Archives

By Onalenna Mhlongo

A suspect has been arrested following the shooting of three police officers on Saturday, in Pretoria East, which resulted in the death of one detective, while leaving the two other officers wounded.

National Police Commissioner, General Khehla John Sitole, has condemned the incident and has called on the detectives to ensure that justice prevails in this matter.

“The detectives that were with the deceased member must be commended for applying the necessary force to apprehend the man that allegedly attacked them and subsequently killed the detective constable,” said General Sitole.

The police detective attached to Garsfontein SAPS in Gauteng was allegedly killed by the suspect he and his two colleagues were arresting on a case of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH).

It is reported that three detectives from SAPS Garsfontein followed up on information regarding the suspect who was wanted on a case of assault to cause GBH.

On arrival at the corner of Garsfontein and Rubenstein Roads, the members approached the suspect who then started pelting the police with stones.

On trying to apprehend the suspect, he (the suspect) managed to grab one of the member’s firearm and fatally shot him.

The other members managed to retaliate resulting in the suspect being shot and wounded.

The suspect is currently in hospital under police guard after he sustained a gunshot wound during the shoot-out.

He will appear in court on charges of murder and two counts of attempted murder as soon as he is medically fit to do so.

The National Commissioner is sending a Gauteng Senior delegation to convey his condolences to the family of the detective constable.

The name of the deceased member will be released as soon as his next of kin has been informed and his family will be afforded the support needed during their time of mourning and beyond.

General Sitole has directed the management of the province to further ensure that the colleagues of the deceased member be afforded the necessary debriefing and counselling as prescribed by South African Police Service (SAPS) Employee Health and Wellness.

Esakhaleni Shopping Center shooting

Meanwhile, in a separate incident shortly after midnight, three constables were patrolling in the vicinity of Esakhaleni Shopping Center when they were shot at.

Two members were wounded and the third member managed to escape unscathed.

One of the constables, a female is in a critical condition after sustaining gunshot wounds to her face and abdomen.

No arrests have yet been made in this incident.

By Onalenna Mhlongo

KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Commissioner Lieutenant, General Khombinkosi Jula, has applauded the police for the arrest of 15 suspects for diesel theft.

Ongoing investigation into the theft of diesel incidents between Camperdown and Pietermaritzburg areas yielded results on Saturday when the suspects were arrested.

They will appear in the Camperdown Magistrates Court on Monday.

An operation was conducted by police officers from Mountain Rise Rapid Response, Pietermaritzburg K9, and Cluster Crime Intelligence with Magma security guards in Ashburton.

Suspects were arrested in Ashburton while trying to pump diesel from the trucks.

Two trucks transporting fuel, three vehicles, numerous pipes, hydraulic jacks, 17 cell phones, spanners and an undisclosed amount of cash were confiscated during the operation.

Suspects including two police officers were detained at the Camperdown police station.

Commissioner Jula said it was such a disgrace that while other police officers are dedicated to fight crime in the country, others find themselves on the other side of the law because of voracity.

“Such actions are an embarrassment to the police service and are punishable,” Commissioner Jula said.

View Original post @ SAGov

Eskom has announced that no load shedding is expected on Monday and the possibility thereof is low for the week.

“We are utilising emergency generation reserves to supplement power, as we had more unplanned breakdowns [on Saturday],” Eskom said on Sunday.

Eskom said additional generation units would return to service on Sunday.

“This will improve the power system outlook for the coming week and further reduce the possibility of load shedding,” Eskom said.

Eskom reminded customers that the generation system remains constrained, vulnerable and unpredictable. As such, load shedding can be implemented at short notice if there is a change in the generation system performance.

“We request customers to continue using electricity sparingly to help curb demand,” Eskom said.

Customers should revisit their load shedding schedules on the Eskom website, https://loadshedding.eskom.co.za or local municipal websites, depending on their electricity supplier, to review amendments.

Alternatively, customers can contact the Eskom media desk on: +27 11 800/ 3433/ 6050/ 6130 or fax-to-email: 086 664 7699 otherwise email: mediadesk@eskom.co.za.

The Coronavirus death toll in China now stands at 1873 deaths, with three of the deaths recorded outside China.

With the rising numbers, surveillance and monitoring activities of the Coronavirus outbreak continue at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).

As of 18 February 2020, the NICD tested 87 people for Coronavirus, 49 of which met the case definition for the Coronavirus (COV-19) person under investigation (PUI), and all results came back negative.

