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Empathy, the White man's burden
Most of us have a reasonable idea of what this, some may not actually use the word in common parlance but they know the feeling. Is it merely the expression of emotion or does it go further? The expression of emotion is an ingredient of empathy but to empathise, a person must be able to identify with and recognise the others state of mind. It is a concept, a label for what is in reality unquantifiable. Empathy is unselfishness, that generosity of spirit that binds humanity.
Whilst it may be difficult to define concisely, it is relatively easy to state what empathy is not. I have in earlier post on African psychopathy outlined the proposition that the blacks generally display the requisite number of criteria to satisfy a diagnosis of psychopathy.
Empathy is not the mindless self-serving behaviour of the psychopath, whose behaviour is the antithesis. Empathy involves reaching out and trusting, it means that you can feel what the other is feeling, it means that in all likelihood you get off your ass and do something. because that’s just the kind of person you are, the metaphors and literary summations of this are legion.
The psychopathic mind does not admit the quality of empathy but it can successfully feign empathy. The psychopathic mind preys and nurtures guilt in others for its own selfish ends. From whence does “Guilt” arise? Guilt is the handmaiden, the shadowy partner of empathy or more directly the emotion that arises from a perceived lack of empathy. The responses are e.g. “I feel no empathy for this situation….I should feel empathy...why do I not feel empathy…I do not know”…the result is guilt which ensconces itself parasitically in the psyche. The result is that the person takes steps to alleviate the guilt, but there never was a problem in the first place, the exercise is self-defeating because the necessity for the empathic response was cynically contrived by the psychopathic personality.
Blacks want you to feel guilt, it is part of their psychopathic arsenal, the more you feel guilt, the more they take, their primary function is to profit at others expense.
Empathy must be directed and objectively controlled in dealing with the psychopath, do not rush to find out what it feels like to walk in the shoes of another, sooner or later you will end up with sore feet. Do not feel sorry, simply because it’s the “right" thing to do or socially acceptable..
The black psychopath awaits at the minds gate ready to ensnare the unwary with its insidious cunning and perennial deceit.
Does this mean I'm a racist?
I hate kaffirs!
There – I said it.
I’ll say it again because no amount of social taboo, political correctness, nanny banging and black arse kissing is going to stop me saying what I feel and think – I hate kaffirs!!
What’s more, I’ll bet I’m expressing the sentiments of a whole lot of other people who think and feel exactly the way I do but won’t say so for the aforementioned reasons.
What's more, I'll bet that every last white person who has emigrated from South Africa would say that these are mainly the reasons they left.
I hate them because they murder gratuitously.
I hate them because no life form holds any value for them.
I hate them because if every now and again, a white harms a kaffir it’s racism but when kaffirs murder, rape, torture, pillage and plunder white people EVERY DAY it’s to address “past imbalances.”
I hate them because they will fuck anything with or without a pulse, whether it’s their neighbour’s 9-month-old baby, their own 9-year-old or their own 90-year-old granny. Whether it’s a goat, a chicken or road kill they’ll fuck it – these sub-species exist only to steal, kill, eat, shit or screw. Nothing constructive or progressive can be ascribed to this most useless of primate and if there is any documented evidence out there that denies that the only thing a kaffir can make is another kaffir, everything else he either loses or breaks, please submit such evidence, I’m doing my master’s thesis on the “Contribution of the Negroid races to Humanity” and after six months have just successfully completed the first paragraph containing the preamble to the thesis. So please people, I’m looking for material ‘cause my research turned up nothing.
I hate them because they are stupid. These spastics believe that rubbing an ointment of powdered baby penis and baboon piss on their members will give them an eternal erection enabling them to pursue the aforementioned activities 24/7 without the need ever to earn a living, build a house, raise a family – as long as they can “Jikka Jikka” they are in monkey heaven. If it moves “Jikka” it, if it doesn’t move, “Jikka” it till it moves. If it screams, cries, quacks, squawks, squeaks, squeals, bleats or barks – “Jikka” it till it stops.
I hate them because they stink.
I hate them because they lie.
I hate them because they steal.
I hate them for slaughtering thousands of farmers and then rioting because they have no food.
I hate them for totally fucking up things that whites perfected and then awarding themselves millions in bonuses for it - ESKOM and SAA.
I hate them for burning the trains when they run late - better never than late is pure kaffir logic.
I hate the useless pieces of shit for stealing gifts and valuables in the mail - fuckn thievings bastards!!
I hate them because they are a threat to my family and myself.
I hate them because they have the right to commit crime and I do not have the right to defend my family, myself and my property against their criminal attentions.
I hate them for even entertaining the thought that all white women want their filthy attentions.
I hate them because they are corrupt.
I hate them because they are incompetent.
I hate them because a kaffir can call a kaffir a kaffir but if I do it I risk a jail sentence.
I hate them because it is technically illegal for me to hold a job because I’m a white man.
I hate them because if I run a business because it’s illegal for me to be employed, I have to hire kaffirs to ruin my business and steal from me to satisfy ‘Femtev Ekshen quotas.
I hate them because they can’t talk properly.
I hate them because they jerk around like spastics making unintelligible noises or yowling dementedly when they are striking, sexually aroused, happy, unhappy, angry, rioting, dancing, celebrating, mourning or “Dee-munding”
I hate them because they are lazy and would rather steal what they want than acquire it by hard work and honest means.
I hate them because they are hypocrites with double standards and dishonesty that a skunk would be ashamed of.
I hate their single male, multiple female hundreds of kids culture.
I hate their refusal to accept responsibility and accountability for their own fucks-ups.
I hate them for blaming the white man for their fuck-ups and then blaming the white man for not fixing their fuck-ups.
I hate them because just by being there they can make an area of pristine natural beauty look dark, dirty and dingy – like Durban beachfront or Clifton.
I hate their littering and conversion of any inhabitable structure to squalor, filth, and the perpetual stench of shit and piss.
I hate them because they are merciless killers but moral and physical cowards who only attack vulnerable victims who cannot fight back but will beg for mercy, forgiveness food, booze or cigarettes when the tables are turned.
Wanna know why I will never co-exist with kaffirs? – All of the above.
And a note to the liberal meidenaaiers – I never once mentioned that I hate them because they’re black – so; “Jou Antie se moer…..” – I’m not a racist.
'No one denounces farm attacks'
At and Katerina Deysel who were brutally murdered on their Lichtenburg farm on Monday night were farm murder victims number 2,954 and 2,955..!
Since the ANC came to power in 1994, 2955 farmers have been murdered in over 8000 farm attacks.
