The protesters demanded that Zuma return to the area to address deficient service delivery they had complained about to him when he visited the area after similar protests last year.
They demanded that Balfour be incorporated into Gauteng, warning that failure to do so could lead to "another Khutsong", referring to another township where violent protests were staged over provincial boundaries.
Siyathemba residents are also unhappy with the local gold mining company, Burnstone, which they accuse of not employing people from the area.
Dawie Mostert, Burnstone's vice-president for human capital, said they had employed 50 percent local workers, including contractors, and had spent R3,2 million on skills development and learnerships. In addition, they had paid for infrastructure upgrades in Balfour and provided skills to the local municipality.
"I don't know what people would like to achieve. One company cannot be the answer for all things in a community where up to 50 percent of people are unemployed," said Mostert.
Balfour protesters take aim at Zuma
President's promises on service delivery meant nothing, say residents
Feb 8, 2010 10:15 PM
Sipho Masondoa and Nkosana Lekotjolo, Times
Embattled President Jacob Zuma was under fire again, this time for failing to deliver on promises made to poor residents of Siyathemba township, in Mpumalanga.
Protesters took to the streets of the township, just outside Balfour, and barricaded roads with logs, burning tyres and stones. More than 20 shops owned by foreigners were looted.
Mpumalanga police spokeswoman Superintendent Sibongile Nkosi said 22 people had been arrested for public violence and damage to property.
The protesters demanded that Zuma return to the area to address deficient service delivery they had complained about to him when he visited the area after similar protests last year.
They demanded that Balfour be incorporated into Gauteng, warning that failure to do so could lead to "another Khutsong", referring to another township where violent protests were staged over provincial boundaries.
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Siyathemba residents are also unhappy with the local gold mining company, Burnstone, which they accuse of not employing people from the area.
But Dawie Mostert, vice-president of human capital at Great Basin Gold, the parent company of Burnstone mine, said most of the employees were, in fact, local residents.
Balfour shot to international prominence soon after Zuma was sworn in as president last year and violent protests engulfed the area.
In what was hailed as a welcome break with previous government practice, Zuma made an unannounced visit to the area and later announced measures that would address the community's demands.
Monitoring and Evaluation Minister Collins Chabane, who visited the area soon after Zuma, promised residents that a boarding school for 85 pupils, and an education and training college, would be established in the area. He said the hours of the local Home Affairs office would be extended.
The township was placed on the provincial government's housing "priority list" and a promise was made that 100 homes would be "built within the current financial year".
But residents said these had proved to be empty promises.
One of the protesters, Sipho Shabalala, said: "We want Zuma to come here himself. He came last year and made promises. He must come and tell us what happened to all those promises."
Shabalala complained about the lack of basic services in the township: "I was born here 31 years ago but I haven't seen any development, no [clean] water or electricity. Foundations for houses have been [laid but not built on] for years. We just want to be incorporated into Gauteng."
Tebogo Moagi, a member of the community steering committee, which organised the protest, said: "Since the protest [last year] nothing has happened. We have had no response from the municipality."
Moagi said they wanted the mayor, Lefty Tsotetsi, fired because "things have developed from bad to worse" on his watch.
"We want to know the progress they have made. We want the mayor and council to resign. We won't stop [protesting] until they resign. They promised development but nothing has happened - look at the roads."
Zuma's visit last year caught the mayor off-guard. He had knocked off work early and had to be summoned back when the president arrived at his office unannounced.
Siyathemba residents say the only solution to their problems is for the area to be incorporated into Gauteng, which they believe has a better service-delivery record than Mpumalanga.
"In all areas around us that are under Gauteng there is so much development. Look at Heidelberg and Devon, there is so much development," said a protester who refused to give his name. "That's why we want to be incorporated into Gauteng. We are willing to do what Khutsong did. We are willing to do anything."
After repeated protests, Khutsong residents succeeded in getting their municipal area, Merafong, reincorporated into Gauteng from North West.
Siyathemba committee member Zakhele Maya said they had briefed the team set up by the government after Zuma's visit about the community's desire to be incorporated into Gauteng.
"They told us that by December [last year] the Cabinet would have made a decision on the issue."
Maya repeated the claim that Burnstone was not employing locals.
"They promised capital-intensive mining methods and the creation of decent jobs. We also asked them to create a training centre so as to skill people. That hasn't happened."
But Mostert said the accusations were unfounded. "We have employed mostly local people and support community projects," he said.
Of 224 full-time employes, 108 were local residents, Mostert said. About 50% of the 400 contract workers employed by the mine's other projects were locally sourced.
"In the past two weeks we have conducted three recruitment drives in the area, in which we interviewed 940 people. We have 320 people competing for only 90 vacant positions, so what do you do with the situation like this?" Mostert said.
