The Independent on Saturday

The Independent on Saturday: "Cops in dock for aiding fraud kingpin"

Pietermaritzburg - Two Pietermaritzburg policemen who allegedly helped a kingpin of a huge fraud syndicate to escape were on Friday ordered to remain in custody until March 6.

Mercury

Mercury: "Woman assaulted in armed robbery"

A Pietermaritzburg woman was assaulted in an armed robbery at an Engen Garage in Pelham, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Tuesday.

Mercury

Mercury: "Couple in murder case to plead for bail"

A young woman and her husband are on Tuesday expected to make an attempt for bail in the city's magistrate's court in connection with the disappearance and murder of 26-year-old Sandesh Poorun.

Mercury

Mercury: "Domestic worker finds woman's body"

A domestic worker made the gruesome discovery of the bloodied body of a woman lying on a toilet floor in a block of flats in Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday.

News - South Africa: Suspect held for rape, housebreaking

News - South Africa: Suspect held for rape, housebreaking: "Suspect held for rape, housebreaking"

A 19-year-old man was arrested on Sunday for allegedly raping a woman and two girls during a house breaking in Northdale, Pietermaritzburg police said.

Inspector Joey Jeevan said the man, armed with a knife, broke into the 52-year-old woman's house at 10.30pm.

News - South Africa: Man stabbed to death at tavern

News - South Africa: Man stabbed to death at tavern: "Man stabbed to death at tavern"
A man has been stabbed to death at a tavern in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Sunday.

Mcedisi Ngaleka, 36, was stabbed in an argument in the tavern in Alexandra road on Saturday, said Inspector Joey Jeevan.

"The suspect ran away but an arrest is imminent," he said. - Sapa

Daily News

Daily News: "Police catch alleged rapist in hours"
Quick police work has secured the arrest of a 19-year-old man for the repeated rapes of a woman and two children at their Pietermaritzburg home at the weekend.

Daily News

Daily News: "Six held for prof's murder"
Six people have been arrested in connection with the murder of professor Samuel Jotham Zondi on Monday, KwaZulu-Natal police said.

News - South Africa: Serial rapist jailed for decades

News - South Africa: Serial rapist jailed for decades:

Three life sentences and 48 years in jail were imposed on a 44-year-old serial rapist and robber in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday.

News - South Africa: Taxi violence suspected after KZN shootings

News - South Africa: Taxi violence suspected after KZN shootings: "Taxi violence suspected after KZN shootings"

And these thugs woill be the mode of transport in 2010!! Tourists will have the ride of their lives.

DNA proposal 'will violate rights' - Mail & Guardian Online: The smart news source

DNA proposal 'will violate rights' - Mail & Guardian Online: The smart news source: "DNA proposal 'will violate rights'"

This is a slap in the face of crime victims and law abiding citizenz. The criminals win again. The South African Human Rights Commission has been long known as an Anti White pro criminal Group. The ANC should disband them instead of the Scorpions.

The Witness

The Witness: "Neglecting their duty
12 Feb 2009" Cllr J. M. LAWRENCE
HOW can one think that the ruling party is serious about education when, barely two weeks after the start of the new school year, the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) held a meeting in the Pietermaritzburg City Hall, attended by over 800 teachers during school hours, to urge them to vote for the African National Congress?

The Witness

Mental patients run wild
Doctors and nurses at Northdale Hospital are working in fear of psychiatric patients who prowl the hospital corridors half naked, breaking ward doors and terrorising staff and other patients.
KZN Health Department spokesman Leon Mbangwa had failed by the close of business yesterday to respond to questions sent to him on Friday last week.

Police ‘left wounded man’

A man who had been stabbed 15 times by his attacker at Ashburton was left at the side of the road by police, with his attacker nearby, after they left the scene saying the incident had happened just outside their area of jurisdiction.

Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa

This was published in Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa and is certainly applicable to Pietermaritzburg as well. Will the ANC take note?

Abstract:
While public discourses emphasise the growing role of ward councillors in service delivery and urban policy implementation, as well as underline their role as mediators between local government and urban residents, local councillors are increasingly the target of mass urban protests. They are also relatively absent from the public scene as far as municipal decisions and debates are concerned. What can explain this discrepancy? This article argues that institutional channels (be it representative democracy, or various institutions and instruments set up by local government to enhance participation) are currently not working in the South African city, and the city of Johannesburg in particular. Whether in low-income or high-income areas, suburbs or townships, residents have to resort to other means, sidelining in particular their ward councillor, to be heard. The article analyses the structural and contextual constraints that may be responsible for this lack of bottom-up dialogue, and concludes that both the limited power of ward councillors in Council, and the lack of incentive for fostering their accountability to voters, lead to the development of patterns of clientelism at the local level. After examining the actual implementation of some urban projects in Johannesburg, the article argues that local government fragmentation (in different tiers, in several city agencies and utilities, and with the widespread use of contracts and consultants) is also an important factor in the failure of participatory processes.

Sunday Independent

Sunday Independent: "Murky truth about the Dusi"

The Witness

The mismanagement by by the illiterate just doesn't stop. This happened a year ago. One would have thought the ANC would have sorted these kinds of mismangement by now?
The Witness: "Msunduzi loses track of money"

The Witness

The Witness: "Newborn twins found dumped"
WASTE pickers at the New England Road landfill site,Pietermaritzburg made a shocking discovery when they found the bodies of newborn twin babies yesterday morning.