"There have been more than 10 700 farm attacks since 1991 in which more than 1 600 members of the farming community, including farmworkers, were murdered," said AgriSA law and order committee chairperson André Botha.
He said that in the past week Johan Myburgh of Groblersdal and At and Katrien Deyzel of Lichtenburg has been murdered.
"One gets the impression that agriculture and its people are of no importance to politicians."
"However, agriculture is one of the cornerstones of the economy as well as one of the main employers in the country.
"Commercial farmers merely want an opportunity to practise their profession in safety and to contribute towards ensuring that there is enough food on the table for South Africa's people."
Farmers and the agricultural industry should be protected as a "national asset".
Botha said AgriSA had been trying unsuccessfully for more than a year to have a meeting with Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula to discuss farm and rural safety.
The organisation now intended providing President Thabo Mbeki with a memorandum about rural safety at the next presidential commercial agriculture working group meeting which will take place in about three weeks.
"We really want to be a part of this country," said Botha.
Farmers have heeded the call
"If you want to experience ubuntu, you must come out to the platteland."
He said it was only a "very small minority" of farmers who had negative relations with farm workers.
"The majority of relations between farmers and workers are excellent."
Botha said farmers had heeded the call to fight crime.
AgriSA and its members were involved in various anti-crime initiatives and becoming police reservists.
"We are not saying just give us. We take responsibility. We are there as responsible citizen to play our part, but we need some assistance from somewhere."
"When there is a spate of taxi murders every two-bit politician makes comments, but when there is a farm attack, there is no real comment, no one denounces the actions".
Botha said the direct cost of crime for agriculture was estimated at more than R1bn.
Another couple murdered on a farm outside Lichtenburg
Lichtenburg - The escaped murder suspect who was believed to have gruesomely tortured a slightly-built woman at Ottoshoop in March before murdering her, was involved in the farm murder of a couple on Monday outside Lichtenburg.
The police were investigating this possibility after Phillip Moremi, 29, and a burglary suspect, escaped from the Ottoshoop police cells on Sunday afternoon at about 17:00
Beeld heard from a reliable source that Moremi was out on parole and should therefore have been in jail and not held in police cells. (further proof of koon boon incompetence in the SAPS..!)
At, 60, and Katrien Deysel, 56, were brutally murdered on Monday night on their farm between Lichtenburg and Ottoshoop.
'We won't leave it there'
The bodies of the couple, who had been married for 40 years, were discovered on Monday by a neighbour.
Katrien had been shot inside the house.
At the time of going to press the police could not confirm whether she had also been raped.
Her husband's body was found some distance from the house behind a pile of stones.
His throat was slit.
The murderers also killed one of the couple's dogs as well as Pietie, Katrien's tame Ringneck parrot.
Four firearms and a cellphone were stolen.
The neighbour earlier saw the couple's bakkie next to the road and became suspicious because it had apparently been involved in a collision.
A retired mineworker
Meat and a television set were found on the back of the bakkie.
Blood was also found inside the bakkie.
"He so loved this place. That is why my father, after years of working in the mines, returned here, where he grew up."
This was according to Theresa de Abreu, the murdered couple's oldest daughter, on Tuesday.
At was a retired mineworker who for the greater part of his life worked at the Vaal Reefs mine near Orkney.
"My parents never bothered anyone. They only wanted a peaceful retirement. They lived for their animals and their garden. My father knew the name of every animal, every plant, every bird and tree. He was a walking encyclopaedia."
"My mother and father did not use labourers, but did everything themselves. It is still so unreal. It is so unnecessary", De Abreu said on Tuesday.
"We are definitely not going to leave the matter here. Those people should not have had the chance to murder again. Our mother was a delicate, fragile woman."
The couple are survived by five children and eight grandchildren.
Moremi is also suspected of being involved in another burglary after he escaped on Sunday night, as well as the murder of Zaiboon Jeena, 61, in Ottoshoop in March.
She was raped, burnt with a clothes iron, stabbed with a knife and her fingers were broken.
Are we being donnered by demography?
The social scientist Gunnar Heinsohn, in his book Sons and World Power, argues that when the age group 15-29 years make up more than 30% of a population, there is a good chance that violence will follow. In his column for The Times (London) - "That violence in 1968: blame it on the bulge," - Daniel Finkelstein applies Heinsohn's analysis to the defining May 1968 riots in France. Finkelstein explains the riots in terms of a bulge in the proportion of young males in France - a product of the post-war baby boom. The driving force behind their protests (les evenements du Mai as they are known) was not ideas, despite their political romanticisation, says Finkelstein, but demographics, or to give it another name, testosterone.
According to Wikipedia, the May 1968 protest "began as a series of student strikes that broke out at a number of universities and lycées in Paris, following confrontations with university administrators and the police. The De Gaulle administration's attempts to quash those strikes by further police action only inflamed the situation further, leading to street battles with the police in the Latin Quarter, followed by a general strike by students and strikes throughout France by ten million French workers, roughly two-thirds of the French workforce. The protests reached the point that de Gaulle created a military operations headquarters to deal with the unrest, dissolved the National Assembly, and called for new parliamentary elections for 23 June 1968."
The De Gaulle government was brought close to collapse (De Gaulle had even taken temporary refuge at an airforce base in Germany), "but the revolutionary situation evaporated almost as quickly as it arose. Workers went back to their jobs, after a series of deceptions carried out by the Confédération Générale du Travail, the leftist union federation, and the Parti Communiste Français (PCF), the French Communist Party. When the elections were finally held in June, the Gaullist party emerged even stronger than before. May '68 was a political failure for the protestors, but it had an enormous social impact."
For Finkelstein: "The 1968 protests are not best understood as their instigators would have them understood - as the antithesis of war, as the street carnivals of the peace movement. The protesters should instead be seen as having some similarities with the warriors they were opposing. Both were trying to solve a problem with violence. The protesters sought to resolve political conflict in the street and through confrontation. Many of the leaders were not wishing for an end to war, but for victory by the North Vietnamese....However, if you see the événements as the product of demographics, the data is easy to comprehend. Young people, particularly young men, tend to see violent solutions to problems as more acceptable than do other groups in society. In 1968 there was a bulge in the number of hot-headed young males."
Where this bulge goes, Finkelstein argues, violence is soon to follow. "There are 67 countries in the world where there is such a bulge", he writes, "and there is violence in 60 of them."
What does this insight contribute to our understanding of South Africa?
