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Johannesburg - South Africa must step up its fight against crime, racism and HIV/Aids, it was told by its African peers in Ghana on Monday.

Thirteen years after democracy, greater urgency was also needed to tackle sexism and accelerate the pace of land reform, fellow members of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) told the government of President Thabo Mbeki, according to the SABC.

The APRM is a key component of the African-led New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), a programme centred on securing more aid and investment for the continent through improved governance.

APRM reports on South Africa and Algeria were presented at an African Union summit in Ghana.

Only 26 out of 53 AU countries have signed up for the voluntary review, which evaluates the progress of members towards democratic reforms.

Ghana, Rwanda and Kenya have already been through the process.

Mbeki welcomed the report, saying it had also acknowledged the strides made in transforming South Africa into a vibrant democracy, but expressed concerns about "methodological flaws".

South Africa has some of the highest HIV infection and crime rates in the world. Each day about 50 people are murdered and 1 000 die of Aids-related illnesses.

Article from http://www.news24.com/
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Labels: South Africa - crime

Deon de Lange, Beeld

Johannesburg - Crime should be addressed "in all earnestness" during the African National Congress's policy conference, said President Thabo Mbeki in his opening address to delegates on Wednesday at Midrand.

Mbeki, who has been panned in the past for his apparent inability to empathise with the victims of crime, made a heart-felt plea to delegates to examine their own roles, as well as those of the ANC, in curbing the scourge.

In his State Of The Nation address earlier this year, Mbeki responded to critics of his approach to crime by saying that he was not given to "theatrical displays" on the subject.

On Wednesday, he showed his human side by conveying, on behalf of all the delegates, sincere sympathy to the family of Mikayla Rossouw, a six-year-old girl who was murdered in Swellendam.

'Inherited problems and challenges'

Mikayla's body was found on Saturday in a black bag in a corrugated hut on a property adjoining her home after she'd been missing for 13 days.

Mbeki said the ANC was "deeply concerned about the continued abuse, rape and murder, in particular of women and children".

He said that part of the solution was to address the socio-economic conditions in which many South African women lived, resulting in them remaining among the poorest of the poor.

Mbeki emphasised that problems and challenges facing the country "that we inherited" could not have been resolved in the past 13 years.

Sounds warning

In an apparent reference to leftwing pressure on the party to align itself to a greater extent with the lot of the workers and the poor, Mbeki warned that failures in this area should not be attributed to the party's present policies.

"You, fellow delegates, are at perfect liberty to argue that I am wrong in making this assertion, and our movement has been wrong in making this assertion, and that during the conferences the ANC has held since its unbanning in 1990, we could have adopted other policies that could have eradicated a 350-year legacy 'of colonialism and apartheid' in 13 years."

Article from http://www.news24.com/
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Labels: South Africa - crime

Johannesburg - Uthingo will continue to pay out National Lottery winners despite the fact that its licence to operate expired at midnight on Saturday. Uthingo's chief executive Oupa Monamodi said in a statement on Sunday that players could rest assured that Uthingo "will continue to protect their interests and will continue to pay prizes".

Uthingo urged retailers to continue validating tickets and make prize payments until further notice.

"However, without the assurance of certain indemnities and safeguards, Uthingo was opposed to the National Lottery Board's (NLB) decision that it must continue paying out prizes after March 31."

The NLB made an urgent application to court for an order compelling Uthingo to pay out prizes after the expiry of its licence.

Uthingo contended in court that while it was willing to pay out prizes, it needed certain indemnities and safeguards.

On Saturday, Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa announced there would be no lottery for at least a month.

"The sheer volume of work which had to be undertaken... made it impossible to conclude this work in time for me to make a new decision before the expiry of the current (lottery operator's licence)," Mpahlwa said.

The current licence (Uthingo) expired on Saturday at midnight and "there was no legal basis to extend it in the present circumstances," he said.

The announcement of the new lottery operator would be made in a month's time.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance said on Sunday the suspension of the Lotto and the awarding of a new lottery operator should be debated in parliament.

Party MP Pierre Rabie said the DA would call for a parliamentary debate on the matter this week.

