“When we looked at this district we found that many people in this area are unemployed. Many people are suffering in this district is that not so?

“We found there are many people who rely on social grants. Without social grants there would be hunger. And most of the unemployed are the youth,” Ramaphosa said in Setswana after his pronouncement on the coal deposits.

“That’s the profile we saw, that yes, many people are unemployed. We also found that many people want to go into business but there are no opportunities. Others want to farm but there is no land,” Ramaphosa
continued to loud roars of approval from the crowd which comprised a mixture of youth and mostly the elderly.

Ramaphosa obviously knew that such a pronouncement would no doubt be like sweet music to the ears of people trapped in a largely remote, underdeveloped area which despite being home to the biggest powered dry-cooled coal-fired power station in the world Medupi Power Station; continues to be haunted by high rates of unemployment, a dire lack of economic opportunities and poverty.

When it was first announced the building of the Medupi power station over a year ago triggered excitement and a migration frenzy that saw a sudden influx of people into the small town located 40 km from the international border with Botswana.

Suddenly shanty towns went up on the outskirts of the town, the township of Marapong and rural settlements such as Ga-Shongoane.

A myriad of enterprises never seen before in the town known previously as Ellisras opened up for business.

On the outskirts of town enterprising businessman built different types of accommodation, low budget lodges and quarters to cater for travellers and job seekers who arrived from outlying rural areas and far off places.

In its 2017/18 annual report the Lephalale Local Municipality projects that the town will grow up to five times its size by 2030.

The Lephalale and Waterberg areas are expected to experience a coal mining boom
in the next couple of decades as mentioned by Ramaphosa.

Lephalale which is the biggest municipality in Limpopo by area boasts Medupi Power Station, the Enel Solar Power, the proposed Sekoko coal mine and the opening of new coal mines by among others Exxaro
among some of the projects expected to propel the town’s expansion and create jobs.

But Ramaphosa was careful to throw a word of caution in his speech which he delivered in a mixture of some English and more importantly the languages spoken locally, Sepedi and Setswana.

“Waterberg has great potential. 57% of economy is driven by mining in Waterberg,” Ramaphosa underlined.

He said mining companies in Waterberg are implementing 74 projects to the value of R580 billion, ranging from infrastructure to enterprise development.

But he added that when Medupi which is reportedly nearing completion was being built, there were 18 000 people employed there and that morning he had addressed 4 000 workers.

When in full operation Medupi is expected to employ between 500 and 600 workers. He said the others will go work in other areas and that others will open businesses using the experience they gained working at Medupi.

According to the presidency, the Khawuleza District Development Model is “a new district-based coordination model [which] aims to address service delivery and economic development challenges through the synchronisation of planning across all spheres of government, working alongside social partners such as business and community.”

Before it was launched in the Waterberg this week, the model had already been rolled out and piloted in the OR Tambo district municipality in the Eastern Cape and eThekwini metropolitan municipality in KwaZulu-Natal under the “One District; One Plan; One Budget; One Approach” theme.

While there are moves to transform Lephalale and the Waterberg into a mining area, the area forms part of the Waterberg Biosphere Reserve, where tourism in the form of game farming and hunting are among
the key drawcards.

However this multimillion rand industry remains largely in white hands and blacks only play a minimal role as labourers, a factor which the Limpopo provincial government has been threatening to address for
years.

“We are working through our biodiversity economy strategy to ensure more of our people benefit from the wildlife industry.

“We have heard the call for partnerships between government and other stakeholders to ensure that more black individuals can enter this industry,” Ramaphosa said.

The reality though is that the transformation of the wildlife industry is intrinsically linked to the burning issue of land reform and restitution which remains unresolved.

“There is a great land hunger in this area. We will be working through the district development model to finalise land claims and accelerate the pace of land reform,” the president added.

Ramaphosa appeared to be calming the tempers of environmental rights groups when he mentioned that although the area is endowed with mineral deposits, it can still grow into a tourism powerhouse.

To achieve this, however, he said “requires that we develop our infrastructure, from roads to hotels to reserves, that we implement an effective tourism safety plan, and that we train a new generation of young tourism professionals.”

But he did not say how mining can coexist with wildlife and agriculture, when mining focuses on extraction of natural resources and tourism and agriculture rely on sustainability and preservation.

The scramble for coal has already led to evictions of families and exhumation of graves, issues which have led to a showdown between environmental rights activists.

One of the victims of this is Malesela Stephen Tibanyane, who was evicted from the farm he was born and where his own parents were born and buried in 2014.

His case echoes the fear and loathing of those who are not in favour of mining and may end up as the biggest losers in the scramble.

His family was forced to move into a RDP house in Marapong township and have been battling to return to their land since. The gates to the farm were welded together and their homestead demolished.