Statistics South Africa noted that by the 1990s the age profile of the South African population was racially bifurcated. "The black African population had an age profile typical of a developing country, with a relatively large percentage of people being children under the age of 15 years [and a] relatively small percentage consisted of those aged 65 years and older....The white population, on the other hand, had an age profile typical of a highly industrialised country, with a relatively small percentage of people under the age of 15 years ... and a relatively large percentage amongst those aged 65 years and older."
This raises the intriguing question of whether South Africa would have escaped violent racial conflict in the 1990s if the white and black populations had had a similar youth ‘bulge' at the time. In other words, what would have happened if there had been a similar proportion of ‘hot-headed' young males on both sides of the racial divide? Instead, one could argue, as the white population aged the idea of pre-empting civil war through a negotiated settlement - and peaceful concession of power - became very much the preferred option.
By 2001 the 15-29 age bracket made up 31,2% of the black African population and 29,8% of the total population. In this demographic context it is not particularly surprising that the 1994 settlement - which averted a racial conflict and put an end to the ANC-IFP semi-civil war - did not see an end to violence, but rather its privatisation. While young men no longer sought to achieve party political ends through violence, many continued to pursue personal ends through criminal violence. There were more South Africans reported murdered between mid-2002 and mid-2007 (97,900) than there were Iraqi civilians killed in the five years following the American invasion (+/- 85,000 according to one website.) (Note: Iraq's population is approximately 57% the size of South Africa's.) According to the South African police there were 126,558 robberies with aggravating circumstances in the 2006/2007 reporting year.
Political violence may well have erupted if the Mbeki-ites had tried to subvert the will of the party at Polokwane. But, once again an older generation thought it not worth the risk of trying to thwart the demands of young men for change.
Our criminal justice system has become so dysfunctional, and our politicians so averse to fixing it, that perhaps our best hope is for the passing of the bulge. The proportion of South Africans in the 15-29 age bracket is now gradually declining. For black South Africans the percentage of the population in this age group has fallen to 30,5% and for the population as a whole it is now 29,2%.
Finkelstein makes the point: "With our blithe conviction that we can always make things better, we are convinced that political education and economic amelioration will work to bring peace where there is conflict. Heinsohn suggests that it might make things worse. Educated and well-fed young males tend to greater violent unrest. The only hope? That young men eventually grow up".
By - Stanly Uys
Violence stalks millions of kids at school
‘Crime is now a way of life’
The study revealed that:
- Violence in primary schools is most common in the Eastern Cape.
- One in 10 pupils say it is relatively easy for them to get hold of a gun, (...so?...what are you waiting for folks..?...now you know where to find a connection to a arms dealer..ask your kids!)
- Alcohol and drugs are readily available, and
- Between 83percent and 90percent of pupils have been exposed to some sort of sexual assault.
Patrick Burton, director of research at the centre, said: “More than one in 10 (14.7percent) secondary school learners and slightly fewer (10.5percent ) primary school learners reported that it was easy to get alcohol at school, and a similar percentage thought it was easy to get dagga.”
He said 31.2percent of high school pupils said that it was easy to get a knife at school.
However, Burton said that despite 1821054 pupils having been exposed to crime at school, pupils still felt safe in the school environment.
“This is because of the normalisation of crime in society. The country has high levels of violence and crime has become a way of life.”
Sexual assault was prevalent in both primary and secondary schools — up to 90percent of pupils said they had experienced some sort of assault.
Department of Education deputy director general Gugu Ndebele said: “Children exposed to violence and victimisation are likely to become perpetrators of anti- social behaviour.”
She said the department was looking at initiatives to improve school security and also called for more community involvement.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
speechless at SAA bonuses
The Democratic Alliance wants to know who at SA Airways will share in R72-million worth of bonuses to top management and why the bonuses were awarded.
"The Eskom-esque revelation that South African Airways' top brass have been awarded R72-million in bonuses, while workers took a pay-freeze and contended with the threat of mass retrenchments, is outrageous," DA spokesperson Manie van Dyk said on Wednesday.
This followed the airline's "dismal performance" in recent years.
The increasing incidents of damaged, lost and pilfered luggage further illustrated the absurdity of these bonuses, said Van Dyk.
MUGABE'S DEADLY CARGO
How a German bank attempted to seize the Chinese Arms Ship
A Chinese ship filled with arms for Zimbabwe is drifting somewhere off the coast of Africa, after South African dock workers refused to handle the goods. Now it has emerged that the German KfW development bank attempted to seize the ship while it was in Durban.
Pic:The An Yue Jiang is looking for a port to unload its cargo of Chinese weapons bound for Zimbabwe.
In Durban, South Africa, last Friday, the captain of the Chinese cargo ship the "An Yue Jiang" hastily hoisted anchor. A High Court order had just barred the ship's 70 tons of weapons and ammunition meant for Zimbabwe's dictator, Robert Mugabe, from being transported across South Africa.
But Captain Sanaijun was even more afraid of something else: Germany's state development bank, KfW. It seems the High Court had issued another order to seize the cargo, spurred by a complaint from KfW.
The news had barely broken that the ship had docked when the bank secured a confiscation order for the goods. "At the time," KfW spokesman Michael Helbig said to SPIEGEL ONLINE, "the nature of the cargo was not precisely known." He insisted that "at no time and under no circumstances" would the bank have accepted weapons to enforce the repayment of loans to the Zimbabwean government.
The development bank had approved millions of dollars in loans to the Zimbabwean state-owned Iron & Steel Company in 1998, to set up a new steelworks, and again in 2000 to increase the stock. Helbig said the Zimbabwean government had guaranteed the loans.
South African media reported that the loans amounted to €40 million -- a sum the KfW did not want to confirm or deny. But the loan was never repaid. The Zimbabwean government was thus liable to repay it -- but the state was in no financial position to pay up for its ailing steel company. So in 2006, the KfW secured a ruling from the International Chamber of Commerce allowing it to seize Zimbabwean government assets abroad.
On Friday, though, before the cargo could be seized, the Chinese ship slipped out of port. Since then Captain Sanaijun has been on the run and his ship has been at large. Trade unions around the world have mobilized to prevent his cargo from being unloaded anywhere.
Workers Against Mugabe
The movement against the An Yue Jiang has been led by the dockworkers and by South African Archbishop Rubin Phillip, who won the first court order to ban transportation of the ship's cargo. Both Phillip and the workers say the weapons will be used by Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe to repress his opponents after a disputed election at the end of March.
"Our objective is to mobilize and organize unions in Africa to take a firm stand and try to stop the ship from offloading these dangerous weapons which could be used to kill Zimbabweans," Sprite Zungu of the International Transport Worker's Federation (ITF) said on Monday, adding that he would travel to any country the ship was planning to dock to mobilize workers not to offload the cargo.
