RAPE CASES ON A HIGH!!!

the month of april has been a disaster in South afirca with rape cases against woman and man being investigated in most of the countries provinces. a case that has been in the publics eye is of a mentally challenged girl who is 17 years of age from Soweto and was gang raped by seven young man. two of the accused are 19; one is 18; and four are minors, one is 13 and three are 17. this happened in soweto in field where this incident was video taped by the accused. all of the accused were arested once the video was seen by the police and they are alll under investigation by the national prosecuting authority.

another one is the case of a young boy name Pule who also 17 years of age and mentally challenged, was raped by two woman of whom one is a teenager and the other a 26 year old. the familuy of the boy found out about this on sunday 22 of april. the question is, why do our goverment tend to focus on such issues only why their rates go up? 

reports indicate that a child is raped every three minutes, but mostly, nobody knows- or nobody does anything about it. is it because the goverment does not take this issue seriously or is because people do not report these cases? where are the compaigns that talk against this issue that the country is faced with?  

are we as nation going to leave in fear over what happen to us when we find ourselfs in the streets of our own community? this is an issue that should be take into consideration, especialy with regards to education seeing that the rapists are getting yuonger by the day. hush punishments should be taken aginst those who neglect the law. WHAT HAS THIS WORLD COME TO???

IS THIS LOVE OR IS IT BUSINESS?

The South African president Jacob Zuma got married for the sixth time this past weekend in a traditional Zulu culture. the president is a person who follows the polygamous ways of doing thing s in his culture. the ceremony took place in his home town of nkandla where there was over 500 guests that attended the ceremony.

this is just when he celebrated his 70th birthday party. people were being bussed to the venue and even ministers attended the ceremony in support of their president.
living in a country like south Africa where the practice of polygamy is legal makes it easy for the cultures that follow this practice, but only if it is done for the right reasons. the questions is, is this about love or is business? is our tax money going to be spent on maintaining all the first ladies?

the ordinary citizens in the country have been against how  the Swaziland king has been utilising the wealth of his country by splashing it on his wife's. is this how our own president is trying to play it now? what kind of message are we sending to the world out there? this makes it had for the taxpayers because the budget for his spouses doubled when he took to office.

being a president of a whole nation is a huge responsibility and when a person is in office it does not mean that they can use the country's finances in which ever way they want, but in the best way that would suit the country. so what we have to ask ourselves is, are we being blinded when things like these are being done by some who is in power or is it just business to them as it is the king of Swaziland? WHERE ARE WE GOING?

COSATU AT IT AGAIN

the south African national road agency limited (SANRAL) is pushed to put the implementation of the new E-tolling system on hold, because of the court applications that are piling up against the tolling. this comes after SANRAL released its new toll tariffs that drew criticism from cosatu, business and other various organisations.

cosatu is planning to embark on another nation wide strike that will bring in all its two million members. the new tariffs indicate that gantries have different toll rates, that will see a non e-tagged motorist pay three times the ordinary rate if they do not pay their tolls within seven days. cosatu says that the strike will go ahead next week if the government insists on going ahead with the tolls.

this has cause an outrage on different organisations like AfriForum, it too says it has instructed its legal team to prepare to oppose the decision by SANRAL. the CEO of AfriForum Kallie Kriel says that "SANRAL was using punitive tariffs to entrench themselves and the e-tolls dominant and non competitive position in an irregular manner". their legal action ison top of another legal action that was raised by OUTA (Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance), which is seeking an urgent interdict to stop the go ahead of the tolling system. this highlights different mixed feelings towards the tolls and what they really stand for.

is this the way in which the government sees fit to make people pay for what they did not come to an agreement for? why should people be forced to have e-tags if they do not want to? is it really to help with the traffic on the Gauteng roads or is it just a money making scheme? What is the presidents view on the matter that the road users in Gauteng find themselves in or has he turned his head like the others have???

BUCKLE-UP FOR THE EASTERS

The Easters are one the biggest holidays for South Africans, because they mark the resurrection of Jesus in the christian calender. During this time people travel to various destinations to celebrate and  this is when accidents do occur. The department of  transport always preaches that people should buckle-up, respect the road signs and the laws that govern them while on the road. A road report that was taken out in march 31 of 2011 by AA on its arive alive compagn, states a comparison of stats for2008-2009 as 10948, and 2010-2011 as 10845 http://www.arrivealive.co.za/documents/March%202011%20Road%20Traffic%20Report.pdf. 

the department of transport has encouraged people to be prepared for the visibility of police every where on the road for this years holidays. the department has teamed up with the arrive alive campaign to try and encorage travellers to adhere to road principles http://mype.co.za/new/2012/04/arrive-alive/. They say that this time they want to operate in a defferent way than in the other previous years. the campaign is aime at removing anyone or anything that threatens the llives of people on the roads during the easters. the minister of trasport Sibusiso Ndebele said that the road safety campaigns will only succeed when the road users change their behaviuor http://mg.co.za/article/2011-11-08-transport-minister-launches-new-road-safety-campaign/. 

