Theleak-SA

Harare - Car horns blared and cheering crowds waving the national flag thronged the streets of Zimbabwe's capital Harare on Tuesday after news broke that President Robert Mugabe had resigned after 37 years in power.

The announcement came after days of mounting pressure on the 93-year-old leader, whose long and authoritarian rule made him feared by many of his citizens.

"We are just so happy that things are finally going to change," Togo Ndhlalambi, 32, a hairdresser, told AFP.

"We woke up every morning waiting for this day. This country has been through tough times."

After a week of political turmoil, Zimbabweans reacted with shock, disbelief and delight.

"I am so happy that Mugabe is gone, 37 years under a dictatorship is not a joke," said Tinashe Chakanetsa, 18.

"I am hoping for a new Zimbabwe ruled by the people and not by one person.

"We need leaders who are selected by the people and not rulers. I am looking forward to get a job after our economy recovers."

Massive crowds gathered within minutes of the surprise announcement made to a meeting of parliamentary lawmakers who were discussing a motion to impeach Mugabe.

At the Rainbow Towers conference centre where the MPs were gathered, a framed portrait of the president was ripped from the wall, torn apart and stamped to pieces by a cheering crowd..

"It's shocking, that guy (was) powerful, very powerful," said Barber Wright Chirombe, one of those who joined the euphoric street celebrations.

Across the city, men danced, women sang and many were in tears, brandishing national flags and often praising General Constantino Chiwenga -- the man who led the army takeover that finally triggered the crisis that overthrew the ageing president.

"We were reduced to worthless people under Mugabe," said Yeukai Magwari, 33, a vendor dancing with uniformed domestic maids in the Avondale neighbourhood of the capital.

"From now on we don't want to see our elderly men and women sleeping in queues outside banks, and people reduced to being destitute after going to college," he said.

Tendai Chaitezvi, 29, a bank employee, celebrated with friends at the Fiesta bar in the Avenues district as music was blasted from several car stereos.

"The situation in the country under this man was rough," he said. "A lot of our friends went abroad in search of jobs and were wondering how we managed to survive back here.

"There is suddenly a sense of optimism now. Today is the start of hoping that things will get back to normal."

Leah Macharaga, 37, was born in 1980, the same year that Mugabe came to power. "I hated that man," she said simply.

The news came shortly before dusk in Harare, and as dark fell cars careened through the unlit streets.

"I am happy beyond words. Now we expect a better future for our country than the hardship we endured under Mugabe," Modesta Macharaga, 35, told AFP. 

Some locals immediately focused on the country's uncertain future, and likely next president Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former Mugabe ally with a reputation as a ZANU-PF party hardliner responsible for violent crackdowns on dissent.

"Mugabe's resignation must be followed by the resignation of all those have surrounded him," Munyaradzi Chihota, 40, a businessman in Harare, told AFP.

"We need a complete overhaul, not just the removal of one person at the top. With any elements of ZANU PF still in power I doubt that we will move forward."

"We hate ZANU-PF and we don't want to replace a dictator with another dictator," said Oscar Muponda, a office worker in the capital.

In Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, Mandla Mpofu, 63, a lawyer gathered with friends at the Continental Bar.

"It has been years and years of suffering and here is freedom at last. I am going to celebrate late tonight."

The EFF has fired six of its councillors in the Mogale City council for voting with the ANC.

The EFF’s Central Command Team took this decision after they met on Saturday after the completion of a disciplinary process.

"On 11 July 2017, six EFF councillors contravened the EFF decision not to attend the Mogale City Budget-vote council meeting in which the ANC needed its budget to be passed. These councillors not only helped for a council meeting quorum to be constituted, they also voted in favour of the proposed ANC budget," said EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi in a statement.

"The organisation took exception to this conduct as it returned the public purse in the hands of the ANC. This is the same ANC that the people of Mogale City removed from the government following the 2016 local government elections outcomes. It is the same ANC that has been looting the public purse since 1994 to the exclusion and marginalisation of our people."

According to Ndlozi, the mandate not to vote with the ANC is consistent with the "non-negotiable cardinal pillar number seven" – their policy position to fight corruption.  

"Thus these six councillors, namely Ms Nhlanhla Shilubane, Ms Nomonde Nkatu, Ms Lemogang Modisane, Mr Eric Baloyi, Mr Edward Motsitsi and Mr Simanga Mkhumbeni, essentially betrayed our revolutionary tenet. Accordingly they have been expelled," said Ndlozi.

He said the EFF Central Command Team confirmed the sentence the party’s National Disciplinary Committee, as required by the EFF’s code of conduct. 

"The six EFF councillors have the right to appeal, however, the expulsion sentence is in effect even when under appeal. The EFF will communicate with the Mogale City Municipal Manager so as to declare the six vacancies and so that the EFF can replace all the six councillors," said Ndlozi.

The EFF obtained nine seats in the Mogale municipal council, which has 77 seats, of which the ANC occupies 38. All nine EFF seats were obtained through the proportional party list, so the expulsion of the six councillors would not require by-elections.

CAPE TOWN - Triple murder accused Henri van Breda has told the court he wishes that he had done more to save his family from an axe-wielding killer.