It is not just ITF workers who have organized against Mugabe. The 300,000-strong South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) has also called on transport workers around the world to join their boycott of the Chinese ship. Now the An Yue Jiang has become a sort of ghost ship, drifting somewhere between the Indian and Atlantic Ocean -- although late reports suggest that the Chinese transport company may just order the vessel home.
China has objected that the shipment was nothing more than "perfectly normal trade." Mugabe's political opponent in Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, told Germany's Deutschlandfunk radio, "I have nothing against the Chinese, but I do have something against the way they are arming the regime in Zimbabwe with war weapons with which our people will be repressed."
Wandering the High Seas
But the ship's whereabouts are uncertain. The Cape Times said that Lloyd's Maritime Intelligence Unit, the world's biggest maritime database, had reported the An Yue Jiang as a "casualty," claiming it had sunk off the coast of East Africa at 11 a.m. on Sunday morning.
This was quickly denied. A spokeswoman for the South African Maritime Rescue Coordinating Centre, Sarene Kloren, said South African naval intelligence had located the ship near Cape St. Francis around 5 p.m. on Sunday evening. There had been no distress calls "between here and the Antarctic," she said.
Defense spokesman Siphiwe Dlamini said the ship was being tracked by the navy: "We are keeping an eye on it." As soon as it strays into South African territory the captain can expect his ship to be seized -- because of the KfW confiscation order.
Pic: Anglican Archbshop Rubin Phillips successfully applied for a court order to prevent the controversial cargo from being transported across South Africa.
So Angola, on the west coast, may be the next destination. But it isn't clear that the An Yue Jiang can sail that far. It took on no extra fuel in Durban, for one thing, and the director in charge of the Institute of Angolan Ports, Filomeno Mendonca, has said the ship "is not authorized to enter Angolan ports" -- and had not even sought a request.
Mugabe Running Out of Munitions?
Even if Captain Sunaijun does offload the weapons in Luanda, there is no common border between Angola and Zimbabwe, so the container would have to be transported across Namibia or Zambia. None of Zimbabwe's neighbors wants to get their hands dirty in such a deal -- particularly after the African Union lost patience with Mugabe at a conference in Ghana on Sunday and demanded the immediate publication of the March 29 election results.
On Monday Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa urged regional states to bar the Chinese ship from entering their waters, saying the shipment could deepen Zimbabwe's election crisis. On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that the US government has leaned on African governments to block the Chinese ship from unloading its cargo.
It would seem the only alternative for Mugabe's government is to transport the arms by air. But they would need to use two Russian IL-76 cargo planes to transport the 70 tons of cargo -- a huge expense for Mugabe's financially ruined state bank.
South African media report that the military, police, secret service and even Mugabe's bodyguards need new munitions and weapons. Many other deliveries were cancelled after the state bank failed to pay its bills.
On Sunday, Zimbabwean generals held a crisis meeting to discuss the Chinese delivery. They pondered a route through Tanzania, in East Africa, but when Mugabe's people made inquiries, they were rebuffed.
Still, Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga is defiant. "If they are for Zimbabwe, they will definitely come to Zimbabwe," he told South Africa's SAFM radio. "How they are used, when they are going to be used, is none of anybody's business."
Sao George
Today, is St Georges day, well it is here in the UK anyway. And it is at this point the purists amongst us start a scratchin of noggins and askin questions like "Have I lost the plot" or " Has a certain person left the building".
South Africa sucks? yes, res ipsa loquitur and we strive to spread the message on that score, but it is not only South Africa that Sucks, the rest of southern africa does it's fair share of sucking wether it be Zimbogruin land or neighbouring Mocambique.
For those of you familiar with the City of Beira, you will recall the Sao George Cinema and this mural of St George slaying the dragon emblazoned on its facade. The Sao George has fallen into decay along with the rest of that once fair city, symptomatic of the inevitable decline of southern africa. Just another example of black mismanagement, laissez faire attitudes, ignorance and indolence.
SAA hit by 10 000 bag claims every year
And British Airways (BA) says about 26 bags per 1 000 customers "fail to travel as planned" - but "the vast majority" of passengers are reunited with their luggage within two days.
Last week British resident Marius Maritz, whose luggage went missing between Johannesburg's OR Tambo International and London's Heathrow airport, told the Cape Times that SAA lost 50 000 bags in the preceding year.
This figure was given to him by an employee in SAA's customer relations division.
SAA said it was "not aware" of that figure, but could confirm that it handled more than six million pieces of baggage a year.
SAA spokesperson Robyn Chalmers said the company was "on the path" to reducing lost and damaged baggage figures.
"Of the six million pieces of baggage SAA handles, 0,18 percent of claims are for damaged baggage and 0,11 percent are claims for pilfered baggage," said Chalmers.
She did not divulge how much the company paid out in claims each year, saying only that it was "a costly exercise".SAA also did not respond to questions about how many items of luggage were found and returned to their owners.
BA International spokesperson Stephen Forbes said the company's "baggage performance" in the 2007 Association of European Airline statistics was "about 26 bags per 1 000 customers" lost.
"The vast majority of those customers get their bags back in the first 24 to 48 hours," said Forbes.
"This is something that we take very seriously and have raised on a number of occasions with the Airports Company South Africa," he said.
"We are hopeful that the appointment of new baggage handling companies along with new procedures will go some way towards reducing the unacceptably high incidence of baggage theft at South African airports."
Forbes said the company took its "own precautions" to deal with baggage theft but declined to divulge these for security reasons, saying evidence of theft was handed over to the South African Police Service.
SAA entered into an interim one-year contract with baggage handler Swissport at the beginning of March.
"We are confident that with the strong commitment from our new service provider, Swissport, and the close collaboration we have with Acsa, the (police) and other security officials, we are on the path towards reducing these figures (of baggage theft)," said Chalmers.
BA said its figures did not include recent problems at Heathrow's Terminal 5.
Passengers should use only official, uniformed porters at airports, said Forbes.
City Hall socialists impoverish all
Righting the wrongs of the past has become a convenient cloak to mask socialism. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the proposed implementation of the Property Rates Act in the Durban metro.
With the rate randage set at a very high 0.009c, rates in many areas of the metro will become unaffordable from July 1. The property market, already reeling from successive interest rate hikes, will be dealt another severe blow by the unrealistic rates demanded by the socialists at city hall.
