Traffic cop suspended over fake licences

February 01 2007
A city traffic officer has been suspended and is to face a disciplinary hearing for alleged involvement in a learner's licence scam in Khayelitsha.

Metro Police spokesperson Kevin Maxwell said two more officers could face hearings if an ongoing investigation implicated them in corruption.

This follows last week's police raid on the Khayelitsha traffic department where dozens of boxes of fake learner's licences were seized.

About 4 500 learner's documents, many of which are believed to be fake, were seized by police last Wednesday in a countrywide attempt by the Department of Transport and Public Works to expose corruption in traffic departments.

Maxwell said at least three city traffic officers were allegedly involved in the scam.

"We are awaiting documentation from one of the provincial inspectors to confirm if the two officers are implicated. So far, we haven't received anything official about the two members. We've only been informed by telephone.

"Until this is confirmed in writing, we can't take any action against them. One member has already been suspended after he was implicated in fraud and corruption.

"We are setting up an internal disciplinary hearing to deal with the charges," said Maxwell.

The raid was part of a joint operation by the City of Cape Town's auditing department, the compliance monitoring department of the provincial Department of Transport, the Driving Licence Inspectorate of the national department, and a special investigating unit appointed by Transport Minister Jeff Radebe last year.

Maxwell said the city was serious about rooting out corruption in traffic departments.

"We are totally against corruption and are committed to rooting it out," he said.

Provincial traffic management director Peter Beets said the names of officials found guilty would be forwarded to Transport and Public Works MEC Marius Fransman, who would decide whether to deregister or suspend them.

Fransman said two weeks ago that the net was closing on several testing stations found to be committing fraud. He had asked the Special Investigating Unit to track down a "possible syndicate", and met with the Community Safety department and the Asset Forfeiture Unit.

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Minister criticise ANC's pooh-poohing

The ANC councillors' tendency to pooh-pooh all the motions raised by opposition parties, no matter how crucial they are, was criticised by National Minister of Public Works, Thoko Didiza.

Didiza, who attended an eThekwini Municipality full council meeting, said it was important for councillors to engage on issues of importance with unity as it was ultimately the public interest that had to be pursued.

She was commenting on the Democratic Alliance's motions about the spiralling crime at the beachfront and Spoornet's failure to look after its properties, which have now become havens for criminals. Both motions were ridiculed by the ANC councillors and not carried.

"Perhaps there are issues where as parties we can agree as a way of taking forth the interest of the residents of Durban," she said.

Her comments received a huge round of applause from the opposition parties, especially the DA, while ANC councillors were stunned to receive such criticism from their comrade.

Trying to cajole the council to debate her motion, DA councillor Margaret Noyce said criminal elements had taken occupation of many Spoornet properties in the Durban area.

She said Spoornet owned large tracts of land and infrastructure within the municipality, which appeared to have a minimum maintenance plan.

"The result is that stations and railway lines within the municipality present an image of urban decay, and present adjoining communities with many challenges.

"The railway lines are noticeably littered and dirty and illegal dumping on these properties continues unchecked.

"We recommend that the executive committee be mandated to investigate how the problem can be tackled," she said.

The other motion requested council to look at ways of dealing with muggings and theft that continue to damage Durban's reputation as a safe and enjoyable holiday destination.

The motion called for the maximum utilisation of CCTV cameras and to increase visible police patrols over a 24-hour period from Blue Lagoon to Battery Beach.

Both motions were turned down by the ANC-dominated council.

ANC councillors argued that full council meetings were not suitable platforms to raise such issues. They said such issues were supposed to be raised and debated during sub-committee meetings.

At the same meeting, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) staged a walkout, complaining that the ruling party was too arrogant.

The IFP's Theresa Nzuza said her party had become tired of the ANC's tendency of looking down upon the views of other parties in council.

"The ANC councillors forget that people out there do not care whether the matter was raised by party A or B, all they want is service delivery.

"What annoys us is the fact that they just bulldoze whenever they want to approve matters raised by them.

"A classic example is the approval of the R20-million to bail out Remant Alton.

"They made sure that the money was approved because they knew that the company is run by their comrades," she said.

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Be patient -- South Africa's democracy is still young

President Thabo Mbeki has listened to various concerns of Umzimkhulu residents and assured them that their needs would be attended to as quickly as possible.

These ranged from the use of bucket toilets; lack of water, electricity and proper housing; lack of or poor road infrastructure; poor services from the police; lack of proper healthcare facilities; lack of proper schools and computer education; bad treatment from public servants when they needed service; the exclusion of women in the agriculture sector; as well as lack of employment, especially for the youth.

The community also complained that they received no feedback from the mayor and councillors regarding the municipality's operations, as should be the case.

Others raised concerns about access services such as government's social grants, Department of Home Affairs services such as applications for IDs.