More rates for no services

Since we were forced to be incorporated into Msunduzi Muncipality our rates in Lynnfield Park has quadrupled and service delivery has come to a halt. The weeds and grass have now encroached on more than half of Margaret Avenue making it impossible for two cars to pass each other and the grass has reach wall height, this is the service delivery the ANC promises the people if they vote for them.

This is a ward of Councillor Sandy Lyne from the Democratic Alliance and it is evident that the promises these councilors make are lies,lies,lies!!!

Recreational Facilities, ANC Style

This is what the Msunduzi Council call recreational facilities. The area is so overgrown that a child will dissapear into the thikness of the grass when standing up.

More proof of ANC Mismanagement

The Witness: "Mess during dump strike"
05 Feb 2009
Thando Mgaga Chaos and mess were the order of the day at the Pietermaritzburg landfill site off Woodhouse Road yesterday afternoon as residents, companies and contractors employed by the Msunduzi Municipality dumped rubbish on the main road on the orders of the site’s staff, who have downed tools and refuse to work.The staff instructed dumpers to offload their rubbish on the road, saying they are fed up with management’s neglect of the site. The pile quickly grew to include smelly domestic garbage, broken television sets, beer bottles, garden refuse and old car seats. Some of the dumpers could not stomach the mess and opted to take their loads away again. Frustrated residents told The Witness that dumping on the road would cause more harm than good, saying they were worried it would pose a health hazard for the municipal staff who would have to clean up the mess. Landfill supervisor Boyzie Molefe said the employees refused to work because they do not have equipment to carry out their duties.Molefe said management has for more than three years failed to ensure that the equipment is in good working order. The equipment includes tipper trucks that carry the rubbish to the main landfill site, water pumps to quell fires and a compressor to flatten the rubbish.He said the landfill site is in a state of disarray. The weighbridge is not operating properly following the theft of computers and hard drives containing information about how much each load of rubbish should cost to dump. Molefe said the manual system in place has angered some residents who have ended up refusing to pay. He said that previously, residents would be provided with a slip from the computer giving the cost, but now some residents suspect that the charges are guesswork and feel cheated.He added that the workers want the site to be upgraded. Some protesters complained about a lack of adequate security. They said there are three security guards and that there has been a spate of thefts of batteries from the municipal vehicles recently. Zwe Hulane, deputy municipal manager for community services, which is charge of the site, convened a meeting with the site manager, the waste management manager, Molefe and SA Municipal Workers’ Union shop stewards to stop the chaos. Site manager Cyril Naidoo admitted that some of the equipment has been broken, but said it is being fixed. Hulane said the issues raised by the workers were news to him, but that he is committed to dealing with the problems. He said some of the issues were not properly handled by the site’s administration. “Some of the concerns can easily be dealt with. I am not happy about some aspects of administration and how the workers approached their concerns,” said Hulane. The parties agreed to meet again today.
thandom@witness.co.za

Comments:

Posted by Anonymous on 06 Feb 2009
If the municipality employed intelligent, honest and decent hardworking people with the will to work, I think that would solve half the problems at the dump. The other half is that the municipality are wasting so much of our money, and not allocating sufficient funds to equipment and infrastructure maintenance and expansion - but they drive around in fancy cars which we pay for! The municipality needs to get their priorities right.

Pietermaritzburg in Spending Chaos

We have been saying for years now Hlatshwayo and Haswell has to go. They are incapable of running a city yet they coining it on payday. Ratepayers can no longer afford keeping on these incompetant ANC brothers and sisters - it is no longer financially viable.

The Witness: "Msunduzi in spending mess"
05 Feb 2009



Nalini Naidoo THE Msunduzi Municipality has blown its entire overtime budget of R33 million seven months into the financial year — overspending it by a whopping R5 million. Heads must roll, say executive committee (Exco) members, in particular that of municipal manager Rob Haswell. Haswell is also in hot water for missing the deadline for submitting the municipality’s annual report to the provincial treasury. Mayor Zanele Hlatshwayo said she is aware of other issues of non-compliance, such as outstanding signatures on performance agreements for senior staff. She noted that these are management issues and she was told that management meetings are not taking place any longer.The council’s finance committee heard yesterday that the draft annual report should have been tabled before a full council sitting in January. The session did not take place because the speaker was told there were no items on the agenda. Hlatshwayo said Haswell should have alerted the speaker about the deadline for the report.But it was the overtime issue that most alarmed councillors. Deputy municipal manager Roy Bridgemohan said the previous high overtime bill was attributable to the excessive number of vacant posts, and R21 million was spent filling the posts. Instead of being reduced, overtime charges went up.Hlatshwayo called this poor management. Councillor Pops Chetty said every department has a financial manager. “Things are out of control, Somebody has to take responsibility,” he said. There were suggestions that officials who don’t manage their overtime budgets should be made to pay from their own pockets. Haswell was attending a funeral in Cape Town yesterday. Deputy Mayor Mervyn Dirks said he must be called before next Thursday’s Exco Meeting to provide answers.An analysis of the overtime shows that the two worst performing departments are waste management and traffic. Previously in waste management, the excuse has been broken trucks, meaning fewer crews taking longer to collect rubbish, but the vehicles have been repaired and replaced. The finance committee resolved that no more money will be given for overtime until the municipal manager and his management team submit a detailed report to Exco about control measures to be put in place to keep the spending in check.