“We can assure South Africans that the country has not had a confirmed case of COVID-19.

“Through the National Emergency Operations Centre, updating of guidelines and training of healthcare professionals, and taking steps to expand the scope for testing for COVID-19, the NICD continues to strengthen capacity to better contain and manage the COVID-19 outbreak from entering South Africa,” said the NICD in statement on Tuesday.

The NICD thanked South Africans and healthcare professionals for continuing to provide information to the NICD through the clinicians’ hotline number and the public toll-free number.

The Institute urged the public to continue practising hand hygiene and cough etiquette, and adhering to the following:

• Avoid close contact with people suffering from acute respiratory infections.
• Practice frequent hand-washing, especially after direct contact with ill people or their environment.
• Avoid visiting markets where live animals are sold.
• Travellers with symptoms of acute respiratory infection should practice cough etiquette (maintain distance, cover coughs and sneezes with disposable tissues or clothing and wash hands).
• Health practitioners should provide travellers with information to reduce the general risk of acute respiratory infections, via travel health clinics, travel agencies, conveyance operators and at points of entry. Travellers should self-report if they feel ill.

A 28-year-old Johannesburg woman, Temwa Lisa Masoka, will spend six years in prison after a Mpumalanga regional court found her guilty of peddling counterfeit money in Mpumalanga and Gauteng.

Her accomplice, Andrew Hopkins Mzaliwa, 56, escaped with a suspended sentence after the Evander Regional Court found both of them guilty on 21 counts of fraud, theft and other statutory laws related to the selling of fake bank notes on Monday.

The couple, said Mpumalanga Hawks spokesperson Captain Dineo Lucy Sekgotodi, was arrested in July last year after the authorities received information on a counterfeit money operation in Secunda.

“The operation entailed the selling and distribution of fake South African and other foreign currencies to a prospective buyer. The currencies, which were good enough to beat the counterfeit pen, were meant to scam tourists,” said Sekgotodi.

The whole scam was nipped in the bud after the Hawks, in collaboration with the South African Police Service (SAPS), caught the suspects in Secunda. The culprits were found with counterfeit Euros and US Dollars.

Sekgotodi said further investigations revealed that Mzaliwa and Masoka committed the same offences in Roodepoort in April 2013, in Tarlton in June 2014, and again in Muldersdrift in March 2017. The combined value of the money involved in the three areas amounted to about R300 000.

Masoka was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, wholly suspended for five years on condition that she is not found guilty of committing the same offence during the period of suspension. She was also sentenced to four years for peddling fake bank notes.

“As if that was not enough, she was sentenced to five years in jail for dealing in foreign currency, a further six years for theft and 12 months imprisonment for incitement to commit an offence, wholly suspended for three years on condition she is not found guilty of committing the same offence during the period of suspension.

“Her sentences will run concurrently, while serving her six years prison term,” said Sekgotodi.

Meanwhile, Mzaliwa was sentenced to four years imprisonment for fraud, which was suspended for five years on condition that he is not found guilty of committing the same offence. In addition, he was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for conspiracy, suspended for three years on condition that he is not found guilty of committing the same offence.

View original post @ SAGov

Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu is set to meet with the South African Statistics Council later this week, in a bid to discuss funding concerns raised by the council.

“The Minister, Council and the Statistician-General will meet on Sunday, 23 February 2020, to further engage on ways to guarantee the integrity of the entire system of the nation’s statistics, for the short and the long term within the constraints the national fiscus is faced with,” the Minister’s office said  in a statement on Wednesday.

The meeting follows on the Council’s media statement airing challenges faced by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).

As in independent statutory body, the Council advises the Statistician-General, as well as the Minister, on matters of official statistics.

According to Mthembu’s office, the Minister is aware of the lack of funding for Stats SA and he and the Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke have been in negotiations with Finance Minister Tito Mboweni.

“These negotiations [have] borne fruit in the sense that National Treasury has provided partial additional funding to Stats SA. The Statistician-General is currently looking at reprioritizations as a result of the allocation that will come into effect on 1st April 2020.”

“The Minister appreciates Council’s intention of keeping the integrity of the statistical system intact and is committed to working with Stats SA to protect the respected quality of our official statistics,” said Mthembu’s office.

The National Treasury is seeking public comments into the recently published draft Public Procurement Bill.

The draft bill proposes a single regulatory framework for procurement applicable to national, provincial and local government, as well as state owned entities.

In a statement on Wednesday, Treasury said once the bill becomes law, it will eliminate fragmentation in the laws that deal with public sector procurement.

