2 NEWS THURSDAY MAY 15 2014 The Star
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TAKEStolen cables disrupt trainsTRAINS were disrupted after cables were stolen at Alliance stationin Ekurhuleni yesterday, Metrorail said. “The cable theft affectedthe movement of trains between Daveyton and Dunswart,” saidspokesman Tony Games. He said buses were arranged to takecommuters to and from the areas affected. “Metrorail sincerelyapologises for the inconvenience caused and invites commutersto make alternative arrangements if possible.” He appealed topeople to report any cable theft. “It is not only the commutersgetting affected, but also the economy of the country.” – Sapa
Two 4-year-olds in pit tragedyTWO CHILDREN died when they fell into a pit at an earlychildhood development centre in Nqutu, KwaZulu-Natal SocialDevelopment MEC Weziwe Thusi said yesterday. The children,both aged 4, fell into the pit on Monday, Thusi said. “As adepartment, we will not rest until we know what led to thechildren’s deaths. I have ordered an urgent investigation todetermine a number of matters, including the legality of thecentre and compliance with rules and regulations focusing onsafety.” – Sapa
Tip-off helps nab dagga dealerA 22-YEAR-OLD man accused of cultivating and dealing in daggawas arrested in Uitenhage yesterday, Eastern Cape police said.The man was caught after police were tipped off, said WarrantOfficer Gerda Swart. Police recovered dagga and equipment withan estimated street value of R10 000. Eastern Cape provincialcommissioner Lieutenant-General Celiwe Binta commended thepublic for informing the police of illegal activities. “Dagga is inmost cases used as an introductory drug, which then leads toexperimenting with other, heavier drugs,” she said. – Sapa
Police lashed over corruptionPOLICE management is not doing enough to prevent corruptionwithin its ranks, the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry heardyesterday. “There is no leadership in the SAPS on corruption,”criminologist Liza Grobler testified. “One just needs to look at thecrime intelligence unit as an example.” Grobler’s testimony waschallenged by counsel for the police Thabani Masuku, whodescribed her comments as “irresponsible”. “My research isbased on fact and did not fall out of the air,” she replied. Thecommission was set up by Western Cape Premier Helen Zille afterthe Social Justice Coalition complained that police inefficiencywas the reason for mob killings becoming more prevalent. – Sapa
Don’t fall for e-tolls ‘trap’ – OutaTHE OPPOSITION to Urban Tolling Alliance warned Gautenge-toll road users yesterday to think before being “seduced” bythe SA National Roads Agency’s offer to register for e-tags.“Sanral is desperate to get the over 1.3 million non-compliantfreeway users to play on their turf by signing their terms andconditions,” spokesman John Clarke said. Sanral announcedon Tuesday that the grace period for e-toll road users to settletheir accounts and benefit from the discount had been extended.– Sapa
AFRICA EDITION
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Arms deal fraud, manipulation ‘exposed’Generalcalls forprobe intodeviationsLOUISE [email protected]
LIEUTENANT-GeneralPierre Steyn resigned assecretary for defence
before the 1999 arms deal wassigned because he thought it wasa dodgy deal.
Steyn pointed a finger at thethen minister of defence, the lateJoe Modise, and the then depart-ment of defence’s chief of acqui-sition, Chippy Shaik, as key peo-ple involved in manipulating theStrategic Defence ProcurementPackage (SDPP).
“In view of persistentattempts by the minister to dis-miss sound financial arguments,ignoring prescribed acquisitionprocesses and unduly speedingup the SDPP process, I contendthat the process adopted by theminister, devotedly supported bythe chief of acquisition, lackedtransparency and was influencedand manipulated to such anextent that the possibility offraud and corruption cannotsummarily be dismissed,” Steynsaid in his statement to the Arms Procurement Commissionyesterday.
He did not offer the commis-sion hard evidence of corruptionand bribery but called for thecommission to investigate it.
The commission is investigat-ing the controversial arms dealsigned in December 1999,through which the SANDFbought frigates, submarines,fighter jets and helicopters.
Steyn raised queries over thefinances and said “the recklessdisregard of fiscal discipline byinter alia my executive (the min-ister of defence) made itabsolutely impossible for me toeffectively discharge my fiduci-ary duties associated with a law-ful process of acquiring armsand defence equipment”.
His attempts to persuade theminister of the risks failed, so heresigned in August 1998 and left
at the end of November, almost ayear before his contract was upand before the deal was signed.
Steyn, a lieutenant-generalwho spent 34 years in the SA AirForce, was secretary for defencefrom August 1994 to November30, 1998, and was thus theaccounting officer during thattime.
