Monday, 20 February 2017
Tuesday, 14 February 2017
Sowetan
Pictures of students sleeping in toilets 'staged': UP management
Pictures of University of Pretoria (UP) students sleeping in bathrooms and outside are staged, this is according to the varsity management.
Pictures have been circulating on social media showing students, allegedly without accommodation, sleeping inside toilets.According to the students, there is a residential area crisis as UP is unable to accommodate most of them.
The students also claimed that the residence issue is negatively impacting their studies and livelihood in general as they cannot afford to travel home after classes on a daily basis and are therefore forced to find sleeping spots in and around the campus.
"We have reason to believe that the pictures of students apparently without accommodation on social media have been staged," said media officer Candice Jooste.
The varsity went on to deny all allegations citing that some of the people shown in pictures are not registered students.
"Last night the University and the Temporary Student Committee engaged with a group of students who claimed to be without accommodation. We offered accommodation to all of them for the night but they refused."
"We have since discovered that out of the group of ten students, four were already placed in residences, three of them were not students and one had outstanding financial issues. The University was able to find permanent accommodation for the other two," she said.
Students also claimed that the university deployed security to remove all students sleeping on campus and that during the student removals on Monday evening, one heavily pregnant student was "repeatedly assaulted on Hatfield Campus by Fidelity Security as students who had no residence placement were sleeping in campus for shelter".
UP has since called for the student to lay an official complaint.
"We condemn all types of violence against students and staff and encourage the complainant to report the matter so that we can investigate."
Jooste said that student and parents alike must be aware that accommodation is limited and that only 15% of the student population could be accommodated.
"As it is in all higher education institutions in this country, official University residences have capacity to accommodate approximately 15% of the student body. For this reason, some of the key criteria used by the university in residence admission is academic eligibility, academic achievement, financial need and year of study with preference given to first years.
"The University is committed to and will do everything in its control to ensure that, within the limits of space available in our official residences, eligible students are assisted to find accommodation," explained Jooste.
Sowetan
Snoozing 'sex pest' nabbed
An Eshowe teen managed to escape her rapist after he fell asleep after sexually assaulting her at the weekend‚ police said.
“She was dragged into the bush close to her home and raped. The man later fell asleep and she used her chance to escape and ran straight back to her house to raise the alarm‚” the source said.
The following day‚ police officers traced the suspect and confronted him in the Vuma area.
“When the police approached the suspect he just drew a pistol and pointed it at the police.”
The police opened fire on the man‚ wounding him in the foot.
Police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Thulani Zwane confirmed that the man had been rushed to Eshowe Hospital but was later discharged and detained.
He faces charges of rape and kidnapping.
Daily Sun
Dead gogo Cecilia Chiliza (69).
~
Cops have launched a manhunt for the suspects who struck in two separate incidents on Saturday.
In the one incident, the Chiliza family had gathered on Saturday night to prepare for a family traditional ceremony on Sunday when gunmen stormed their house.
The family’s happy cheers turned to screams of horror as the unknown killers opened fire on people in the rondavel. Neighbours of the family from Esilahla in Richmond, KZN Midlands, later said they had seen a white Toyota Tazz parked near the house for about two hours before the incident.
Family member Brenda Mngadi (32) told Daily Sun the murderers allegedly first switched off the power before storming into the rondavel and starting to shoot.
Gogo Cecilia Chiliza (69), her son Dumisani Chiliza (43) and her grandchildren Noxolo Dawood (12) and Nkosi Ndlovu (27) died instantly, while three other members escaped with minor injuries.
Brenda said it looked as if the gunmen knew that the family would be holding a gathering.
- In the other incident, three brothers from Matimatolo, north of Durban were ambushed and shot dead on Saturday. They were allegedly returning from a traditional ceremony in the area when they were attacked by unknown suspects who then fled the scene.
Daily Sun
~
Almost 70% of South Africans feel unsafe at night, even though
their experiences of crime have declined, Statistician General Pali
Lehohla said today.
"The crime, although declining in their experiences, is probably not reaching the threshold where they feel safe and secure," said Lehohla.
The survey found that in 2011, 931 000 people said they had experienced at least one incident of housebreaking, burglary or home robbery. This dropped to 807 000 for 2015/16, but it was not enough to make them feel safer.
The Statistician General said researchers had also found that, apart from murder and car theft, crime was under-reported because people felt it was either not serious enough, or that the police could or would not do anything about it.
Housebreaking or burglary was named as the most common crime in South Africa, with murder perceived as the least common among those surveyed.
