Security Overtime Shock

The Witness: "Security overtime shock"
A security guard in the Msunduzi Municipality is earning R20 000 a month in overtime alone.

The IFP late yesterday released details of a salary slip it has in its possession that shows that the monthly net salary of the security officer, whose name it is withholding, is R24 358,54.

According to the payslip, he earned a salary of R11 564,77 and overtime of R20 396,50.

Traffic Laws

The Witness: "Traffic laws
27 Mar 2009"
The Editor

DRIVING on the roads of Pietermaritzburg is hazardous and unpleasant. A growing minority of drivers shows scant regard for other vehicles, barging into queues, jumping red traffic lights, exceeding the speed limit and failing to observe a safe following distance.

Law-abiding motorists will have watched recent coverage of the activity of Johannesburg’s metro police with fascination. The true meaning of zero-tolerance towards traffic violations has become very clear: offending drivers have been arrested on the spot and their vehicles towed away and impounded. Many of them, predictably, have been taxis.

Johannesburg’s police were recently placed under new management and a fresh and uncompromising broom is obviously at work. Reckless disregard for the rules of the road can mean the difference between life and death.

Is it too much to hope that such determination to root out dangerous driving might yet be applied to the streets of the City of Choice?

Blackouts

The Witness: "Blackouts
26 Mar 2009"
The Editor

Once again a significant portion of Pietermaritzburg has experienced a breakdown in the supply of electricity. It has been described by Andrew Layman of the city's Chamber of Business as "devastating" in its effects. This applies to homeowners, as well as to commercial enterprises.

The breakdown has fuelled fresh anxiety about serious problems with this and other infrastructural aspects of the municipality. This is justified by the comment by Phil Mashoko, deputy municipal manager for infrastructure services, to the effect that the current restoration of supply is operating at 50% risk, meaning that if it collapses again there is nothing else to lean on as a standby.

It is becoming increasingly clear that piecemeal repairs are no real solution. What is needed is a major overhaul and renewal in a fundamental way. The extension of services to areas which have not been provided for previously - a policy highly commendable in itself - has occurred while existing ageing facilities have been badly neglected. The result is a crazy mixture of new provision alongside major degradation.

The Msunduzi Municipality has been experiencing at a micro level what the nation as a whole has discovered with Eskom. At least with Eskom, while the same kind of piecemeal tinkering continues, there is a longer-term plan in place for additional facilities that will improve and stabilise supply. The local scene cries out for a similar plan, and the funding and human expertise for it need to be urgently found.

Raelin's murder: Facebook group calls for death penalty

The Witness: "Raelin's murder: Facebook group calls for death penalty
27 Mar 2009"
A Facebook group requesting the reinstatement of the death penalty for the murder of six-year-old Raelin Devnarain has attracted more than 5 300 users in 11 days and is continuing to grow rapidly.

The online group, which was started on March 16, has rapidly gained momentum without much assistance from its creator, Litishia Govender.

Govender has just 168 friends on Facebook, while yesterday the group’s membership tally was up to 5 331.