamini confirmed last nightthat none of the weapons be-longing to the officers had yetbeen confiscated.

Asked if there was anychance that the officer(s) in-volved could tamper with theweapons and thereby compro-mise the investigation, he said:“no”.

Dlamini said the ICD had“taken steps to identify the po-lice officers” and met withtheir commanders yesterday.The officers were still on activeduty. “It will take some time forthe investigation to reach thepoint where the steps – such asconfiscating the weapons – canbe taken,” he said.

Dlamini confirmed that apost-mortem had been con-cluded yesterday.

The ICD’s Francois Beuk-man would visit the family ofthe deceased today, he said.

Meanwhile the fallout fromthe slaying of service deliveryprotester Tatane, continued tospread yesterday as oppositionparties and civil society groupsput the blame squarely on thepolice – and the ANC.

The IFP said yesterday thekilling raised alarm bells that“seventeen years of misrule bythe ANC” was dragging thecountry towards being a “failedstate”.

The Law Society of SouthAfrica said the violence metedout to Tatane by the police –while he appeared to pose nothreat to them – was “shocking,unjustified and disproportion-ate”.

It expressed its condolenceswith the Tatane family and of-fered to assist the family to “explore all their legal reme-dies, including instituting aclaim against the minister ofpolice”.

ANC MP Sindi Chikunga,who chairs the national assem-bly’s police committee, said shewas open to the idea of address-ing the issue. She said no firmplans had been made in this re-gard and that she did not wantthe police to read about it in thenewspapers before it had beencommunicated to them.

Helen Zille channelsVavi at packed rallyCARIEN DU PLESSIS

DA LEADER Helen Zille hasfound unlikely inspiration for her party’s election campaign inthe form of Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi,whose pronouncements on thestate of the ANC she used in aspeech during her whirlwind tourof Mpumalanga yesterday.

Vavi’s warning to Numsa lastweek, about Zille becoming thecountry’s next president if ANCmembers continued their infight-ing and failed to get enough votesfor the party, was also quoted byMpumalanga DA leader MPJames Masango yesterday. Theywere addressing a rally of almost2 000 people on a soccer field inthe Mangosuthu settlement out-side Piet Retief.

Food parcels containing pap,boerewors and cabbage werehanded out after yesterday’s rallyand a local king, Sipho Mthembuof the kaNgwane kingdom,publicly endorsed the DA in ashort speech.

Zille, who was kitted out in a

bright blue DA T-shirt, DA sneak-ers and jeans, and who had awarm reception as she dancedwith some supporters to theparty’s campaign song, BrendaFassie’s Vulindlela, told support-ers in Zulu and English: “Vavisaid the ANC is going to its voterswith its tail between its legs andits back against the wall.

“Vavi said the ANC is makingpoor people poorer.

“Look at what the DA has donefor you so far. If we can do thatwhile in opposition, imagine whatwe can do when in government.”

Masango told the crowd inZulu: “Vavi said in his speech thatZille will soon be president. Vaviis correct.”

ANC secretary-general GwedeMantashe complained this weekthat Vavi’s comments were weak-ening the ANC’s campaign, al-though he conceded that thelabour federation, as an inde-pendent organisation, had theright to criticise.

A DA supporter, Sifiso Magag-ula, whose mother tongue is Zuluand who spoke in broken English

and Afrikaans, said he would votefor “president Zille” because theANC had achieved no results inthe municipality.

Thembi Magagula, a youngunemployed woman, said she hadnever voted before, but would voteDA because: “I like the DA somuch, I have seen the work theydo giving electricity and water topeople. Helen Zille will be betterthan the ANC.”

‘IMAGINE’: Helen Zilleaddressing the community ofMkhondo township inPiet Retief.

PICTURE: ZIPHOZONKE LUSHABA