He said the suspension that followed the Pretoria High Court's reversal of the Lotto licence award stemmed from Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mphahlwa's neglect of his duties, a lack of leadership and the inefficiency of the National Lotteries Board.

"One can only hope that the Minister will this time around ensure that extensive probity checks are conducted properly, ensuring that all the dubious questions about government's preferred operator are cleared up."

The minister must prove a plan existed for the speedy awarding of the licence, he said.

Government officials responsible should also be brought to account.
Article from www.news24.com
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Labels: South Africa - crime

Cape Town – In an angry response to the debate on his State of the Nation address, President Thabo Mbeki lashed out at ACDP leader Kenneth Meshoe yesterday for suggesting that the 2010 Soccer World Cup could be taken away from South Africa if it did not address the high rate of crime.

Accusing Meshoe of being motivated by “measly partisan reasons”, Mbeki said it alarmed him greatly that Meshoe could have said the “the privilege of hosting the prestigious World Cup might slip through our fingers, despite the many assurances we have received from Fifa president Sepp Blatter, who is a friend, admirer and supporter of South Africa.”

Mbeki said Blatter was “a principled fighter for the restoration of the dignity of the African people universally.

“Regarding the incidence of violent crime in our country and its relevance to the World Cup, Blatter would say he knows the people of South Africa would host the world of football in safe conditions.”

Mbeki said Blatter would say that having considered the report of its technical committee, which assessed the various bids to host the 2010 tournament and which drew attention to the challenge of safety and security in our country, “the executive committee of Fifa decided, deliberately and consciously, that our country should host the World Cup”.

He said Blatter would also say he had been greatly encouraged by remarks emanating from our country that the World Cup “will not slip through the fingers of the people of South Africa. It will take place in South Africa. It will be a resounding success.”

When Blatter stood at the Fifa podium in Zurich, Switzerland, and pulled out the card that read “South Africa”, the people of South Africa, of all races, the continent, the African Diaspora, the friends of Africa throughout the world, , “took to the streets in a spontaneous display of joy”.

He said for “measly partisan reasons” Meshoe now believed, quite wrongly, “that he can convince Fifa and the football world that these millions did not mean it when they confirmed through their celebrations that they are determined to ensure that the 2010 World Cup will be the best ever.

“Whatever our problems, our nation shares the resolve to make the 2010 World Cup the best ever. This common resolve communicates the unequivocal message that regardless of our fractured past, and despite the reality of the stubborn persistence of the legacy of that past, we are indeed capable of arriving at a national consensus about how to respond to our most important challenges, about what we need to do to identify and act in unity to advance that which we will have agreed constitutes the national interest.”

Article from http://www.theherald.co.za/
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Labels: South Africa - crime

CAPE TOWN - Little more than ten days ago, one of the court-appointed curators of Fidentia Holdings, Dines Gihwala, stood in front of a packed meeting room addressing Fidentia's Cape Town and Johannesburg staff. He promised all people present (and listening via a live video-conference link) that their jobs were secure and that his office door would remain open for all concerns and questions.

Yet within just five days Gihwala curtly told the Cape Town canteen manager that both her and her team of seven canteen and cleaning staff were no longer needed. Each one of those people, amongst Fidentia's lowest-paid employees face an uncertain future and will return as former breadwinners to the extended families who have depended so heavily on them up to this time.

At the centre of the Fidentia curatorship is a sum of somewhere between R400m and R600m as yet unaccounted for, which is part of an original amount invested with Fidentia Asset Management (FAM) through Living Hands trust, the administrator of the savings of about 47 000 widows and orphans – the families of deceased mineworkers.

While the jury is out on what exactly has happened to all the money, and while former mineworkers' families are considered amongst South African citizens most deserving of protection, the methods and manners of the new Fidentia curators seem harsh at best.

I am one small voice writing from within the so-called “opulent” (as Bruce Cameron has put it) offices of Fidentia's Canal Walk headquarters. Since Monday last week, I have been asking the curator to sign off two simple documents that would confirm that employee benefits invested in an external staff benefits saving plan are safe. On Friday last week, Gihwala asked if I had nothing better to do all day than sit around and demanded that I leave his office suite. When I explained that I was “sitting around” waiting for his reply to a formal request, he seemed to grow angrier and more indignant. My ego bruised, I left soon after. Needless to say, no replies to my polite queries were offered.

