by 013NEWS Reporter | Nov 21, 2018 | Politics
They said the situation is worrying as now sexual abuse becomes “a system”.
The DA in the Mpumalanga province wants an end to the scourge of sexual abuse as well as a properly equipped cop shop.
The party said since last year the number of reported rape cases in the KwaMhlanga area of Mpumalanga increased from 118 to 146 this year and they believe the number of rape incidents are rife when taking into considerations unreported cases.
Mpumalanga Premier candidate Jane Sithole together with DA Women’s Network leaders Nomafrench Mbombo and Annerie Weber submitted a memorandum of demands to the KwaMhlanga police station after a minor was raped in the area a week ago.
The KwaMhlanga police allegedly sent the minor back home when she tried to open a case, apparently citing that the officers responsible for rape victims were not available.
In their memorandum to police boss Brigadier Winnie Mavuso Monday mid-day this week, the three leaders said they wanted the cops to do more in making sure the victims of rape were protected.
Earlier, Sithole told the residents that the scourge of women abuse was actually “a system” and needed to be fought the “same way we fought Apartheid”.
She said it was worrying that KwaMhlanga continued to be leading in terms of rape cases and was unacceptable.
“That is wrong and if we sit down as community and do nothing it will continue. And also what made the suspects to be released so early is because the police are not able to handle evidence,” Sithole told the community members.
She said a week ago a child was raped in the area and the cops sent her back home without opening a case, apparently because the officials responsible to handle rape cases were not available.
“Today it can be a neighbour’s child or somebody you completely don’t know and if you don’t stand up against it, tomorrow it’s your own child or yourself,” she said.
“I always say that Apartheid was defeated by the community. The community stood up and said ‘we are sick and tired of this system’ and today this system of sexual abuse must be defeated by the community,” Sithole said.
In her address, Mpumalanga DA Women’s Network leader Annerie Weber said it was “inhumane” to take advantage of unemployed women and sexually abuse them while promising to give them jobs.
“It leaves women devastated and degraded and ripped of their dignity,” Webber told the community members.
“Women deserve fair access to jobs,” she said, “we will not sit back while women are exploited by perverted officials who abuse their positions of power and take advantage of women’s desperation for employment,” she said, adding the DA will always be there for women.
SEE ALSO: DA decries Msholozi township ‘sex for jobs’ scandal
DA Women’s Network national leader Nomafrench Mbombo, who is also the health MEC in Western Cape, urged the KwaMhlanga residents to stop voting for ANC.
She said the ANC was responsible for policies that ensured unemployment and forced husbands to leave their homes and go work in Gauteng.
“It is women who carry the whole burden at the end of the day. Do you know why you are still the highest unemployed here in Mpumalanga? It’s because six months later when we come for votes you will receive food parcels and then vote for the same government, for the same party that gave you no job,” Mbombo said.
The police said they would investigate the issue of the child who was sent back without a case opened and were happy to work with the communities in responding to such issues as the lack of resources.
(edited by ZK)
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by 013NEWS Reporter | Nov 16, 2018 | Politics
They say recently a child was raped in the area and the community caught the man but police actions left many community members disappointed.
The DA’s women network is taking a war to the KwaMhlanga police station.
They want the cops in the area to do their jobs “honestly” and “professionally”.
Both DA women’s network leader Nomafrench Mbombo and Mpumalanga Premier candidate Jane Sithole will lead the march to the cop shop.
The party says people continue to receive poor services from police and they suffer as a result.
“Recently, a young girl was raped and despite community members catching the perpetrator in the act and calling the police, the SAPS took an hour to respond,” provincial spokeswoman Buchule Putini said.
She said when the DA investigated the matter, they were told the station does not have enough vehicles to attend rapidly to reports.
“There are no rooms where victims can be kept safe overnight and there is a limited number of trained police that handle sensitive cases,” she said.
The safety of women and children in South Africa is under attack, the party said.
“And we cannot put trust in the unequipped police. In 2018 there were 1260 assault cases reported in the province,” Putini said.
DA women’s network will hold a public meeting with the residents of KwaMhlanga and then hand over a memorandum to the KwaMhlanga police station.