» » » » [Times]
Balfour looting 'the work of criminals'
Feb 9, 2010 10:43 AM
Sapa
Criminals, and not legitimate protesters, were responsible for the looting and torching of property during the protests in Balfour, a man identifying himself as a community leader said.
"We have put the protests on hold. Part of what is happening is that we have been overtaken by criminal elements, these are the same people who are looting shops," said Zakhele Maya, leader of a group called Dipaleseng, formed to voice concerns over the local Burnstone Mine's employment and development policies.
This comes after foreigners' shops were looted and their properties and a municipal building set alight over Sunday and Monday.
Twenty-two people were due to appear in the Balfour Magistrate's Court to be charged with public violence as around 60 policemen patrolled the township, whose main entrance was blocked with burning logs.
Maya said the criminals were taking the focus off the main issue - that the mine was allegedly not keeping its promise to hire half its workforce from the local community.
He accused foreign shopkeepers of having a hand in the violence.
He said before the protests started, they met the shopkeepers and told them of their intention to protest at the mine, and expressed concerns that, in previous uprisings, criminals had taken advantage to loot.
They asked the foreigners to remove cash and merchandise from their shops for their own safety, and had even helped them do so, he explained.
However, during the protests, criminals moved in, and the shopkeepers then turned on the protesters.
He said it was not possible to identify the criminals as they targeted the shopkeepers in the early hours of the morning and it was difficult to find them.
The burning of a municipal office on Monday took place during a "war" between police and others and the situation was too chaotic to identify anyone, he said.
The group wants the Burnstone Mine's licence suspended until their concerns are addressed and they plan to resume their protests and march to the mine when they have been given permission by authorities to do so.
A mine spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
» » » » [The Times]
Children spearhead [Balfour's] violent [Xenophobic] protest
Beauregard Tromp, IOL
February 09 2010 at 06:58AM
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Children set municipal offices alight, destroyed foreign-owned shops and tore down infrastructure as Siyathemba township in Balfour, Mpumalanga, was left burning - again.
But community leaders were quick to denounce criminal elements who they say hijacked a community protest yesterday to go on a robbing and looting rampage.
After a massive police effort, involving nearly 50 heavily armed policemen, 16 people were arrested and charged with public violence.
Early yesterday morning, residents led by the Dipaleseng Residents Committee (DRC) began protesting against the perceived lack of community investment in the township by the Burnstone Gold Mine.
Things got out of hand when shops owned by Ethiopians, Pakistanis and Indians were attacked by protesters, who chased them out of the township and ransacked their stores.
"I was sleeping in my shop with my family when they came. The police came to help us to run away," said Tasfaye Makuria, who escaped with his wife and toddler.
They are now renting a room across from the Balfour police station in the centre of town.
At the station, residents were laying charges against the Ethiopians, who they accuse of assault. The Ethiopians smiled cynically at this, saying they had tried to protect themselves by hurling rocks back at the mobs that came for them.
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And this isn't the first time that relations between locals and foreign-national shopowners have been tense. Ethiopian community leader Workneh Hansawo said that last year, the Ethiopian shopkeepers were persuaded to drop charges against those who destroyed their shops, convinced that relations had been restored and that it was safe for them to return to Siyathemba.
The shopkeepers had borrowed stock and money from relatives to buy fridges and pay rent to start again last year.
"We have nowhere to go. The rent will be too expensive. We have to work, otherwise we do bad things," said Hansawo.
He said community leaders had gone to foreign-owned shops to solicit "donations" for the planned protest, which they believed was to ensure their protection.
The leaders say the damage could have been worse had they not pre-empted the criminal element and warned shopkeepers to keep their stocks low and their cars out of the township.
When the leaders tried to intervene during the shop attacks, they were chased away by the mobs, said DRC member Zakhele Maya.
Most of the violence was spearheaded by children, who kept tyres burning at barricades, loading tar poles onto the fires and tearing down the little that remained at general dealers.
The few adults among them promised "action tonight".
During one battle with the police, the singing and burning was momentarily interrupted by policemen in a bakkie, who observed the group from a short distance away.
Sensing the police's vulnerability, a few started throwing stones, followed by others armed with catapults. The four policemen retreated, leading to loud cheering at this "victory".
Emboldened, the mob moved up the hill and started stoning the local municipal offices, tearing down the entrance gate before breaking down the door, stealing the mops, pitchfork, radio and heater inside.
A youth produced a canister filled with paraffin, with at least six others offering a match. With too little paraffin, the fire fizzled out after a few minutes.
Next door, though, only the burnt-out hulk of another office remained.
In the late afternoon, a cavalcade of heavily armed policemen drove into the township, walking in groups of four down every street, often with groups of youths taunting them.