The future expansion could mean many more such cases especially for peasants like Tibanyane who are descendants of generations of labour tenants on the vast farms of the Waterberg.

The landscape of this area known as the capital of game farming and hunting is likely to change forever with rail state owned enterprise Transnet having committed to an upgrade of the existing railway line
from Lephalale to Mpumalanga via Thabazimbi, Rustenburg and Pyramid at a cost of R5 bn.

The second phase for the construction of a new heavy-haul rail line from Thabazimbi to Ogies at an estimated R32bn is also planned to transport

hundreds of thousands of tons of coal from the Waterberg.

While the coal scramble has become a curse for Tibanyane, the mineral wealth of the area may serve at last as a blessing to the myriad of unemployed youth like Meshack Monyeki who said Ramaphosa’s
speech gave him hope.

He said he was motivated by the revelation that the Khawuleza model will help to upgrade TVET colleges to provide skills that prepare students for careers in mining.

“We apply for jobs here but then they tell us we have no qualifications to work on the mine,” said the youth from Ga-Monyeki, one of the rural villages under the municipality.

But with the notoriety of the slow moving wheels of government bureaucracy, it may be another long while before the likes of Monyeki reap the benefits of Ramaphosa’s plan.

The post Will Ramaphosa’s Grand Plan For Waterberg Bear Fruit? appeared first on Inside Politic.

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) executed a search and seizure order at the Lepelle Northern Water Board in Polokwane relating to an investigation into alleged tender corruption in a multi-billion rand water project in Limpopo. 

“We’ve been asking the Lepelle Northern Water Board to give us documents and the documents were not forthcoming. We then went to court to get a court order to get what we want,” said the SIU”s Kaizer Kganyago Monday.

He said the SIU investigation is probing alleged corruption in the process of appointing subcontractors in the multi-billion rand water scheme that was meant to provide water to the rural areas of Limpopo. 

“We need to understand how this process went and if there was anything untoward in the process,” Kganyago said, noting that this follows on a proclamation by President Cyril Ramaphosa last year. 

Ramaphosa authorised soldiers to be deployed to the Vaal River System for 12 months following several incidents of vandalism and theft.

Kganyago said they were seizing any and all documents related to their investigation at the Lepelle Northern Water Board. 

“All our teams from all our sections are there. They are taking electronic information, they are taking paper documents, and we are going to analyse them and make sure we get to the bottom of this.”

The DA said allegations of corruption had plagued the project since inception, leaving some 50 villages around Giyani with no potable water. 

“Currently residents have to walk for up to five kilometres to carry contaminated water back to their houses,” DA member of parliament Jacques Smalle said.

He said he believed the project was just one example of widespread corruption that has incapacitated government departments in Limpopo. 

The post SIU Raids Lepelle Northern Water Board Over Tender Corruption appeared first on Inside Politic.

The lawyer for two union members who were shot dead for demanding that those implicated in the VBS Bank saga be arrested has spoken about his close brush with death.

Advocate Nndwamato Themeli, who was representing slain SA Municipal Workers Union [Samwu] officials Tshililo Timson Musetsho and Ronald Mani, was hit by eight bullets after being shot 23 times in August last year.

Musetsho and Mani were employees in the Vhembe District Municipality and dismissed – subsequently murdered in separate incidents – for speaking out against the municipality’s decision to invest R300mn of taxpayers money into the ill-fated VBS Bank.

The municipality lost its entire investment.

Themeli said he was hit eight times in August last year outside his home shortly after returning from a meeting in Polokwane.

He recalled how he had returned home after attending a meeting with municipal officials after they had approached him in an attempt to try and settle the matter out of court.

“When I was trying to open the gate at home, two men who were inside a car started firing shots at me.

“Outside the scene of crime, 23 coverings of bullets were also recovered. I only survived by the grace of God,” he said.

Themeli was admitted at an undisclosed hospital in Pretoria fearing that if his location be known, the killers might want to “finish him off.”

He spent five months in hospital and was released in January this year.

“I was in a critical condition. After recovering, I was on a wheelchair and I could still feel some pains on my legs,” he said.

Ironically, the meeting between Themeli and the municipality was held in Polokwane and not Thohoyandou where both parties are based.

The day he was released from hospital, Themeli was set to meet with Musetsho to discuss the case.

But the unionist was killed that very day.

“In the evening when I heard that he had been killed, I suspected that my attack could be linked to the duo’s [VBS] case I was dealing with,” he told Mukurukuru Media.

Themeli says he is hopeful that in the end, justice will be served. “It might take some time but it will happen,” he said.

Two weeks ago the parliamentary portfolio committee on Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), heard during its hearings into the VBS saga in Thohoyandou, that municipalities could not provide service delivery after losing their money in the bank heist.