Testifying in his trial this week, Van Breda was also made to demonstrate how an intruder attacked his relatives with an axe.

He says he also couldn’t bring himself to help his family.

“If I have been thinking clearly I probably would have done these things. If I hadn’t been so scared.”

Van Breda is on trial for the murder his parents and older brother and for seriously injuring his sister in an attack at their Stellenbosch home in 2015.

During cross examination on Wednesday, prosecutor Susan Galloway questioned why the intruder would enter the house unarmed.

“It would be strange had a person planned to enter your house and attack the family that they come armed inadequately or unarmed. So they were, in actual fact, ill-prepared for the attack.”

A few months ago, Van Breda's lawyer Advocate Matthys Combrink argued that the axe found on the crime scene might have been one of two used in the attacks.

Prosecutor Susan Galloway asked Van Breda what he thinks about the possibility of a second axe.

“I don’t know. But I only saw one of them. I only saw one of the attackers and he was holding the one axe.”

Van Breda said it’s likely that the other attacker, who he only heard in the house, could have had a second axe.

But Galloway pressed harder.

“Did you ever see another axe other than exhibit 111C (the axe)?”

Van Breda responded: “No”

Van Breda claims the attacker must have come to the house unarmed, and taken a knife from one of the kitchen drawers, and the axe from the pantry where it had been kept.

On Sunday, ANC presidential hopeful and Minister of Human Settlements, Lindiwe Sisulu, wrote a letter to fellow ANC member Derek Hanekom and to the acting ANC disciplinary committee chairman asking them to consider disciplinary charges against ministers who were exposed in the leaked Gupta e-mails.

Sisulu did not divulge to Independent Media the contents of her letters but she confirmed writing them: “I have written letters to Derek Hanekom and the acting chair of the disciplinary committee.”

She made her intentions known when she addressed a banquet in memory of ANC struggle stalwart Ahmed Kathrada, hosted in Joburg on Sunday by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. Hanekom is the chairperson of the foundation.

In her address, Sisulu accused ANC members with Gupta links of being responsible for the low turnout of voters to the polls in the August 3 national municipal elections last year, leading to the ANC’s loss of three metropolitan municipalities of Joburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay Metro.

This comes after political parties and civil society organisations had laid criminal charges against those allegedly implicated in state capture. So far, police have yet to act against those implicated. Sisulu’s calls also come as the country awaits the outcome of a full bench of the High Court in Pretoria on an application to force Zuma to appoint a judicial commission of inquiry into state capture.

On July 4, the DA’s David Maynier laid criminal charges against Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane, Atul Gupta, Ajay Gupta, Rajesh Gupta, Ronica Raghavan and Kamal Vasram at a Cape Town police station.

The charges included racketeering, money laundering, assisting another to benefit from the proceeds of unlawful activities, and acquiring, possessing or using the proceeds of unlawful activities in terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act; and submitting false or untrue tax returns.

The charges follow reports that public funds were allegedly laundered through a complex web of front companies, and used to pay for Vega Gupta and Aakash Jahajgarhia’s wedding at Sun City in 2013. Public funds were reportedly laundered from a Free State dairy farm project via Dubai to pay for the extravagant wedding while Zwane was Free State MEC for agriculture.

At the time, Maynier said the fact that public funds, meant to assist the poor, were allegedly used for the Guptas' wedding was "grotesque".

Despite topping the charts with her hits, Lady Zamar's musical abilities have often been questioned by critics, which has left her angry and frustrated.

Lady Zamar has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry over the course of her short career but told TshisaLIVE she was sometimes accused of not being a real musician.

"The most difficult people to deal with are those who believe that I am not a musician. I get it a lot. I became angry when I was told that I wasn't a real musician. In actual fact, I have screengrabs of telephone conversations, which I have emailed to myself, to remind myself that this is what this person thinks of me.

"It is the hardest thing, when you work with a person and give 100% and they turn around and say to you that he does not think you are a real musician, and tells you that you do not know anything about music. I don't care whether people are arrogant or think that I am arrogant but don't disrespect my artistic value," Lady Zamar said.

She revealed that she often also got angry when people accused her of lip-syncing on stage, to the point that she felt compelled to prove herself to the fans by singing some of her sets acoustically.

"I always feel like I need to respond to critics of my music because I put a lot of work into my music. I feel very offended when people accuse me of not doing enough. My friends are my best support structure. They always tell me that it's not that bad and I should ignore it," she added.

Despite this, Lady Zamar said she was humbled by her army of followers which seems to be growing by the day.

More than anything, the musician wants her fans to know that despite topping the charts with hit after hit, she is just a normal person. That is why she is currently filming a documentary about her life.

"I feel like there is a big divide between artists and their fans. Fans say things about musicians but they don't know what is happening behind closed doors. I want to show them that. I want them to get to know me when I am performing, when I am angry, when I am on the road. There is a lot of crazy things, it's not all glitz and glamour," she said 

The documentary, which will be filmed by several production teams and woven together, is set for release by the end of the year.

It's all part of building a legacy as one of the biggest stars in South Africa and proving that she is not only a real musician, but is also here to stay.  