The question is, do these campaigns realy have an impact when it come to the stats being realesed? or are they just for show that they can decrease a percent or two in the death tolls? are they realy effective when it comes to communicating the message across? with this campaign the minister said they have mapped out routes, sharpend their strategies and oile their battle plans. he enforced that the department is now going to go back to basics, where we will find primary school children being tought about the basic rules of the road, this will be a campaign that the goverment will be starting off with this year. But will it improve the situations on the roads??? Will have to Wait and See...           

IDENTITY CRISIS IN SOUTH AFRICA

the issue of frodulant identity documents in south africa is bringing the country to a huge problem. peoples identiy documents are now being sold for sale in the streets by corrupt officials and people have to wait for years to get their id documents or it is either it has a fault http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/36-000-ID-book-mistakes-in-201011-20110623. the department faces a huge number of people who have problems with regards to their id's every year. we all know that in this country everything requies an id book aproval, but we still have people who are not working, applying for varsity or not being able to do  anything because of not having an id book.

peole go thruogh great lengths to get what they want. like the mother who fabricated her child's information to get grant money, by registering her child as her neighbours child and she gives her part of the money for their agreement http://mg.co.za/article/2011-11-18-fake-ids-a-matter-of-survival/. most of the people that suffer because of this are people who are in the rural areas, because they do not have access to information on how to obtain their id books. the question is what has their communiction department done to make sure that this gap between rural and ubarn areas is closed when it comes to information access?

the department has become inundated with inquiries from peoples who want to know when will they be able to get their id books. but they still have to wait for years to get a response or they have to go through legall routes and end up loosing a lot of money. The only time when the department of home affairs makes gives out identity documents on time is when there is an election on  the way. in february of 2010 the department closed down one of it s offices in johannesburg due to corruption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Home_Affairs_(South_Africa)#cite_note-3. a  number of staff mambers appeared in court in charges of corruption and bribery. the allegations included sales of fake passports. quesstion remains on how is deparment going to help people while it tries to curb the corruption that happens in its offices...  

Reregistration of Social Grants Says Goverment

Social grants has been one of the biggest problems that South Africa has been faced with in the past couple of years. the minister of finances  Pravin Gordhan announced on the 22 February 2012 that 15.6 million people,or 31% will receive social grants and this was expected to rise to 16.7 million in 2015. now social development mister Bathabile Dlamini announced that parents should re-register their children due to some misconducts that have been going on in the social grants system http://www.southafrica.info/about/social/grants-200212.htm.

the department is faced with a situation where the are parents who get grants for none existing children. this messes with the budget that is allocated to department.  a new system called biometric-base system will be conducted by the south African social security agency and it has two phases that will kick of from 1 march 2012, and the second phase from 1 June to 31 December 2012 to read more click here .

the question is why now all of a sudden? will it not affect the collecting process? when they were enrolling people for the grants was their communications department not in contact with the communications department of home affairs? this process will have an effect on people who are poor,because it will some how affect the collecting process and people will suffer due to the incompetence of the two departments. why did the communications department of social development not inform people about this in time so they can prepare, and not wait only when the system is already in place? their communication department has failed its duties to communicate the necessary information at the right time and will it come back with a strategy that will help the situation? will have to wait and see. if this is how the department thinks it will flush out corruption will just have to wait and see...      

E-TOLL'S NEGATIVE ENTRANCE

Even before its regime takes place, the E-Toll system has hit the headlines in different tabloids in an unpopular manner. The system is to take place on the 30 of April 2012, but the public feels that it should be scraped due to its high fees that wont be of much help to the tax payers. COSADTU feel that the tolls are very expensive and it is unfair for the road users to pay to use public roads, so government should fit the bill http://mwcnews.net/news/africa/17351-south-africans-strike.html.  

COSADTU went on a national strike on the 7 march 2012 that was against the E-Toll plans, to demonstrate for improved worker rights and against plans to introduce unpopular road tolls http://mwcnews.net/news/africa/17351-south-africans-strike.html. The South African national Road Agency Limited (SANRAL) has announce that anyone who does not want to pay will not be able to renew their vehicle licences without clearing their debt first http://mg.co.za/article/2012-03-16-road-agency-faces-an-uphill-battle/. The toll fees require users to pay per-kilometer-based on the N1, N3, N12 and R21or it can cost R550 per month for light cars. This will be like being forced to pay another amount of money to use the roads that were renovated by the tax payers money.

AA has developed stickers that are in the shape of a number plate with the words "NO TOLL GP" stressing out that the organisation is against the tolling system http://www.iol.co.za/motoring/industry-news/aa-stickers-to-assist-e-toll-fight-1.1216741. The stickers are sold at R10 each and the money that will be raised will be used towards a planned legal action against SANRAL, said the spokesman of AA  Gary Ronald . Careful consideration with regards to the impact that this will have on the end user is still something that AA feels is being blatantly being disregarded said Ronald.

The government has vowed for this to go ahead as planned or people will dance to the music of the law. Jimmy Manye the ANC spokesman said that people should know that these tolls will be a fact of life and they are going nowhere http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/toll-transgressors-to-be-dealt-with-manyi-warns-2012-02-23. This shows that government does not sympathise with the people that brought it into power and it is willing to put them in jail when they start to exercise their rights against something that they do not want in their lives. Is our government really with us or against us???