What has emerged over the past ten days is that Gihwala's “open door” remains firmly closed to any request by Fidentia staff for some clarity on their futures. Will they be paid a February salary? Nobody knows. If retrenched, what about benefits? Nobody knows. If, by Gihwala's own assurances, Fidentia Group's subsidiary companies are operating at “business as usual” status, why have so few people been communicated with?

Why, on Friday February 9, were some members of senior management issued with notices of intended retrenchment scheduled to commence Monday February 12? Included in that list of individuals are two personal assistants who have been working closely with the joint curators and their teams since February 1 when the curatorship process commenced. One of these women, who has personally ordered and collected meals for the curators' teams (remember, the canteen is now closed) is expecting her first baby in about a month's time. She was told that any benefits and severance pay owing to her, when she leaves, are unlikely at this stage.

I am certainly not attempting to cry over spilt milk here. But the fact remains that more than 1 000 employees of the Fidentia group of companies are, in the majority, amazing people who would never condone or allow widows and orphans to be robbed of hard-earned savings.

I count it a rare privilege to have met and worked alongside phenomenal individuals such as world-class disabled wheelchair athlete Ernst van Dyk. This man, who regularly ranks within the top five wheelchair positions at the Boston, New York, London and Japan marathons, is an amazing and inspiring human being. The international media treat him with both respect and attention. Yet our local media are glaringly silent or inattentive to his inspiring story. But the moment the Fidentia story broke, his phone was ringing off the hook and when he referred any comment to official Fidentia sources, was rewarded with his good name splashed in a cover story on Cape Town's latest financial scandal. While training on Paarl's roads for upcoming race events, he has already been harassed and verbally abused.

Similarly, on the day Moneyweb ran a story by Alec Hogg titled “Fidentia: It's our worst nightmare'” (Thursday February 8) I was met with the enraged and deeply hurt reaction of one of South Africa's cricketing greats, Meyrick Pringle. In his article, Hogg (who seems incapable of spelling Meyrick's name correctly) originally wrote: ' 'Brown and his cronies – retired cricketers Eric Simons, Dave Callaghan and Merrick [sic] Pringle are among the "employees" – have looted the Living Hands trust, previously worth R1,2bn, almost to the point of extinction.' And later in the same article Hogg writes, 'His [Arthur Brown's] obsession with sporting fame stretched beyond the employment (at six figure monthly salaries) for new best friends like Simons, Pringle, Callaghan and Louis Koen, through to headline sponsorship of the Boland provincial rugby team, the Manning Rangers soccer club and the Eastern Province Warriors cricket team.'

I should use the verb form 'Hogg wrote' because after concerned calls from the sports personalities targeted, Hogg altered the online article later to soften the implied guilt by association but has yet to offer any correction or apology.I also see that Moneyweb's Jackie Cameron has added an interesting piece this morning (February 12 2007) titled “Where is Mrs Arthur Brown?'” and claiming: “Cape Town's pole-dancing queen, wife of Arthur, does a disappearing trick.”

I seriously doubt that any employee wants to do a bad job and the majority of colleagues I feel privileged in my time at Fidentia to have met are good, hard-working and caring people. What many members of the media seem to intentionally disregard is that their words, carefully selected and honed for the butchering task at hand, can be agents of healing and reassurance or instruments of clinical destruction. Does any one of them care about the good people affected in this story or are the innocents on the inside ignored as victims of collateral damage?

In the past ten days it seems that the Fidentia curators are being neither open nor transparent in their dealings with staff. Despite frequent appeals for information and updates with which to build and motivate staff members to remain focused and ensure that work life is indeed “business as usual”, Gihwala sits in Mr Brown's opulent office and says nothing. A small correction: Gihwala does find the time at least once a day to update key members of the media. He is quoted often in media reports on the unfolding Fidentia story and its employees can only hope to read about their uncertain futures in the daily papers. A small question still lingers in the minds of many employees who will still arrive at work even while facing the fear of retrenchment. If the money is indeed all gone, will the widows and orphans also be paying for the curatorship fees when this matter is finally laid to rest?