Crime reporting rates also varied depending on the type of crime. Murder was the most reported, at 95%, while stock theft was the least reported, at 17.3%.
Drugs blamed
The researchers found there had been a decline in the number of people (89.2% to 83.7%) who said they felt safe walking in their area of residence during the day. The percentage of people who felt safe walking around their community at night had dropped from 36.9% in 2001 to 30.7% for 2015/16.
Thirty-three percent of people surveyed for 2015/16 said the fear of crime stopped them from going to parks and open spaces, compared to 32.3% in 2011.
Of those surveyed, 77.5% blamed drug-related needs as the reason for committing crimes.
About half of the 30 000 households surveyed said they took physical protection measures to protect themselves against crime and, said Lehohla, a further study was needed to establish how much money people were spending on this. He said that at last count, the government had spent R30bn, while private households had spent R45bn.
Murder and car theft topped the list of crimes that were reported to police.
Researchers also noted public satisfaction with police had dropped to 58.8% for 2015/16, compared with 64.2% in 2011.
Police statistics
"It is a very serious indictment that that people have lost hope that the police can do something about it," said Lehohla.
During the question-and-answer session, he said a further study could establish whether leadership changes within the police had something to do with this.
Lehohla urged people to report any crime to the police, as these statistics were vital to the police's planning and the government's policies and strategies on crime prevention.
He said Statistics SA was currently helping the police improve their own crime statistics gathering and presentation process.
Statistics SA did not consider the police's statistics as official and aimed to eventually take over this function.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/nearly-70-of-south-africans-feel-unsafe-at-night-stats-sa-20170214
"The crime, although declining in their experiences, is probably not reaching the threshold where they feel safe and secure," said Lehohla.
The survey found that in 2011, 931 000 people said they had experienced at least one incident of housebreaking, burglary or home robbery. This dropped to 807 000 for 2015/16, but it was not enough to make them feel safer.
The Statistician General said researchers had also found that, apart from murder and car theft, crime was under-reported because people felt it was either not serious enough, or that the police could or would not do anything about it.
Housebreaking or burglary was named as the most common crime in South Africa, with murder perceived as the least common among those surveyed.
Crime reporting rates also varied depending on the type of crime. Murder was the most reported, at 95%, while stock theft was the least reported, at 17.3%.
Drugs blamed
The researchers found there had been a decline in the number of people (89.2% to 83.7%) who said they felt safe walking in their area of residence during the day. The percentage of people who felt safe walking around their community at night had dropped from 36.9% in 2001 to 30.7% for 2015/16.
Thirty-three percent of people surveyed for 2015/16 said the fear of crime stopped them from going to parks and open spaces, compared to 32.3% in 2011.
Of those surveyed, 77.5% blamed drug-related needs as the reason for committing crimes.
About half of the 30 000 households surveyed said they took physical protection measures to protect themselves against crime and, said Lehohla, a further study was needed to establish how much money people were spending on this. He said that at last count, the government had spent R30bn, while private households had spent R45bn.
Murder and car theft topped the list of crimes that were reported to police.
Researchers also noted public satisfaction with police had dropped to 58.8% for 2015/16, compared with 64.2% in 2011.
Police statistics
"It is a very serious indictment that that people have lost hope that the police can do something about it," said Lehohla.
During the question-and-answer session, he said a further study could establish whether leadership changes within the police had something to do with this.
Lehohla urged people to report any crime to the police, as these statistics were vital to the police's planning and the government's policies and strategies on crime prevention.
He said Statistics SA was currently helping the police improve their own crime statistics gathering and presentation process.
Statistics SA did not consider the police's statistics as official and aimed to eventually take over this function.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/nearly-70-of-south-africans-feel-unsafe-at-night-stats-sa-20170214
Friday, 10 February 2017
SA first black owned bank on the cards
THANDISIZWE MGUDLWA
Financial research reveals that South Africa’s financial services sector is still dominated by its Big Four banks and entry to this sector is controlled by SARB.
The financial services sector desperately lacks competition which is why so many South Africans – most of them black - cannot source capital to be entrepreneurial and escape grinding poverty."
Farooqui further notes, My dream is that a black entrepreneur can walk into a black-owned bank, and borrow capital from a black bank manager at a normal interest rate. The fact that is still a dream in 2017 is a national tragedy. Money and trade are forces that don’t discriminate by colour.
On 24 January, this country’s biggest business newspaper (Business Day), wrote:
“The public is aggrieved over the tight hold the banks and other large corporations have over an economy it believes should be more transformed.”
