Author: Sue Maclennan

This will be a year of instability for local government according to ANC Chief Whip in Makana Mabhuti Matyumza. He quickly explained to senior councillors and officials at a meeting yesterday in the council chambers that wage negotiations among employees would loom large on municipal agendas. However, whatever rumblings labour might generate said Matyumza, there would be no shake-up in Makana Municipality as a result of former president Jacob Zuma’s resignation. He was speaking to Grocott’s Mail in an interview after chairing the Infrastructure and Technical Services Portfolio Committee meeting yesterday. Grocott’s asked the local ANC and DA how the…

Friends of Simphiwe Tana – Thomas Pongolo, Wilfred Appolis, Bonaparte Basie (holding Tana’s photo), Richard Alexander and Chris Matya – invite members of the running community to join them in forming a guard of honour for the late Grahamstown runner at 7am this Sunday 11 February. They will run alongside the hearse from Matebese Funerals in O-Street to the family home in Extension 7, joined by other runners from Grahamstown, Port Alfred and Port Elizabeth. Around 8.30am they will again form a guard of honour from the family home to the Ethiopia Church in Extension 9. Anyone is welcome to…

“I want to be the last person this happens to,” was Rhodes PhD student Michaelone Vaaltyn’s reaction to being robbed while she was asleep in her bed. Vaaltyn, who shares a relative’s house in Extension 10, woke up last Sunday morning to find the door open, and the cellphone she slept with under her pillow missing, along with her tablet, her cousin’s cellphone, a watch, several pairs of shoes and her purse with all her bank, ID and access cards. She’s terrified that the silent ‘Ninja’ burglars will return and wants to warn other residents to be extra careful. She…

Port Alfred police yesterday detained three women ranging in age from 33 to 60 on serious assault charges according to provincial SAPS spokesperson Colonel Sibongile Soci. The arrests were part of an operation by a team of detectives from Nemato and the Port Alfred K9 unit to trace suspects. They were among 14 suspects successfully apprehended. In addition: * A 59 year old man faces a charge of breach of a protection order * 8 men between the ages of 22 and 47 face charges of serious assault. * Two males aged 26 and 33 were detained on charges of…

When Grahamstown’s most famous feline hit the fundraising trail last week, his owner, Grahamstown businessperson Tim Dold, never imagined Shattercat would get much past the R10 000 mark, let alone crack the R12 300 he’d raised by yesterday. Two weeks ago, a plan long in the making finally came together. Funded by donations from Grahamstown residents and businesses, citizen action group Makana Revive hired a Jetpatcher machine from East London to professionally repair some of Grahamstown’s notorious potholes. Starting in Albert Street in Fingo Village, the four-person team has gone on to deal with main CBD access roads High Street…

Within two days of arriving in Grahamstown, district municipal manager Ted Pillay had secured the continued use of the Jetpatcher that the citizen group Makana Revive brought to town at the beginning of the month to fix the city’s notorious potholes. The machine, accompanied by a team of four from East London, started work repairing Albert Street in Fingo Village last Thursday and has proceeded to repair the town’s busier access roads. Pillay, seconded by the Sarah Baartman District Municipality to Makana for a three-month turnaround, was introduced to the Makana Council at its first full sitting of the year,…

In a strongly worded statement the ANC in the Sarah Baartman Region says the sooner Jacob Zuma steps down from the Presidency the better, labelling his possible efforts to hold on to the position as “unprincipled conduct”. The REC statement was issued hours after Tobeka Madiba-Zuma was reported on News24 as warning that all hell would break loose and accusing those trying to remove her husband from the Presidency of “picking a fight”. The party’s Regional Executive, of which Phindile Faxi is acting chair, warned against reducing the matter of Zuma’ stepping down to a narrow family matter and emphasised…

Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Des Van Rooyen says efforts are under way to classify the drought as a national disaster. This would assign new responsibilities to the Minister of Water and Sanitation to issue regulations and directives in dealing with the drought. The Minister said this when he led a briefing of the Inter-Ministerial Task Team on Drought at the Imbizo Centre in Cape Town. “Currently, efforts are underway to classify the drought as a national disaster. This process will be finalized on or before 14 February 2018. “This will legally assign the responsibility to the national executive…

Definitions within the Doctrine of Common Purpose, and what outside a court of law might be viewed as semantics, featured in the argument for conviction of four men who stand accused of murdering Grahamstown man Thembelani Qwakanisa. Qwakanisa’s mutilated body was found in Zion Dam in Extension 6 on 5 October 2016. He had been brutally tortured. Thembani Onceya represented by attorney Henry Charles of Legal Aid SA, Akhona Onceya (Viwe Mqeke from Mqeke Attorneys), Simamkele Theron Onceya (advocate Charles Stamper) and Mzwanele Degree Maki (advocate Jock McConnachie) all maintained their not-guilty plea last week. Maki, 26, in December 2017…

Governance monitor PSAM has voiced support for the secondment of Manager of the Sarah Baartman District Municipality Ted Pillay to Makana; however, they have cautioned that the three months Pillay will be based in the municipality are not enough to solve the institution’s systemic problems. In a move hailed across party divides as positive, Pillay has been seconded to Makana for three months as of  Thursday 1 February. In the first full Council meeting of  2018 on Wednesday, both ANC and DA councillors called for officials, politicians and residents alike to get behind Pillay in his efforts to put the…