Pointers from the 20th century's greatest economist, Milton Friedman, indicate that whenever governments have coerced some to aid others in the name of equality the result has been neither sustainable nor mutually beneficial. Excessive rates levied on the "haves" amounts to nothing less than the confiscation of wealth. The reaction such policies engender is that in the long term less taxes are collected as wealth migrates. Leave now if you can. Let the blacks wollow in their own home made povity. After all its wht they are best at, running down things and generally mucking up the hard work of others.
History shows that whenever governments interfere with the formula which generates wealth and prosperity impoverishment follows as capital relocates. Wealth and prosperity are not generated when they are punished, that is, excessively taxed. By levying rates out of all proportion to the services rendered by the municipality, the council will succeed only in driving property prices down, thereby netting less income for the city.
Socialism is a failed and discredited ideology because ultimately it impoverishes everyone.
Imposing excessive rates on some will lead to poverty for all. That's what the socialists at city hall really mean when they call their wealth distribution plan "a poor man's budget".
Whispering Grass ...S A Style
Here, in the great democratic republic of UK there exists,amongst the great unwashed a rather quaint expression. "To grass up" or just plain "grass". A person arrested for some misdemenour might say "I was grassed up by my mate" ie some one secretly informed the police.
Grassing can in "rare" instances be motivated by motives of malicious revenge.
The expresssion derives from this song........
WHISPERING GRASS 1975 W Davisis / D Estelle
You promised me green grass, not to tell what you 'eard
Whispering grass, say you can't keep your word
Keep your word, sing Lofty
Why do you whisper, green grass
Why tell the trees what ain't so
Whispering grass, the trees don't have to know, no, no
Why tell them all your secrets
Who kissed there long ago
Whispering grass, the trees don't need to know
Don't you tell it to the breeze
Or she will tell the birds and bees
And everyone will know
Because you told the blabbering trees
Yes, you told them once before
It's no secret anymore
Why tell them all the old things
They're buried under the snow
Whispering grass, don't tell the trees
'cause the trees don't need to know
Don't you tell it to the breeze
Coz she will tell the birds and bees
And everyone will know
Because you told the blabbering trees
Oh yes, you told them once before
And It is no secret anymore
I will not have gossip in this jungle
Why tell them all the old things
They're buried under the snow
Whispering grass, don't tell the trees
'cause the trees don't need to know
So, whilst perusing the web in a rare idle moment I perchanced upon this SA Police Services site. Now, this particular page simply wants people to inform. Now in a civilised society the citizens should notify the police about crime, but SA is not really a normal society and this site indicates the level of abnormality to which this anc tentacle will sink
Go to "Select Crime" .and an Alladins cave of intrigue awaits, ranging from the obscure to the ridiculous.
If you observe a cricket match....inform the police, or suspect your neighbor to be cunningly planning a Coup d'etat or an illicit New Years Eve party...inform the police. Pissed off because your neighbour is secretly changing his spark plugs or is a "party to a transaction"....Yeah, pick up that phone or use the handy internet form, the ever eager, competent and public spirited ama police pessons will rush to attend.
http://www.saps.gov.za/_dynamicModules/internetsite/crimestop.asp
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Broken
This is my last blog on Thought Leader.
I never thought the day would come when the tentacles of oppression would silence freedom of expression, but as long as I have family in this country, the increasingly sinister, menacing and credible threats from the ANC, Jacob Zuma and their legions of thuggish operatives cannot be ignored.
Ever since working on the Rand Daily Mail back in the 1970s, threats have been accepted as part of the turf of being a journalist. They were the white man’s equivalent of the knock on the door of black freedom fighters. Maybe even slightly romantic.
And I was stronger and younger and bullet-proof back then. Like most young men with apparent Afrikaans ties (the surname) who grew up in the platteland, agents tried to recruit me too. Shit, the money was very tempting, but I thought I was untouchable. I didn’t have the guts to turn them down to their faces. I just delivered fuck-all and I think they got the message eventually. Unreliable and a waste of effort.
Now the world has changed and the mighty ANC, with its cohorts and allies, behave exactly the same as those Nats and their apartheid machinery did back then. The only difference is that it’s not a crime against humanity and their thugs and assassins operate at arm’s length to give the “accountable” public figures plausible deniability.
Right-thinking people have long dropped the notion that the ANC and its allies have not been behind the greater agenda of racist farm killings. It is just too easy and too common to fudge evidence, and the spineless commissions instituted to investigate these have, predictably, produced only what Luthuli House has told them to produce. Now the South African Human Rights Commission and other quasi-statal organs just toe the party line and smile and press the party flesh. My entreaties to them, the press ombudsman and the rest of the Gucci-clad platoons of sycophants have been acknowledged and crammed into File 13.
The ANC, PAC and the rest of the liberation litter’s reign of terror has been behind most of the racist farm murders, random shootings and beatings, the unexplained abductions and killings in rural villages and urban killing fields, “extraordinary renditions” of Pakistanis and other nationals — and now the use of the internet, emails through Yahoo!, Gmail and anonymous remailers, cellphones and even wire taps have spread the virus with a renewed venom since Zuma’s dark and ominous rise to power and the increasing militancy of the communists and left wing.
Thanks to the indolence and apathy of our police, the ANC’s total control of the upper echelons of power, along with its disbanding of the Scorpions and ensuring that “retired” army chiefs are absorbed into executive committees, cascading down directives to the foot soldiers, has been dead easy and so far untraceable. There is no paper trail and it’s easy to just blame the “the scourge of crime” that has been allowed to grow and mature unimpeded for 14 years.
The paint job that makes it all look so respectable and decent is the wondercoat of private/public partnerships, fully washable, with money for stretch and influence for strength and a vast array of impotent but pretty commissions, charters, committees, task teams, laws and a malleable Constitution that lets the ANC colours fit every home and every mood.
Now that the Last King of Nkandla is cementing his dictatorship with snide populist jibes at the invertebrate Mbeki, on the state-sponsored terror front it is business as usual.
And, I have to admit, I am terrified.
I drive home 20km every night in fear. I take different routes home — some twice the distance if necessary. I scrutinise each car that follows me. I take photographs of those which behave suspiciously. I tape just about every phone conversation. I drive around the block before entering the driveway and hoot for my dogs to come. I go to bed terrified and sleep lightly if at all. I no longer go out at night — to movies, shows, on dates or even to Toastmasters. I only go shopping where I can take my dogs with me — and only during daylight hours. I am suspicious of everyone. Strangers are not welcome at my gate. I make appointments to make calls and never answer a suspicious call. I triple-check the locks, all of them, each night. And often have the dogs sleep in my bedroom.
And it is eating at my soul.