A whooly black-owned bank could be what is needed to jumpstart total economic transformation in South Africa.
At
the very least, such an initiative could go a long way in ending
banking apartheid that still characterises the fiancial services sector
of the country 22 years after freedom.
Well then, what is the hallabollu all about?
It has emerged that the
South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has made a recommendation to the
Treasury that Vardospan’s bid to create South Africa’s first 100%
black-owned bank. This was reported by Bloomberg News.
Vardospan(Pty)
Ltd is the acquisition vehicle that has been established for the
acquisition of Habib Bank SA. It is led by businessman Hamza Farooqui.
According
to Hamza Farooqui, "If Vardospan were to be successful in its bid to
acquire Habib Overseas Bank, it would be a significant first step in
ending the banking apartheid that plagues South Africa, almost a quarter
of century after liberation.
Financial research reveals that South Africa’s financial services sector is still dominated by its Big Four banks and entry to this sector is controlled by SARB.
The financial services sector desperately lacks competition which is why so many South Africans – most of them black - cannot source capital to be entrepreneurial and escape grinding poverty."
Farooqui further notes, My dream is that a black entrepreneur can walk into a black-owned bank, and borrow capital from a black bank manager at a normal interest rate. The fact that is still a dream in 2017 is a national tragedy. Money and trade are forces that don’t discriminate by colour.
On 24 January, this country’s biggest business newspaper (Business Day), wrote:
“The public is aggrieved over the tight hold the banks and other large corporations have over an economy it believes should be more transformed.”
Farooqui states, The newspaper is correct."
"There is absolutely no reason why Vardospan’s bid should be rejected other than the privileged financial elite manoeuvring to protect its monopoly hold on banking services.
We will never end the economic apartheid in this country without ending banking apartheid first.
"There is absolutely no reason why Vardospan’s bid should be rejected other than the privileged financial elite manoeuvring to protect its monopoly hold on banking services.
We will never end the economic apartheid in this country without ending banking apartheid first.
Vardospan
remains committed to the creation of a robust, black-owned challenger
bank. It is what our rainbow nation desperately needs,"concludes
Farooqui.
Meanwhile, it was reported earlier in January that the purchase was approved by the Competition Commission without any conditions .
However,
as the company is attempting to purchase a significant stake, the
purchase has to be approved by the country’s finance minister,"the
report added.
Sowetan
Ajay Gupta denies under oath he ever met Jonas
Businessman Ajay Gupta has denied under oath ever meeting or speaking to Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas.
Gordhan seeks an order declaring that he is not by law empowered or obliged to intervene in the relationship between Oakbay companies and the banks.
The allegation that Jonas met Gupta is contained in the public protector’s report on State Capture‚ which was prepared by the previous incumbent Thuli Madonsela but released by the current Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane in November last year.
Gordhan also mentioned the efforts allegedly made by Gupta to induce Jonas to commit an unlawful act in his replying affidavit in the present case‚ which was filed last month.
In that affidavit‚ Gordhan said the Public Protector report stated that Jonas was taken to the Saxonwold home of the Guptas where he was offered money and promotion as minister of finance.
The Public Protector report mentions that Jonas claimed President Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane and businessman Fana Hlongwane met Gupta at his home on October 23 2015.
In his affidavit accompanying a supplementary affidavit submitted by Oakbay‚ Gupta said his affidavit was meant to clarify a serious distortion of facts which caused him and his family severe hardship and negative publicity.
Gupta said he was disturbed by allegations Gordhan presented as fact without even attempting to obtain a confirmatory affidavit from Jonas‚ who was – in all likelihood – occupying an office right next to the minister.
Gupta said the “incident” with Jonas was created in order to support the wave of adverse media attention and to achieve the political advantage gained from creating a media hype from an incident which never occurred.
Gupta said it was important to deal with this allegation to ensure nobody could ever say he kept quiet when he was confronted with these allegations.
“Let me commence … to clearly and unambiguously state under oath that I have never met Mr Mcebisi Jonas‚ not as alleged or at all‚” Gupta said.
Gupta said Jonas was blatantly dishonest when he suggested he met with him.
“I have challenged Mr Jonas‚ and I do so again‚ to prove that he met with me as alleged.”
Gupta said to support his denial of ever meeting Jonas‚ he approached Duduzane Zuma and Hlongwane to depose affidavits regarding his involvement at the meeting in October 2015.
Both businessmen‚ in separate affidavits‚ said Gupta was not present at any time during the meeting with Jonas held on 25 October 2017.
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