A community leader revealed during the hearings that residents who lost their money in the saga had stayed away for fear they would be targeted and killed if they spoke out.

On Monday eSwatini national Thabo Sibandze appeared briefly in the Thohoyandou magistrates’ court on a charge of intimidation.

He was arrested after allegedly throwing pistols at the homesteads of two SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) members. This occurred shortly after the killings of Musetsho and Mani.

During court proceedings, prosecutor Mashudu Nekhumbe asked for the postponement of the case to 25 November.

She said the state has to still submit the case’s docket to the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) for a decision.

Magistrate Thifhuriwi Ligege then sought to know just when the investigations will be finalised since the case has been postponed for quite a long time now.

“We tried to get feedback from the office regarding the case but the thing is the office caters for all SA cases. But in two weeks, investigations will be finalised,” said Nekhumbe.

Sibandze, 27, was allegedly arrested in Katlehong, Ekurhuleni after he was traced through threatening phone calls he had made to the two Samwu officials, telling them to stop being vocal about the VBS scandal.

Prior to that, he had thrown pistols at their homes accompanied by a letter addressing them to back off in fighting corruption at the district.

Sibandze also faces a count of illegal immigration after it was found that he had entered the country without proper documentation.

The case was postponed to November 25 while the suspect remains in custody.

Former uMkhonto we Sizwe combatant Mbulaheni David Peter ‘Dambuza’ Malada told picketing crowds outside the Thohoyandou Magistrates’ Court that Police Minister Bheki Cele should deal with Thohoyandou police for failing to arrest those implicated in the VBS saga.

The MK veteran was speaking where scores of people including members of Contralesa, SACP, Cosatu, Sanco and the ANC joined a picket dubbed ‘justice for Mani and Musetsho.’

“Bheki must come and deploy these police officials somewhere because they are not offering any services,” he said.

None of the 53 politically connected people and business people implicated in the looting of VBS have been arrested so far.

Themeli told Mukurukuru Media that Mani and Musetsho had opened a case of unfair dismissal against the municipality.

He said the pair also wanted the disciplinary hearing against them dropped after it was alleged that they had brought the municipality into disrepute.

The post Lawyer For Slain Unionists Who Spoke Out Against VBS Bank Investment Relives Brush With Death appeared first on Inside Politic.

The Mogalakwena Municipality in Limpopo has been instructed to get state security forces to conduct a security risk assessment on its municipal manager after it emerged that Beverly Gunqisa had been threatened by a cabal allegedly in control of the issuing of tenders at the embattled municipality.

Parliament’s CoGTA committee, in the province for an oversight visit, battled for almost two hours to solicit answers from mayor Andrina Matsemela and her executive on the logic behind authorising three months leave for the city’s municipal manager who had been employed only three months before.

Gunqisa was hired in April and mayor Andrina Matsemela signed off on her ‘study leave’ from September to November.

Matsemela, incredulously, didn’t even know what Gunqisa was ‘studying’ for until she sent a SMS to someone who provided the details when pressed by the Committee.

The Committee was later forced to abandon its community meeting following its session with Council because the municipality failed to notify all the relevant stakeholders.

A power failure in the chamber, met by claims of sabotage, capped a day of dramatic and combative exchanges between the Committee and the the council’s executive.

Last month, Mogalakwena was among 12 municipalities that appeared before parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) after consistently receiving disclaimer audit opinions.

Scopa listed a lack of political leadership, inadequate capacity and poor or non-existent systems, human resource challenges, reluctance to cooperate with the auditors, and an absence of consequence management as reasons why the municipality was in such a chaotic state.

The CoGTA committee tried to get answers from a rather hostile and evasive municipal top brass on progress made since the Scopa meeting, but with little success.

Mogalakwena is sitting on a R2,6bn bill of irregular, unauthorised and wasteful expenditure accumulated over three financial years, a massive amount for a municipality of Mogalakwena’s size.

The municipality is made up of 172 villages, three townships and the town of Mokopane which is plagued by severe water shortages.

The municipality says its revenue collection stands at 73%. This includes revenue collection from the Mogalakwena Platinum Mine, the biggest open cast platinum mine in the world.

In July, the municipality was rocked by controversy following the murder of Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) chairperson Vaaltyn Kekana and ANC Youth League leader Ralph Kanyane.

Kekana was reportedly set to table a report detailing corruption amounting to hundreds of millions of rands before he was murdered. The killers remain at large. The CoGTA committee pushed hard for answers on Kekana’s murder.

CoGTA Committee member Mohammed Hoosen pointed to a “potential collusion between officials, politicians or whoever with regards to killing of assassination of MPAC chairperson [Kekana]”.

Hoosen asked mayor Matsemela to contact SAPS crime intelligence to conduct a threat analysis on Gunqisa “to ensure she doesn’t end up like Kekana.”