I am no longer young, bullet-proof or strong. I am older than I should be, fragile, depressed and sad six days a week. And I hate living in terror all the time. If I sound paranoid to you, join the ranks of the bigots who still discriminate against people like me.
Now that I have been made a target, my first and foremost priority is to get my son out of this cursed land. I am sickened by the emails from groups calling themselves The Lions of Zuma, the ANC Youth Brigade, the Young Communist Brigade, the Youth League, the Spear of Azania, the Young Lions of Msholozi. I am offended by their emails simply listing my physical street address, or that simply state my car details. I am sick of the late-night phone calls and brief phrases in languages I do not understand. I am terrified by the SMSs and will not open MMSs after the one that just had a blurred photo of the entrance to my home. And I am offended by the way the police looked at me when I reported the emails (some of which I found by accident when cleaning out my spam folder).
I have discussed my withdrawal from TL with Riaan Wolmarans and, since I cannot afford the security I seem to need, the authorities couldn’t give a shit if I live or die, and there are no legal resources to fall back on, I must bid you farewell.
What the thinly veiled racism of Sowetan could not achieve, the dark agents of our government have. I can now say without fear of contradiction that we are ruled by truly evil people hell-bent on self-enrichment and self-aggrandisement. And if white bloggers piss them off sufficiently, they will let their mongrels loose. Freedom of expression, like freedom of association and freedom of movement, and accountable governance, transparency, honesty and integrity are as mythical as ubuntu and batho pele.
Tragically, dear reader, you and I matter nothing. The ANC has made it clear that its only real objective is the poor. Jessie Duarte looked me right in the eyes on Tuesday and said so. That sounds admirable at first glance until you understand the poor are the majority who will keep the ANC in power. The poor don’t demand much (and won’t get much either, just enough to sway their vote next year). The poor lack the education and sophistication and worldly wisdom we have. And to most of them, Jacob Zuma and his machine gun and his song and his dance and his gangs of goons are the epitome of the power and leadership they crave.
Here is a recent article from a leading Scottish Sunday newspaper. It says many things I wish I could say.
Like most of South Africa, I have been betrayed, abandoned and terrorised by my government. If this is what it was like for black people under apartheid, I am so, so sorry.
Sorry I didn’t fight harder. Sorry I was not more offended. Sorry I did not go to jail for you.
Not that you would do that for me now, but still I’m sorry because no one should have to live in fear forever.
If I can’t write in freedom, without fear or favour, I will not write at all.
Good bye and good luck.
Struggle for Life in Zimboobwe
This letter is from Margaret Kriel's Morning Mirror and was sent to a reader who then sent it on to us. How very sad to see the world just sit by and watch this happening. Is this what will be South Africa's fate?
Dear World,
I am a 16 year old person living in Zimbabwe. I think the time has come for a more direct appeal, and so I am writing to you, the world.
Maybe, just maybe, there might be someone out there who can help us...
It's tough here now. The inflation rate is so high that if you don't change money within 6 hours you could get half the amount of foreign currency that you would have originally received.
We're starving now; people die around us. In the last year alone at least ten people associated personally with my family have died despite the fact that they were only middle-aged. Other people don't make it to middle age. They don't even make it past childhood.
Our once-proud nation is on it's knees. We flee or die. This beautiful, bountiful once-rich land has become a living hell. We have dealt with it until now; we have made a plan. That was the Zimbabwean motto: "MAKE A PLAN".
But now we can't make a plan. We're too tired, too broken, too bankrupt. We can't afford life, and life does not cost much, not really. We cannot afford to eat, we cannot afford to drink, and we cannot afford to make mistakes, because if we do we die. We don't have the capital to support ourselves, and those few who do, have to deal with the horror of watching their friends and family fall into absolute poverty as they cannot afford to help them.
We're waiting desperately for a great hand to pick us up out of the dirt because at the moment we are outnumbered by Fate herself, and so we close our eyes and pray. We have fought for too long, and have been brought to breaking point. We simply stand, heads down, and bear it. Our spirit has gone; we are defeated. After a valiant struggle of over fifteen years, we have been broken.
There is no will left, no spirit. Like a horse that has been beaten until it cannot fight anymore; we are the same, and, like that horse, we stand dusty, scarred and alone, with dried blood on our sides and lash marks along our flanks. Our ribs too stand out; our hide is also dull.
Our eyes are glazed, our throats are parched, and our knees struggle to support us so that we stand with splayed legs to bear the brunt of the next beating, too dejected even to whimper...
This is my plea. The thought of picking ourselves up again is sickening; one can only take so many blows before oblivion is reached, and we are teetering on the rim of the bottomless void. One more push will be the end of us all...There must be someone out there who can do something. There must be someone out there who cares! We are a destroyed nation, and the world sits back and watches, pretending they cannot hear our cries. I appeal to you all...
HELP US!
A 16 YEAR OLD ZIMBABWEAN......
Church leaders in Zimbabwe have called for international action to prevent post-election violence developing into genocidal proportions.African countries and the UN should intervene to deal with a "deteriorating" situation, they said.
The opposition says it won the 29 March presidential poll outright, but results are yet to be released.
Meanwhile, a Chinese ship carrying weapons to Zimbabwe may return to China after being blocked in South Africa.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the ship's owners were considering bringing the arms back, amid international pressure not to let the ship unload its cargo.
But on Tuesday the ship was located off Africa's southernmost point, the Cape of Good Hope, and was said to be heading in a north-westerly direction.
Recount
In a joint statement, leaders of the main religious denominations warned against leaving the post-election deadlock unresolved.
"If nothing is done to help the people of Zimbabwe from their predicament, we shall soon be witnessing genocide similar to that experienced in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and other hotspots in Africa and elsewhere," they said.
Robert Mugabe is a liberation hero on our continent and he must be convinced to make a graceful exit
Morgan Tsvangirai
"We appeal to the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union and the United Nations to work towards arresting the deteriorating political and security situation in Zimbabwe."
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai insist they beat President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party outright in presidential and parliamentary polls.
An election recount for 23 out of 210 constituencies that had been due to end on Monday, has been delayed for an unknown period.
The MDC has rejected the recount as illegal.
Violence
On Tuesday Mr Tsvangirai said the Zimbabwe Election Commission had been discredited and he would not accept any run-off.
Speaking in Ghana, he appealed for help from the international community.
"Robert Mugabe is a liberation hero on our continent and he must be convinced to make a graceful exit," he said.
Mr Tsvangirai also renewed his criticism of South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has been acting as a mediator over Zimbabwe.
"We call on President Mbeki to be bold and take this historic opportunity to side with the people of Zimbabwe and not with any political party," he said.