President Mbeki explained that government wanted to respond to the people's grievances with visible service delivery. Responding to the public's grievances, President Mbeki assured the people that all tiers of government would work together to address their concerns urgently.

He reminded the community that South Africa's democracy was still young and that a lot had been achieved in a little over a decade.

Mr Mbeki thus urged the public to be patient because services would come to them in due course.

Responding to some of the grievances KwaZulu-Natal Premier Ndebele explained that the province had set aside money to be spent on a number of projects in Umzimkhulu by March 31 next year.

Public Works Minister Thoko Didiza also explained that government acknowledged the lack of job opportunities but said there were programmes to assist people acquire skills and at the same time earn some living.

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Premier‘s new office will cost us

Providing sufficient office space for the government at Bhisho in the Eastern Cape would cost some R500-million, Public Works MEC Christian Martin said.

The new 6 000m² block for the Office of the Premier would cost between R35-million and R40-million. The construction was part of the Bhisho-King William‘s Town development plan.

With regards to the 242 government properties considered for sale, the MEC said that it had been decided to go ahead with the disposal of 85 “dilapidated” properties.

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Mystery of ministerial break-ins

Hot on the heels of the country's shocking crime statistics, yesterday police were still trying to figure out how brazen thieves got the better of its crack-VIP security unit and managed to break into the homes of two cabinet ministers in the Groote Schuur ministerial estate in Cape Town.

The latest victims were Education Minister Naledi Pandor and Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour, who were in Gauteng at the time of the weekend break-ins.

Ironically, this comes after the Department of Public Works had budgeted up to R5 million for the maintenance of the surveillance and detection system at the Groote Schuur estate in its 2006/7 building programme.

The thieves took two laptop computers, a video recorder and a cellphone from Pandor's home. Items stolen from Balfour's home included a DVD player, a video recorder, clothes and a laptop.

Police said the thieves had also broken the window of Balfour's Toyota Land Cruiser and had tried to take off the wheels, but it appeared as if they had been disturbed and fled.

However, Naidoo said there was no sign of forced entry and that the entire outer perimeter of the area (complex) was still secure.

It is not the first time that ministers have been the target of burglars.

In August 2003, burglars ransacked the home of Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and ANC MP Kader Asmal, who was the education minister at the time. Manuel and Asmal, who shared a house, were sleeping, as was Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad, whose adjoining house was also targeted.

Their homes were in the high-security Bryntirion estate, an official government residential compound in Pretoria. A laptop, camera and other valuables, including crockery and cutlery, were stolen.

Earlier this year, thieves had also gained access to the Sandton home of Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and made off with her handbag, a laptop and a cellphone.

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Living it up

Now we know why the minister of Public Works doesn't make the news very often. His department has emerged as one of the big spenders in government with millions per annum going towards food, travel and accommodation.

Public Works Minister Thoko Didiza said in 2004/5 the department spent R9 615 407,27 on accommodation, R3 340 528,60 on restaurant expenses and R28 748 212,98 on travel costs.

In 2005/6, R11 319 045.08 was spent on accommodation, R3 009 628,79 on food and R26 703 527,91 travel expenses.

Didiza said that between April and August this year R5 266 723,40 went towards hotel accommodation, R1 574 507,77 towards restaurant expenses and R9 682 041,30 towards the travel bill.

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Regime loses in court over bad roads

South Africa's roads are in terrible condition. Here is a court case that shoes just how bad things are.

The Supreme Court of Appeal on Thursday dismissed an appeal by the Free State's minister of public works, with costs, against a finding that his department had been negligent by not maintaining a road.

The provincial department appealed against a Bloemfontein High Court finding that its failure to maintain properly the R64 road between Dealesville and Bloemfontein had caused a vehicle accident on June 22 2001.

The appeals court confirmed the high court's finding on how the accident had happened.

Four people are claiming compensation from the department as a result of the accident. According to court papers, the combined amounts are more than R18-million.

However, a court still has to decide on the claim amounts.

The appeals court judgment also found that the provincial minister's legal representatives had made unwarranted allegations of impropriety against the trial Judge, G van Coppenhagen.

The allegations were part of the high court appeal application, but it was retracted without a proper explanation.

Van Coppenhagen, in granting the appeal to the appeals court, said that it was for this reason alone that he considered himself bound to grant leave to appeal to the appeals court.

The unanimous judgement, by three appeal judges, found that the allegations against the trial judge were groundless. "It is unacceptable that allegations of impropriety can be made against a judge in so cavalier a fashion," the judgment read.

"The effect of this has been that the respondents have been put through considerable and unnecessary expense, inconvenience and delay, and this court has had to expend scarce judicial resources on an appeal utterly devoid of any merit."

The appeals court ordered the provincial minister to pay the costs of the respondents on the punitive scale as between attorney and client because of, so it found, the unwarranted allegations of impropriety.

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