Blue light thugs

The Witness: "What we voted for"
24 Dec 2008

IT is not surprising that the charges against the blue-light thugs are being reduced. This is the new South Africa: you have to be physically mutilated or killed for any drastic measures to be taken. We know that the system in place is only for a certain sector or class of people. We are getting what we voted for. Fellow citizens, remember the blue-light saga, road carnage, muggings, rapes, theft, murders, drug trafficking, bribes, fraud and the basic abuse of the people who are paying the salaries of all those guilty parties when you cast your next vote. Remember who pays the salaries of all the people in power and who is working for whom. You can fire them with your vote.
RAJEN PHILLIPS
Pietermaritzburg

Blue light thug wins bail appeal

It is clear no justice will come of this case, judging by the latest developments in this case. We will be tortured and terrorised on our roads for as long as the ANC is running this country into the ground. The strange thing is that Beke Cele had the audacity to bar SA Roadlink bus service (and maybe he should have, but why not act against the Taxi operators and his blue light thugs? The mind just boggles!

The Witness:
19 Dec 2008
Ingrid Oellermann Alleged “blue light bully” Hlanganani Nxumalo (28), who is charged with shooting at a vehicle after it allegedly did not move over quickly enough on the N3 near Ashburton on November 15, will spend Christmas at home.Nxumalo, a member of the SAPS VIP Protection Unit and bodyguard of Social Welfare MEC Meshack Radebe, faces eight charges of attempted murder for allegedly causing an accident in which eight people were injured.Exactly one month after he was denied bail by Camperdown magistrate Thys Taljaard, he appealed the ruling in the Pietermaritzburg High Court yesterday.Judge Isaac Madondo found that Nxumalo met all the legal requirements to qualify for bail.He said the magistrate misdirected himself when he took into account the “public outcry” over the incident and the “so-called blue light gang of KZN”.Nxumalo’s advocate, Louis Barnard, and state advocate Denardo MacDonald agreed on R3 500 for bail.The judge ordered that Nxumalo not communicate or interfere with the state witnesses.The state conceded yesterday that it was wrong at the bail application in Camperdown to treat the case as one involving “schedule five” offences. This places an onus on an accused person to show that his release is in the interests of justice. Barnard said attempted murder only falls under schedule five if it involves the infliction of “grievous bodily harm”.He also submitted that Taljaard “erred” when he took into account the “antics and modus operandi of the so-called blue light gang of KZN” when considering the bail application.Barnard has also suggested that the case against Nxumalo does not seem to be very strong as far as the attempted murder charges are concerned. He said, “At the end of the day the state may well be left with a case of negligent discharge of a firearm and reckless or negligent driving but … not attempted murder”.

Continuing gravy train

The Witness: "Continuing gravy train"
18 Dec 2008
I WOULD like to respond to your article on the deputy mayor’s transport (The Witness, December 15). It does not come as a surprise to the taxpaying public that our money is being spent foolishly. I cannot understand why the municipality has to hire vehicles for any official business as it has enough of its own. Why are officials transported in such expensive cars anyway when people are struggling to make ends meet? The deputy mayor says that his car was damaged in a storm but he was not in the car at the time. What were the bodyguards doing in the car in Panorama Gardens if it was not on an official trip? I suppose bodyguards are also allowed to waste taxpayers’ money by having good times with official vehicles and should they get damaged then that is okay. I hope that those concerned were asked to pay for the excess on the damage to the vehicle as we citizens are tired of politicians who do not seem to want to hop off the gravy train.
ZILLAH FRANCIS
Eastwood, Pietermaritzburg

Can you believe it?

The Witness: "Waste of funds"
16 Dec 2008
The Editor MSUNDUZI Municipality ratepayers will have read with astonishment of the sums of money spent on providing official transport for Deputy Mayor Mervin Dirks over the past two years. In 2006 NPC 2 was damaged in some unspecified way in a storm at Panorama Gardens. Whether it was there legitimately is also unknown; it had not ferried the deputy mayor but had been taken by his bodyguards. Assuming, however, that it might have been hail damage that was sustained, the vehicle should surely have been fixed in a matter of weeks and the costs covered by insurance, with a replacement vehicle hired in the interim. Instead, some R700 000 has been spent over the past two years in hiring cars for Dirks at a cost of about R1 000 per day. Two weeks ago, the municipality took delivery of a new NPC 2, a Mercedes Benz C220, but the hire car has not yet been returned. What has happened to the previous NPC 2 remains a mystery.Hard-pressed ratepayers are surely due some explanation of what at the very best seems an extraordinarily casual use of official funds.

Too many photos

The Witness:
11 Dec 2008
J. Creeke PERHAPS the Msunduzi municipal manager, between photo-shoots, could now direct his innovative thinking to tackling the many more weighty issues about which members of the public have been rightly complaining.J. CREEKE, Hayfields, Pietermaritzburg

Comments: Post a Comment:



Posted by Deon Joubert on 13 Dec 2008
New ManagersWith two more managers appointed by Rob Haswell one would have hoped that maybe they will be doing Robs work - but alas, these appointments apperas to be another waste of taxpeayers money by the ANC. Why do Rob Haswells office not respond to my faxes, emails and letters of the last two years?
Posted by Neville on 11 Dec 2008
Municipal ManagerThe municipal manager is the joker in the pack so what else did you expect. You certainly don't expect him to attend to rate payer demands do you.
Posted by A NON E MOUSE on 11 Dec 2008
PHOTOSWow, I learn a new thing everyday,I had absolutly no idea that Haswell had "innovative thinking",not bad for a senior citizen. Keep it up Haswell and pleeeze stop hogging the cameras its just getting vulgar now.