Matsemela, while noting the Committee’s concern, reacted negatively to Hoosen’s suggestion, however.

But Committee Chair Muthambi was adamant, and got the mayor to commit, albeit grudgingly, to the suggestion.

Hoosen probed why there were no consequences for the R2,6bn irregular expenditure and wanted to know why none of the council members had taken any action against those implicated.
“There seems to be no consequences for those implicated,” Hoosen remarked.

“Who murdered the person [Kekana]? What was happening in this municipality? This person that was murdered, we understand that [police] investigation is underway, but what was happening?” demanded another committee member.

Who sent the invites? Not me, Did you?

The CoGTA Committee was forced to abandon its community meeting, following it session with Council because the municipality failed to notify all the relevant stakeholders.

The Committee was scheduled to hear submissions from community, civic, religious and traditional leaders after its engagement with the council. However, this fell through after it emerged that the municipality failed
to send invitations to relevant bodies.

The stakeholders who made it into the chamber complained to the Committee that they had been intimidated and prevented from entering the chamber by security guards.

And to round off the drama, a power failure in the chamber just before the start of the scheduled community meeting fuelled accusations of sabotage.

Muthambi and her committee engaged informally with those stakeholders in attendance, debating whether the meeting should proceed despite the absence of other stakeholders.

“This is clearly sabotage. We are suspending this meeting because we can’t sit here and listen to one side while the other is not here,” Muthambi charged in the darkened chamber illuminated by cell phone torches and TV cameras.

Tlou Sasa of the SA National Civic Organisation (SANCO) in Mogalakwena said he only got to know about the meeting through interactions on the streets. He said he had made his way to the council chamber upon hearing the news but was harassed by security.

Young Communist League of SA district secretary for the Govan Mbeki region said she was threatened with violence by security guards when she made her way to the chamber after learning of the meeting which
was already underway.

She said they wanted to tell the Committee that residents of the municipality are sick and tired because of poor service delivery.

Nancy Ramohlale of the Inter-Denominational Churches said two of her comrades were prevented from attending the meeting by security guards. She too learnt of the meeting late.

Muthambi assuaged the angry stakeholders, promising to reschedule for a later stage to ensure that all stakeholders are afforded an opportunity to put their views forward.

The post Murders, Missing Millions & Misgovernment, The Sorry State That Is Mogalakwena Municipality appeared first on Inside Politic.

Limpopo municipalities are haemorrhaging cash as a result of them still paying suspended officials who were involved in decisions to invest in the now collapsed Venda Mutual Bank (VBS).

Parliament’s Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) said it’s concerned that these officials – mainly, municipal managers and chief financial officers – have already been found to have committed financial misconduct and are still being paid.

The Elias Motsoaledi Local Municipality, has, so far, forked out over
R900 000 to cover the salary of the suspended municipal manager, as well as paying the person currently serving as the acting municipal manager post.

To compound matters, the Committee said, is that the disciplinary process has been postponed indefinitely since 30 April 2019 with no clear timeline as to when the process will resume.

And it does not end there.

“What is particularly regrettable is that the R900 000 is not inclusive of the legal fees the municipality continued to pay to deal with the case of the municipal manager.” said the committee chair, Faith Muthambi.

“Many municipalities have long completed the disciplinary process with the municipal manager and chief financial officer, but there is seemingly no commitment from the leadership of Elias Motsoaledi to deal with the matter expeditiously.”

The Elias Motsoaledi Municipality promptly promised to deal with the matter within the next 30 days, with the Committee warning that the “fruitless and wasteful expenditure might lead to a regression in audit opinion in the current financial year.”  

Moving on to the Fetakgomo Tubatse Local Municipality, the Committee slammed as unacceptable that some of the R230mn lost through VBS includes the R80mn funding allocated for the Integrated National Electrification Programme (INEP), which directly impacted on the ability of the municipality to roll out an electrification programme.

Parliament’s CoGTA Committee noted that the municipality had gone through seven municipal managers since 2016 which has created a climate of instability and weakened governance within the municipality.

Furthermore, it said, the vacancy rate of almost 50% has negatively impacted on the ability of the municipality to service the people of Fetakgomo Tubatse.

The Committee firmly dismissed the assertion that the municipality is struggling to attract employees with the requisite skills as the Fetakgomo Tubatse Municipality is classed a special economic zone.

The “over-reliance on consultants” was also a worrying trend considering the municipality had a permanent CFO during the year under review.

The Committee will today engage with the Lepelle-Nkumbi, Mogalakwena and Thabazimbi municipalities.

The post Limpopo Municipalities Bleeding Cash Paying Suspended VBS-Linked Officials appeared first on Inside Politic.