Ross Edwards works for Fidentia and has given us his approval to run this piece.

PS – Alec Hogg writes: My sincere apologies for misspelling Meyrick Pringle’s name. Also, the wording of the initial piece could have been better. But it was changed within a couple of hours to the way it reads now.

Article from http://www.moneyweb.co.za/
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Labels: South Africa - crime

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki on Sunday defended his government's response to crime, rejecting criticism it was not serious in dealing with the problem.

The government has faced growing public pressure to tackle crime, amid widespread perceptions that the problem is spiralling out of control, and opposition and media accusations that Mbeki is in denial about the gravity of the problem.

South Africa has one of the world's highest rates of violent crime and business leaders have expressed fears that, if left unchecked, it could deter investment and hit economic growth in the runup to hosting the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Mbeki said, in an interview aired on SABC on Sunday following Friday's state of the nation speech, his administration was serious about tackling crime and suggested its actions may not have been properly communicated.

"I would imagine that anybody who was actually following what was happening in South Africa would have seen that in every state of the nation we have addressed this matter," he said.

"There is no point in which the government has acted in a manner that did not recognise that this, indeed, is a serious problem in the country."

Mbeki on Friday promised new measures to combat crime, including hiring more police and said the country had made progress in dealing with the issue.

"Decisive action will be taken to eradicate lawlessness, drug trafficking, gun running, crime and especially the abuse of women and children," he told parliament.
Article from http://za.today.reuters.com/
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Labels: South Africa - crime

Article by Chantelle Benjamin from http://www.businessday.co.za/

THE collaboration between business and government to tackle SA’s high crime rate has attracted the interest of the international community, according to the safety and security department.

Trevor Bloem, spokesman for the department, said on Friday: “Something of this nature has never been undertaken before and there has been a lot of interest expressed by governments overseas who are anxious to see if it works.”

Four working groups and a leadership forum consisting of SA’s justice, crime prevention and security ministers, and business leaders, will meet next month to discuss progress on tasks assigned in December to target the high crime rate.

A high-level meeting was held in August last year between business and a government delegation including President Thabo Mbeki after a number of particularly violent crimes, among them the Jeppestown shoot-out, where 12 people — four of them policemen — were killed.

Statistics collected by Business Against Crime suggest that, despite government’s insistence to the contrary, violent crime had risen 25%-30% in the 18 months prior to the meeting.

Business felt that its organisation, Business Against Crime, had succeeded in many areas in addressing crime and in increasing co-operation between business and government, but that greater co-operation was needed with all sectors of the safety and security cluster for the benefits to be felt.

Four working groups set up with representatives from government and business met in December last year and set about assigning roles in the fight against crime. The groups each had a different focus — a review of the criminal justice system; violent organised crime, baseline effectiveness, as well as mobilising public communication and innovations to fight crime.

When the four groups meet next month, they are expected to have developed targets and tasks, as well as short-term solutions, where possible. “Groups also need to spell out what they require in terms of people, skills, financial resources, information and effectiveness,” said Bloem.

A number of high-profile business leaders were the target of crime last year, but the main concern was decreasing investor confidence caused by the perception that SA was losing its battle against crime, which Bloem said needed to be addressed urgently.

This urgency is partly as a result of SA hosting the 2010 Soccer World Cup, an event that is expected to attract at least 250000 foreign visitors to the country.

The concern is not unfounded.

In November last year, the new US ambassador to SA, Eric Bost, said in an interview published in a Sunday newspaper, and which received worldwide coverage, that few people would travel to the 2010 World Cup in SA if crime continued at current levels.

This was despite SA’s impeccable security record at previous events such as the rugby union and cricket world cups of 1995 and 2003.

Bost, a black Republican, warned that crime was the first concern of nearly every ambassador he had met in SA, and of the US investor community.

“I look at things somewhat simplistically on occasion and the issue for me is this: who is going to be interested in spending a significant amount of money coming here on holiday, to have a good time, when they’re concerned about the possibility of getting hurt?” he asked.

Labels: South Africa - crime