The leader of the governing African National Congress in South Africa - Jacob Zuma - has further distanced himself from Mr Mbeki, criticising the delays in publishing the election results.
"It's not acceptable. It's not helping the Zimbabwean people who have gone out to... elect the kind of party and presidential candidate they want, exercising their constitutional right," he told Reuters news agency.
Post-election violence has displaced 3,000 people, injured 500 and left 10 dead, according to MDC secretary general Tendai Biti.
Human rights groups say they have found camps where people are being tortured for having voted "the wrong way".
But Zimbabwe's Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa denied that anyone had died in political violence.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena was reported as saying that of the 10 people reported dead, only four names had been supplied and "of these three have no basis whatsoever while the fourth is still under investigation and will be concluded soon".
US 'pressure'Meanwhile the fate of the Chinese ship, the An Yue Jiang, is still uncertain.
A spokesman at the Lloyds Marine Intelligence Unit in London said that according to the ship's Automatic Identifying System (AIS), it was heading up the coast of Africa, towards Angola.
The ship is reportedly carrying three million rounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and 2,500 mortar rounds.
It had been anchored off the port of Durban for four days before being forced to move on Friday after a South African court refused to allow the weapons to be transported across the country to landlocked Zimbabwe.
A spokesman for the US department of state, Tom Casey, said the US had discouraged China from sending arms to Zimbabwe and had urged Mozambique, South Africa, Angola and Namibia to prevent the ship from docking.
"Right now clearly is not the time that we would want to see anyone putting additional weapons or additional materiel into the system when the situation is so unsettled and when we have seen real and visible instances of abuses committed by the security forces," he told reporters.
The MDC says the arms could be used to "wage war" on its supporters ahead of a possible run-off in the presidential election, a charge the government has strongly denied.
Source
Robbers shoot man watching TV
Johan Myburgh jun, 33, was shot in his father's lounge chair in front of the television.
His arm was still lying behind his head, his one leg folded beneath him and next to him stood a cooldrink when his grandfather discovered his body on Saturday morning.
He was hit in the back of the head by a single shot and died instantly. There were believed to have been two attackers.
According to inspector Kgeredi Moela of the Groblersdal police station, the attackers had then entered the house by breaking a bedroom window and climbing through the window.
Stole guns, money 
They sawed open the safe and fled with R50 000 and three firearms - a .22 gun, a pistol of unknown calibre and a .38 Special revolver.
"It is terrible and so unnecessary," said Myburgh's grandmother, Joey Myburgh, 77, on Monday. Her husband, also Johan, 84, discovered the body. Myburgh junior lived with his parents, Fanie, 55, and Petro Myburgh, 51, on their farm Rietfontein.
The farm is about 25 km outside Groblersdal on the Middelburg road.
According to Petro her grandson was alone at home on Friday evening because his parents were attending a caravan get-together in Witbank.
Earlier on he had dinner at his grandmother's, who lived one and a half kilometres from them, but then returned home.
The police suspect him to have been killed between 20:00 and 22:00.
Petro said that they only discovered on Monday morning that her grandson had been shot.
"Some of the farmworkers came to us early that morning and said there were many footprints around the house and that the doors were standing open.
"My husband immediately went over and found Johan. The place was covered in blood".
"I did not go. I was shaking too much to even telephone the police. My husband had to do it. It is terribly cruel."
The deceased ran a business with his father Fanie, erecting palisade fences and roofs.
His father also farms with cattle, sheep and goats on the farm.
According to Moela the post-mortem will be held later this week.
A man was questioned by police on Monday, but ruled out as a suspect and allowed to go.
About a week ago a neighbour's house had been broken into and a revolver stolen.
This weapon was possibly used to kill Myburgh jun.
Source
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Civil servants investigated for housing fraud
A total of 31 000 civil servants nationwide are currently under investigation for housing fraud. The Special Investigative Unit is probing possible corruption charges relating to how the public servants acquired low cost houses.
About 9 000 of them are already facing prosecution in the country's courts, as investigations into their cases have been finalised. More than 400 public servants have signed an acknowledgement of debt in this regard, totaling more than R9 million.
They are allowed to repay the money that should have been paid for the houses over a maximum period of 60 months. Nearly R1 million of this amount has already been paid back.
Meanwhile, Housing Department Director General Itumeleng Kotsoane says most of these fraudulent activities took place in the late 1990s and early 2000 due to the failure of their systems to detect and verify some of the applicant's details.
Of the 31 000 public servants under investigation, Gauteng has the most - with more than 9 000. The Northern Cape is last, with about 500.
Lichtenburg farm couple murdered
JOHANNESBURG - A Lichtenburg couple were found murdered on their farm on Monday night, police said on Tuesday.
Police spokeswoman Superintendent Carina Fourie said At and Katerina Deysel’s neighbours saw their bakkie crashed on the side of the road and immediately tried to contact them at home.
On getting no reply they sped over to the farm and found At’s body outside the house and Katerina’s body lying inside.
Subsequent investigations established that besides the bakkie, four firearms and a cellphone were missing.
The dog unit, mounted police and organised crime units in the area were mobilised and a massive search was underway for the two people informants told police may have been responsible for the murders.
It is believed that the attackers could be the same suspects who escaped from prison on Sunday night.
"There was a farm attack last night on Mr and Mrs Geysel. Mr Geysel who was 60-years-old and his wife Katrina Geysel 56-years- old were murdered."
"The incident happened at around 5pm yesterday. At this stage four weapons are missing out of the house ... and we are busy investigating," says Fourie.
Unsafe water kills 80 kids
Johannesburg - Nearly 80 children have died in an Eastern Cape district due to unsafe tap water and authorities have failed to take any action, the Daily Dispatch Online reported on Tuesday.
Despite evidence of a lethal epidemic in the Ukhahlamba District Municipality (UKDM), which included the towns of Barkly East, Maclear, Sterkspruit and Elliot, municipal authorities have yet to issue a public warning.
An official health report indicated that there had been a breakdown in water purification works in October last year and called for urgent action, but no action has been taken, the report said.
The babies had died from diarrhoea and other complications.
The health report, only tabled last week at a closed council meeting, recommended urgent action, including declaring an emergency in the area to save further lives, but this was not done, the Dispatch reported.
The UKDM's municipal manager, Zolile Williams, blamed the Cloete Joubert Hospital in Barkly East for the high number of deaths, saying it had failed to report them in time for a proper investigation.
He said the hospital had not conducted tests on stool samples, eliminating any chances of locating the cause of death.