“The Bill creates a more flexible preferential procurement regime and enables the Minister of Finance, after consulting responsible Ministers, to prescribe a framework for preferential procurement.

“To advance economic opportunities for previously disadvantaged people, specific provision is made for women; the youth and people with disabilities; small businesses; locally produced goods, including local technology and its commercialisation,” it said.

Public comments into the bill that proposes the repeal of the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act of 2000 and do away with its preferential point system is open for public comment until 31 May 2020.

The key areas of regulation in the bill are:

• General procurement requirements;

• An enabling framework for preferential procurement;

• establishing a Public Procurement Regulator within the National Treasury and its functions;

• Determining the functions of Provincial Treasuries;

• Measures to ensure the integrity of the procurement process, including sanctions in the form of debarment and criminal offences;

• The power to prescribe different methods of procurement, one of which is procurement from another organ of state, and bidding processes;

• A framework for supply chain management;

• Dispute resolution mechanisms entailing review within an institution and also by the Regulator and the Provincial Treasuries and then an independent Tribunal, to resolve disputes expeditiously and to limit the need to litigate in the courts; and

• The repeal and amendment of certain laws.

Modernising public procurement

National Treasury said the modernisation of public procurement necessitates procurement that is developmental in nature; ensures value for money in the use of public funds; aspires to expand the productive base of the economy among others.

Treasury has, over the past few years, embarked on a process to reform and modernise public procurement.

Among these was the strategic sourcing principles to introduce a differentiated procurement approach for different types of commodities and to move away from the one size fits all approach.

Strategic procurement introduces alternative sourcing strategies for complex procurement of capital projects, infrastructure, and construction and cost containment measures.

Over the years, the National Treasury also introduced the procurement of common goods through transversal contracts to benefit from economies of scale, bulk buying and achieve much needed savings.

To improve efficiencies, the department also introduced the Central Supplier Database, where all suppliers that do business or intend doing business with the State, are registered without having to register on each and every government database as was the case previously.

The draft Bill and details about the submission of comment are available on the National Treasury website (www.treasury.gov.za).

View original post @ SAGov

Minerals and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe says energy regulator NERSA has already approved 75 applications from private companies wanting to generate energy for self-use.

He said applications came from individual households and companies, and that most of them were mining companies.

The Minister said this when he briefed the media in Cape Town following his participation in the debate on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address on Tuesday.

“It’s a mix, households and companies. Of the big ones, there are quite a lot of mining companies and other industrial companies,” he said on Wednesday.

All in all, the energy regulator has received 132 applications in this category, with a total capacity of 59MW.

Of these, 75 applications with total capacity of 42MW are approved.

The remaining 57 applications with total capacity of 16MW are being processed. On average, NERSA takes 38 working days to process applications for registration.

Licensing of generation for own use of above one megawatt (1MW), which is mainly to supplement power supply to commercial and industrial customers including the mines, has been eased.

Briefing journalists, Mantashe said applications that have not been approved were because there was insufficient information.

Meanwhile, in December, the department went into the market to ask the sector for information of where it can get additional energy that can close the power shortage gap as Eskom goes through a phase of load shedding due to planned and unplanned power outages.

“On the request for information (RFI), we received 481 responses. We are going through them to see who can give us energy within the next 12 months, the next 24 months, the next 36 months. So that is the stage we are in,” he said.

Enabling municipalities to procure their own power from IPPs

Mantashe said, meanwhile, that to speed up the process of addressing the power generation deficiency, regulations are being finalised that will enable municipalities to buy power from sources other than Eskom or to develop their own power projects for generation of own power.

He said historically, metropolitan areas like Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Mangaung and others had their own power generation capacity, largely coal driven.

He said that advances in distributed generation technology make it viable for municipalities to create own power generation or buy power from projects developed within their jurisdiction.

“Cognisant of capacity challenges in most municipalities, also in the interest of security of supply, we are developing regulations to ensure regulatory certainty and in line with the Electricity Regulation Act, for municipalities to procure or develop their own power generation.”

View Original post @ SAGov

Eskom says it is implementing Stage 2 rotational load shedding from 09:00 today until 06:00 on Saturday with a high probability that load shedding will continue over the weekend.

“We regret that Stage 2 rotational load shedding will be implemented from 09:00 today until 06:00 on Saturday owing to the loss of 3 additional units overnight that has increased the shortage in capacity.