(edited by MLM)
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by 013NEWS Reporter | Nov 6, 2018 | Blackvoice
The poison of former Premier DD Mabuza will infect the whole country, doing to South Africa what it did to Mpumalanga.
MMUSI MAIMANE
The DA wants to offer the people of Mpumalanga a new beginning – under a provincial and national leadership that is honest and committed to improving the lives of all the residents of this incredible province.
Our plan for Mpumalanga and South Africa is to fight corruption, to open fair access to long-term jobs, to create an honest and professional police service, to speed up the delivery of services, and to secure our borders so that everyone living in SA is doing so legally.
A DA government in Mpumalanga would be the antidote to David Mabuza’s poison.
Mpumalanga needs a remedy urgently – because the Mabuza poison has spread to every single part of this province, including to eMalahleni municipality here, which has collapsed into bankruptcy under the weight of his corruption.
#Maimane launched the party’s TeamOneSouthAfrica in eMalahleni on 2 November 2018
If we don’t act soon, the whole country will be infected.
Fellow South Africans, we are just one heart attack away from having this man as our president. In fact, we may be just one spiked drink away.
With Mpumalanga’s record of political assassinations, we would be naïve not to consider this as a risk.
In South Africa, the deputy president tends to become president.
So, one way or another, we face the real threat of Mabuza as president.
And then his poison will infect the whole country, doing to South Africa what it did to Mpumalanga.
He will steal the whole country just to buy political power to stay on top.
First, Mpumalanga’s education department got infected, when Mabuza was provincial head.
Everyone knows that he stole millions of rands meant for schools and schoolchildren and used it to buy political loyalty so that he could accumulate enormous political power.
He used that political power as a bargaining chip to become deputy president of South Africa. That’s right.
He stepped on your children’s heads to climb the ladder of power.
Do you know that nearly a quarter of primary schools in Mpumalanga still have pit toilets?
That’s the price your children have paid for his rise to (almost) the top.
As MEC for Agriculture, he infected the land claims process.
Do you know that pretty much all land restitution claims in Mpumalanga while he was MEC were fake? He was pocketing the money meant for poor black farmers.
As Premier he turned a blind eye to the corruption in his administration, to secure political support. He syphoned off money from public services in Mpumalanga, all the time using it to open more and more ANC branches, to “buy” more and more ANC delegates.
The votes of those delegates, bought with money meant for service delivery in Mpumalanga, became his bargaining chip at the ANC’s conference in Nasrec last year.
He gave those votes to Ramaphosa’s faction, in return for the deputy presidency.
He has sacrificed your futures, pushing you down, to get himself to the top.
By stomping on your lives and the lives of your children like stepping stones, he has climbed to a position that allows him to infect the whole country, to steal from the national purse, and to shape South Africa’s future for years to come. Is that what we want for our country? For our children? For ourselves?
Fellow South Africans, Mpumalanga has been cursed with the worst leadership of any province. Of all the thieves operating in South Africa, DD Mabuza is the worst by far.
He even makes neighbouring thief, Ace Magashule, look tame.
He is a cruel, dangerous man who will stop at nothing to get ahead.
Since 2009, we’ve heard of many, many political assassinations of people who have tried to expose corruption or contest for power. We can all put two and two together and get four.
No one and nothing in Mpumalanga has escaped Mabuza’s poison. Mpumalanga has such incredible potential. Its people should be rich from tourism, agriculture and mining.
This province could bless its people with good, prosperous lives.
But instead, all the news coming out of Mpumalanga is bad news, as if the sun is setting on Mpumalanga.
We hear of collapsing municipalities that together owe Eskom over R4 billion and are about to be thrown into darkness because they cannot pay for electricity.
We hear of communities without water for days on end. We see sewers overflowing.
We hear of youth unemployment that is the highest in South Africa.
We hear that eMalahleni has one of the highest murder rate and is one of the highest areas of criminal activity in South Africa.
We hear of Mpumalanga’s collapsing healthcare system, where the number of health workers has halved in the past eight years and where the department has lost R6 billion rand (that’s six thousand million rand) to irregular expenditure in the past two years.
We see roads here becoming severely dilapidated and filled with potholes. No wonder tourists choose to go elsewhere.