However, a senior hospital manager, who asked not be named, said they had informed the municipality but nothing was done until 15 deaths were reported.
Black double standards
South Africa does not need the likes of sacked Sunday Times columnist David Bullard, Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan said on Tuesday. "He is the type of person South Africa does not need within its borders," he told a media briefing at Parliament. South Africa had its own racist "headaches" without having to import them from England or elsewhere. Jordan said he had been alarmed at what Bullard had been writing in his column and what he had been getting away with. People were no longer willing to tolerate such calculated insults. He likened it to "coming into someone's living room and defecating on their carpet.."
What this half baked black racist spastic dipstick Pallo Asswipe most conveniently doesn't mention is the black criminal scum that didn't walk into Bullard's house and shit on his carpet, they broke into his house and shot him.
So Bullard is called a "White Racist"and as such stands accused, in the opinion of Pallo "Poesfeatures" Jordan of being predisposed to walking into peoples' houses to shit on their carpets.
Now according to Pallo the saint and guardian of the national standards of Arsezanian black morality, this mythical predisposition of "White racists" is a whole lot worse and more heinous than the age-old documented congenital predisposition of black racist criminal scum to break into the houses of white people to torture them, rape them and murder them - every day in South Africa.
THESE are the people South Africa does not need within it's borders you clown.
Has the world gone flippin' insane?
Hackles Rising
Liberalism at it’s very best ….. sic!
"People don't want a death to be in vain or senseless," Biehl said in an interview on Monday - her 65th birthday and the eve of a ceremony at which President Thabo Mbeki is to grant her one of his nation's highest honours.
The Californian's then-26-year-old daughter, Amy, was stabbed and stoned to death in the waning days of apartheid in a township near Cape Town where she was studying how women were contributing to change in South Africa. Amy Biehl was white, and her black assailants claimed the attack was part of the war on white rule.
Linda Biehl and her husband, Peter, who died in 2002, forgave the four men convicted in their daughter's 1993 death, and embraced the truth and reconciliation process on which South Africa embarked after white rule ended in 1994.
"If it weren't for the institutionalised process that we went through, we would not be connected in a personal reconciliation," said Biehl, who divides her time between Newport Beach, California, and Cape Town. "I'm just interested in finding the humanity in all of us, which I thought was the essence of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission."
Biehl said she sees the attackers as much victims as her daughter, too caught up in the struggle against apartheid to value life or consider personal responsibility. And now they and many like them are unequipped to prosper in post-apartheid South Africa.
"They had the skills to make the bombs, to strategise in guerrilla warfare," Biehl said, noting that many slipped into crime after apartheid ended. She hopes working with her foundation will mean a better future for at least some of the generation that embraced the call for liberation before education.
"These are committed people ... they should also be part of the change," she said.
Woman's body found in car workshop
The body of a 44-year-old woman was found in a car workshop in Motherwell, Port Elizabeth, police said on Tuesday.
Police Spokesperson Dumile Gwavu said it was thought that the woman had been raped and beaten to death.
Gwavu said the body had been found by one of the workmen when he reported for duty on Sunday.
Police said the woman's body had been identified but her details could not be released pending further investigations.
"It is sensitive so I can not say much at this stage - but I appeal to any witnesses to come forward with information," Gwavu said.
An autopsy would be carried out on Tuesday to determine the cause of death, police said.
Blackouts aid power thieves
Blackouts are helping electricity thieves to make illegal, dangerous electricity connections.
This is while eThekwini Municipality electricity department bosses say Eskom's proposed 65 percent electricity price hike will result in illegal connections increasing because many people will not be able to afford the new tariffs.
The department's deputy head of illegal connections, Sewraj Harilal, said on Monday that cutting off power during load-shedding made it safer and easier for criminals to illegally connect to the grid.
Electricity department deputy head Keith Moulder said the department was bracing itself for a possible increase in illegal connections if Eskom's request for a 53 percent increase in electricity prices - coupled with the already agreed upon 12 percent increase - was granted by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa.
"People who simply cannot afford the increases will start tampering with illegal connections. This is one area we have identified as a potential problem and we are preparing for it," he said.
At present, about 4,5 percent of the municipality's electricity is lost, with about 2 percent of this attributed to electricity theft. The balance is attributable to "technical losses" from downsizing electricity voltage between Gauteng and individual homes.
Electricity theft costs the municipality between R35-million and R45-million a year.
Moulder said a team from the department's revenue protection division was assembled to reduce electricity theft in the municipality.
Apart from making regular trips to "hot spot" areas, particularly informal settlements, the team also monitors consumer patterns.
The team visits areas where there is a sudden increase in power usage to investigate the cause. Often it is found that illegal connections are responsible for the surge.
Moulder added that the measures were proving successful, with the non-technical loss figure hovering around the 2 percent mark for the past 10 years.
"The figure would have been high and more of a problem if we had not managed it. The system is very well maintained," he said.
He added that delegations from other countries that had visited the city were "impressed", benchmarking it against First World countries in controlling electricity theft.
Harilal said many measures were being implemented to reduce illegal connections, including deployment of teams to do "sweeps" in certain areas to root out such connections.
All illegal connections found were removed, but they were often reconnected once the teams left.
The municipality was also trying to make it more difficult for electricity cables to be accessed by switching from underground to overhead cables.
Access
Meter rooms would also be made more secure to stop people from breaking in. Harilal said criminals would break open doors and padlocks, but electronic access controls would be installed to make access difficult.
Security guards were also regularly patrolling hot spots. The patrols would be increased as more illegal connections were expected.
Pinetown resident Andreas Mathios, who is making a television documentary on electricity theft, said he tried to make a citizen's arrest of a man he saw tampering with an electricity box in Cato Manor last week.
"I was driving past the informal settlement when I spotted a man rolling up cables used to make an illegal connection. I grabbed him and tried to hold him down while I called the metro police, but the man overpowered me and threatened me with a knife, so I decided to leave," he said.
He said he had many pictures of illegal connections in Cato Manor, illustrating that they were common.
Mathios said security guards told him that electricity thieves could be seen making illegal connections during power cuts, especially at night.
Eskom spokesperson Andrew Etzinger said the power utility recognised that illegal connections resulted in a revenue loss of 2,5 percent.
"Currently these connections are increasing the pressure on the national grid, but we do have revenue protection units to eradicate these connections. It is a difficult process because as soon as the connections are removed they crop up again.
"Our main concern is that since these consumers do not pay for the electricity, they will not see the need to use it efficiently," Etzinger said. The same can be said for everything else the k4s take for nothing. These are society's parasites!
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