“There is a high probability that load shedding will continue over the weekend, as there is a need to replenish reserves for the coming week. Unplanned outages or breakdowns were at 11 938MW as at 05:30 this morning, while planned maintenance is 4 654MW.”

Emergency reserves are currently being utilised to supplement the shortage in capacity.

“While we regret the short notice, we have communicated earlier that any shift on the system will require the implementation of load shedding at short notice. We will provide regular updates,” Eskom said in a statement.

Eskom reminds South Africans that there is a possibility of increased load shedding over the next 18 months as it is conducting critical maintenance to restore the ageing plant to good health.

Eskom request customers to continue to use electricity sparingly and to assist in reducing demand:

• Set air-conditioners’ average temperature at 23ºC.

• Switch off your geysers over peak periods.

• Use the cold water tap rather than using the geyser every time.

• Set your swimming pool pump cycle to run twice a day, three hours at a time.

• At the end of the day, turn off computers, copiers, printers and fax machines at the switch.

Eskom has also appealed to customers to revisit their load shedding schedules on the Eskom (http://loadshedding.eskom.co.za) or local municipal websites, depending on their electricity supplier, to review amendments.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has highlighted the role the private sector has to play in infrastructure investment at his extraordinary meeting with the CEOs of commercial banks and multilateral development finance institutions.

Held in Cape Town on Tuesday, the meeting — which was also attended by Ministers and Directors-General — came less than a week after the President tabled the State of the Nation Address in Parliament, where he detailed key infrastructure investment interventions aimed at reviving the economy.

Spurred by the 2019 Budget Report, which revealed the declining state of public investments and the under-utilised transfers to local governments for investment projects, the President on Tuesday said the fiscal space has further been constrained by the vast contributions provided to rescue SOEs such as Eskom and South African Airways (SAA).

“Overall infrastructure investment needs to grow to 30% by 2030 to achieve the NDP [National Development Plan] growth targets.

“Multilateral development banks, development finance institutions and the private sector all have a critical role in financing and implementing this investment,” President Ramaphosa said.

In recent years, the President said, government has witnessed the accelerated deterioration of some of its most important assets required to improve the quality of life of citizens.

He said the rapid deterioration of municipal water infrastructure, such as waste water treatment works and water treatment plants, undermines the economy and threatens access to basic services.

“The disintegration of provincial and municipal roads will affect the efficiency of the road network, stunt economic growth and increase the cost of transport for all road users.

“The story of failing power plants is well documented, causing great harm to the economy and raising the country’s risk profile.

“The haemorrhaging of technical engineering and financial skills in the public sector has contributed significantly to the bleak state of public infrastructure.”

Addressing captains of industry, the President said the decimation of these necessary skills in the public sector has undermined planning, prudent asset management and the production of a credible and transparent project pipeline.

The net effect has been the collapse of industry, divestment from the country and erosion of funder confidence.

“This is a picture we want to correct and correct immediately. Addressing barriers to infrastructure investment is critical to achieve the required growth,” President Ramaphosa said.

Infrastructure investment interventions

The President said the most immediate interventions to turn the situation around include:

–          The creation of technical and financial engineering capacity. Through private sector collaboration, the President said it is important to create a legally permissible transitional dispensation to ramp-up State capacity in the technical and financial areas;

–          Developing a detailed Infrastructure Investment Plan. The plan should provide a positive signal to investors and lenders, revive the stagnant construction industry, and improve skills and institutional capacity across line ministries and sub-sovereign entities to generate a visible pipeline of projects;

–          Initiating policy and regulatory reforms. SA’s public sector policy and regulatory environment is among some of the most elaborate and prohibitive in the world, the President said;

–          A rethink of the public sector financing space; and

–          A need to revise the public sector infrastructure institutional framework. This is aimed at reviewing the distribution of functions and roles across different institutions, and optimising processes and controls to ensure optimal infrastructure investment.

“The recently established Investment and Infrastructure Office in the Presidency will spearhead the revision exercise with a view to ensuring better coordination and alignment, and positioning the Presidency as the strategic centre for investment and infrastructure in the country.

“I will be releasing an Infrastructure Investment Policy Statement, which, among other things, will provide an ‘eco-system’ within which good infrastructure investments (including PPPs) are undertaken, remove ‘institutional confusion’, and create an oversight mechanism.

“This policy will help build consensus and provide clarity to all stakeholders on how infrastructure projects should be conceived, how government support mechanisms should be structured, and how the infrastructure project life cycle should be streamlined,” the President said.

View original post @ SAGov