Mpumalanga has been poisoned by Mabuza.
All this devastation we can put on Mabuza’s shoulders. And now that there’s nothing left to steal, he is looking to infect the whole country.
The DA is the antidote to Mabuza’s poison.
Our offer is to fight corruption by giving a 15-year jail sentence to those who are found to be corrupt.
Where the DA governs, public money is spent on delivering to the people. We take a zero-tolerance approach to corruption.
Our brand is synonymous with clean audits and good governance.
Vote DA in 2019 to rid Mpumalanga and SA of the infection of corruption that Mabuza and the ANC have spread. Vote DA to build one SA for All.
*Maimane is the national leader of the Democratic Alliance
by 013NEWS Reporter | Oct 16, 2018 | Politics
The EFF in the Mpumalanga province has written to Premier Refilwe Mtshweni to have sports MEC Thandi Shongwe recalled while the DA has written to Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to investigate allegations that Shongwe received a R1.5 million “bribe” for the procurement of the Nelson Mandela statue.
In their memorandum to Mtshweni, the EFF’s Collen Sedibe says the former speaker’s conduct “compromises the principle and standards of good governance, corrupt free, open and transparent government”.
“Pursuant to the number of fraud and corruption cases laid against honourable BT Shongwe during her tenure as the speaker of the provincial legislature and the recent proven allegation of abuse of office as an MEC and misuse of the state cell phone to an amount of more than R60 000 a month, the EFF hereby request the honourable Premier [Ms] RM Mtsweni to recall Mrs BT Shongwe as the MEC for Sports, Recreation, Arts and Culture with immediate effect,” Sedibe writes.
ALSO RELATED: ‘Scopa is useless – reason we went to police’ – Sedibe
The DA’s Jane Sithole says they have written to Mkhwebane to ask her to investigate allegations that Shongwe “pocketed a R1.5 million bribe during the procurement of the Mandela statue”.
ALSO SEE: Auditor-General to investigate R8.3 million Mandela statue
“During a recent sitting of the Mpumalanga provincial legislature, MEC Shongwe couldn’t admit or deny that she accepted a bribe but chose to rather try and embarrass other members of the Legislature instead of answering the question.
“MEC Shongwe is no stranger to controversy related to hyper-inflated tenders as she has been linked to multiple inflated tenders during her time as speaker of the provincial legislature,” Sithole said in a statement.
Shongwe’s spokeswoman Sibongile Nkosi didn’t answer her phone on Tuesday morning.
Sithole in a statement said Shongwe used to “enjoy the perks of [then Premier DD] Mabuza’s protection”.
“The Public Protector must do a full investigation into MEC Shongwe so that she can pay back any money gained from corruption. We will continue to monitor this situation in our effort to build One South Africa For All,” she said.
(edited by ZK)
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by 013NEWS Reporter | Oct 12, 2018 | Politics
The Premier candidate visited the area this week to launch her party’s Listening Tour.
The DA in the Mpumalanga province is concerned of how the people of Msholozi township are “denied fair access to jobs”, it said.
Leader Jane Sithole launched the party’s Listening Tour in the Mbombela township and said what they found in that township is “saddening”.
“According to the residents of Msholozi township, it is common practice for potential employers in and around the area to ask for money or sex in exchange for jobs,” Sithole said.
She said many women described how violated they felt because they “were essentially being forced into prostitution”.
“And in most times, the promised jobs wouldn’t materialise,” Sithole said.
“It is the most vulnerable members of our society who bear the brunt of a weak economy and who are forced to live without basic services. This leaves them vulnerable to sex pests who use the promise of employment as a means to prey on their vulnerability,” the premier candidate said in a statement.
Sithole, who was elected provincial leader this year during an elective congress, was announced by her party in September 2018 as the Mpumalanga premier candidate.
She promises to change things for the better. She said will restore the dignity of the “province’s forgotten residents” through a programme of accelerated delivery of quality basic services.
She added the people in the area have found hope in the DA despite everything.
“Members of this community welcomed the DA with open arms and committed themselves to working with the DA and its vision for change that builds One South Africa For All,” she said.
(edited by ZK)
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