Johannesburg - African National Congress MP Makhosi Khoza on Friday, said that she would not be attending her disciplinary hearing on Sunday, after the Pietermaritzburg High Court ruled that the party's provincial leadership was invalid.

"For that reason alone, apart from the other material flaws in the disciplinary process initiated against me, the rescheduled disciplinary hearing is a nullity and cannot be proceeded with. Any conduct to the contrary will, at the very least, be in constructive contempt of the judgment and unlawful," she wrote in a letter on Friday night.

"It follows as a matter of course that any potential disciplinary steps to be taken, could only be decided upon by a newly elected [Provincial Executive Committee] PEC, after a constitutionally compliant Provincial Elective Conference has taken place and new Provincial Office Bearers have been duly elected."

Khoza addressed her letter to the the presenter of the ANC KZN's disciplinary committee, Ravi Pillay; to ANC secretary general, Gwede Mantashe; ANC chief whip, Jackson Mthembu; and National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete.

On September 12, the Pietermaritzburg High Court ruled that the KwaZulu-Natal provincial ANC elective conference in November 2015 was unlawful. In that conference, then ANC chairperson, Senzo Mchunu, was defeated by then provincial secretary Sihle Zikalala and it paved the way for Mchunu’s subsequent removal as KZN Premier in 2016.  Some MECs were also removed along with Mchunu in what was seen as purge. 

Judge Jerome Dube set aside the conference and its outcomes and ordered Zikalala to pay the costs. 

In her letter on Friday, Khoza said that she would deal with her defence at an appropriate time.

"Accordingly it is clear that the invalid disciplinary hearing against me cannot be proceeded with, and that my attendance at such void process is unnecessary. All my rights remain reserved, including seeking such urgent declaratory relief as may be necessary to protect my rights to the fullest," she said.

On September 10, Khoza's disciplinary hearing was postponed to September 17, ANC KwaZulu-Natal spokesman Mdumiseni Ntuli after Khoza’s attorney Smanga Sithini asked for more time to prepare his case. Sithini arrived at the headquarters 45 minutes after proceedings were set to start at 9am on Sunday morning.

Khoza was charged in July for, among other things, ill discipline, failing to comply with ANC policy, provoking division, and bringing the party into disrepute, with all but one of these relating to posts she made on her Facebook page.
 
She has been a vehement critic of President Jacob Zuma and his fitness to lead the ANC. Her provocative behaviour has earned Khoza many critics but has also seen her garner a large and sympathetic group of supporters.
 
Khoza says she has received death threats as a result of her statements and that the life of her daughter has also been threatened. Her attorney Smanga Sithini told the committee that Khoza was not in the province and when she met him on Saturday night she said new threats had surfaced. 

On Friday, Police minister Fikile Mbalula said that police had identified a 17-year-old Gugulethu girl as the person sending threatening messages to Khoza and several ministers.

He said that a link had been established between the young woman and the Democratic Alliance (DA) based on “information posted on social networks”, but added that police had not found any official proof that the girl was a member of the DA.

Describing the girl as a “troubled minor”, Mbalula said that investigations included interviewing the girl’s parents, social workers, occupational therapists from the place of safety where the girl was kept and others who had succumbed to her offences.
 
The young woman had also threatened “about seven people” who were members of the National Assembly, he said, including Communications Minister Ayanda Dlodlo and Social Development minister Bathabile Dlamini.

Cape Town - How R14 million was loaded onto the meal card of Walter Sisulu University (WSU) student Sibongile Mani remains a mystery, with the university, financial aid and the vendor responsible for making the payment refusing to accept responsibility.

On Wednesday, Parliament’s higher education portfolio committee was briefed by WSU, payment company Intellimali and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).

Mani sparked a storm after it was discovered she had blown more than R800 000 of the R14m erroneously loaded onto her card instead of the monthly R1 400 allowance in June.

Intellimali has since instituted a forensic investigation and lodged a criminal case with the SAPS.

It has repaid WSU the money spent by Mani.

Briefing the committee, WSU vice-chancellor Rob Midgley described the overpayment as “extraordinary” and said it had caused enormous reputational damage.

“This has been a massive wake-up call to everyone. The institution has seriously suffered as a result.”

He said WSU was in support of any process to investigate the matter.

“We are not suspecting rogue behaviour from our staff members,” Midgley added.

He said a spreadsheet of amounts due to students had been sent to Intellimali.

Midgley maintained it was accurate, with the names of more than 14 000 students, including Mani’s.

“We have no reason to doubt the integrity of our system,” he said.

The error was picked up by the university’s system of reconciliation of the distribution of student funds on its campuses.

“There was a delay in reconciliation; we were handing over from campus to institutional-based systems when we picked up the discrepancy.”

NSFAS also distanced itself from the error. Intellimali chief executive Michael Ansell said the spreadsheet file was processed correctly and no error report was registered after the money was uploaded. 

“There was no oversight, no error or negligence,” he said.

He added that the system feedback had confirmed Mani had received her R1 400 monthly allowance, but told how she had checked her balance several times before her spending spree. 

“We have all records on her spending until we deactivated the card.