Police were bracing themselves for further violence as the DRC were set to meet again last night.
A statement from the Drc claimed the mine had reneged on an agreement to employ half its workforce from local residents.
Dawie Mostert, Burnstone's vice-president for human capital, said they had employed 50 percent local workers, including contractors, and had spent R3,2 million on skills development and learnerships. In addition, they had paid for infrastructure upgrades in Balfour and provided skills to the local municipality.
"I don't know what people would like to achieve. One company cannot be the answer for all things in a community where up to 50 percent of people are unemployed," said Mostert.
Meanwhile, the planned protest march to the Burnstone mine, a few kilometres from Siyathemba, was stopped by police.
» » » » [IOL]
Foul stench of rotting Cabinet
Justice Malala: President Jacob Zuma's young administration and the post-Polokwane ANC coalition that it represents is unravelling.
Jan 31, 2010 11:51 PM |
By Justice Malala, Sunday Times
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Eight months into its existence, it is becoming impossible to work out what the Zuma administration's real purpose is, except for its penchant for grandiose and empty promises about nationalising the mines and bringing about a more representative state.
The Zuma administration is mired in scandal and persistent reports of corruption. Zuma himself is emerging as nothing but a priapic nonentity, a man laughed at behind his back by his Cabinet ministers as he fumbles from one disaster to another.
He is useful to all those around him for one reason only: every faction in the warring tripartite alliance wants him to stay in office until they have finalised who should replace him.
This week's Cabinet meeting - if it takes place - will be interesting not for what Zuma's Cabinet will be able to grapple with and resolve, but for just how much stink of scandal will permeate the room.
Zuma, who never tires of telling the youth just how rampant HIV is and how they need to use condoms, will walk into the room with the stench of yet another child out of wedlock scandal engulfing him.
It is now clear why Mbeki's two Cabinets were so silent when the man said HIV does not cause Aids. They were not afraid of him, as they like to claim nowadays. They fully agreed with him, as Zuma is demonstrating.
Zuma's Intelligence Minister Siyabonga Cwele will walk in with the weight of his wife's alleged drug dealing hanging over him. Now, Cwele might not have known about his wife's double life, but surely the Cabinet needs to ask itself and answer to the nation whether the man in charge of intelligence for the 2010 Soccer World Cup has in any way been compromised.
Do not expect any response to such a pressing matter from the Zuma administration.
The newspapers have been full of stories of Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda and his numerous and lucrative contracts with state entities. These contracts seem to be a subtext in the ongoing battles at Transnet engulfing Minister of Public Enterprises Barbara Hogan.
While these stories are being openly discussed in newspapers, bars and shebeens, do not expect our Cabinet to respond in any detail to any of these damaging allegations.
To be truthful, the Cabinet cannot respond simply because while these fights between ministers continue, Zuma is absolutely powerless to intervene. He has other personal problems on his mind. Over and above that, ministers such as Nyanda are now seemingly more powerful than Zuma in the Cabinet.
Back at Luthuli House, ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema continues to make a mockery of Zuma's injunctions to tone down his attacks on colleagues and to not disrupt schooling. While Malema travels around Gauteng visiting schools during school hours and enjoining children to sing songs praising him, Zuma keeps a silence that clearly demonstrates he is not the man in charge.
When Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe admonished Malema for his outrageous antics, Zuma was conspicuous by his silence.
All these things would be counted as insignificant if the Zuma administration was big on action. But what exactly has this administration done in eight months?
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Except for the increase in the number of Cabinet portfolios, we are surrounded by an incredible amount of verbiage, lekgotlas, alliance summits and other talk shops.
A new document is unveiled every week to much fanfare, only to be consigned to the paper recycling bin the next.
All these documents illustrate just how confused the ANC is on policy. Every Tom, Julius and Blade now makes grandiose and useless policy pronouncements, leading to immense confusion among foreign and domestic investors.
Last week nearly every member of the ANC's top six rattled off a new policy proposal on parastatals, nationalisation and other aspects of policy. Yet there is no action.
At the same time Jimmy Manyi, the department of labour's director-general, revealed that so far only R10-million of the R2.4-billion earmarked for training for retrenched workers had been spent on training programmes. The R2.4-billion is supposed to be spent by April to alleviate the plight of these jobless people.
The incident displays perfectly what's wrong with the Zuma administration: long on promises, extremely short on delivery.
While world leaders were being asked about the state of the world economy and other important issues at Davos last week, the most reported-upon issue involving Zuma was his three current wives.
Like Mbeki being asked about his Aids denial, this is what Zuma has swiftly been reduced to: a polygamous curiosity on the world stage.
Zuma needs to pull himself together and start concentrating on the real reason he was elected. He must start governing.
» » » » [Times]
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