Steyn said the deal deviatedfrom the standard acquisitionprocesses; the offsets were over-emphasised, unsubstantiatedand not delivered on; the dealcouldn’t be accommodated in thebudgets; the aircraft purchaseswere manipulated; and the wholething was a dangerous financialrisk.
“In my view, the deviationsfrom the standard acquisitionprocesses, which the minister of
defence fashioned, laid the foun-dation for the executive andsenior officials of the depart-ment and Armscor to frustratethe proper regulation of the col-lection, receipt, control, custodyand issue of state money and thereceipt, custody and control ofstate property,” said Steyn.
He said a “concurrent andunauthorised” acquisition pro-cess was set up by Shaik.
Steyn said Shaik signed assecretary for defence – Steyn’sposition – as the authority to setup that concurrent process, a factSteyn said he discovered onlyrecently while compiling hisstatement for the commission.
He called the process whichShaik set up – the strategic offerscommittee, or Sofcom – a way ofcircumventing the correct struc-
tures and manipulating theacquisition process.
Steyn said the manipulatedprocesses affected the fighteraircraft purchases: the lead-infighter trainer; the Hawksbought from BAe in Britain; andthe advanced light fighter trainer(Alfa), the Gripens bought fromSaab in Sweden.
“The choice of the Hawk waspredicated on fraudulent mani-pulation of information, and thechoice of the Alfa aircraft wassuperfluous as the air force hadno need thereof,” said Steyn.
He said Modise made a “sub-jective decision” to phase out theSAAF’s existing Cheetah aircraft(which had at least 14 years ofservice left) and buy new Alfaaircraft which weren’t needed,and that the decision to buy theBritish aircraft was unjustifiableand done “at considerable extracost which was unnecessary”.
Steyn accused Shaik of tryingto pretend, via faked minutes,that a briefing by Modise to thendeputy president Thabo Mbekiand other ministers in August1998 was a cabinet meeting whichdecided to recommend the
Hawks. This meeting has previ-ously been dismissed by thesecretary of cabinet as not beinga cabinet meeting.
Steyn criticised the deal’sfinances, saying the procedureModise adopted to gain cabinetapproval “contained a danger-ous cocktail of financial and eco-nomic risks” for both SouthAfrica and the Department ofDefence. There was no formalbudget, as legally required, hesaid.
“The total cost of the militaryequipment was approved by thecabinet only during the negotia-tion phase.”
Former fighter pilot Steyn’scareer included being chief ofdefence force staff from 1990 to1993 and chief of defence forcepersonnel from 1989 to 1990.
QUIT OUT OF DESPAIR: Former secretary for defence Lieutenant-General Pierre Steyn appeared before the Arms Procurement Commission yesterday overthe controversial 1999 arms deal. PICTURE: OUPA MOKOENA
Violent games influence kids’ behaviourTANYA FARBER
NEW RESEARCH that demon-strates a link between violentvideo games and aggressive behaviour in young children hasraised an alarm in South Africa, where levels of violenceare among the highest in theworld.
Presented at an internationalconference in Canada earlier thismonth, the report says a “singlebrief exposure to violent mediacan increase aggression in theimmediate situation”, while“repeated exposure leads togeneral increases in aggressive-ness over time”.
In South Africa, says KevinSouthgate, a community leader inthe notoriously violent Cape Townarea of Lavender Hill, it would be“very naive of us to think thatyoung people don’t make the con-nection between what they play orsee on the screen and what is hap-pening around them”.
He says there is no doubt thatongoing exposure to violence inboth gaming and in reality areleading to “younger and younger”members of communities takingon the same characteristics.
“They see this as a form of
exposing themselves to the reali-ties that they experience on a dailybasis,” he says.
“And that makes it all seem normal. In school, more than ever,we are seeing young people actingout forms of violence andbullying.”
This is in a national contextof violent crimes that echo thethemes portrayed in games likethe Grand Theft Auto series, whichhas players taking on the role of acriminal in a big city and risingthrough the ranks of organisedcrime.
When the UN Office on Drugsand Crime released its GlobalStudy on Homicide last year, SouthAfrica featured in the top 10 coun-tries with the worst homiciderates, and the list of countries wasthen featured in an article on thepopular Huffington Post online
news outlet.Another symptom of South
Africa’s infamy for its levels ofviolence was when Interpoldubbed the country the rape capi-tal of the world and reported thatwomen were “more likely to beraped than educated”.
Says William Bird, the directorof Media Monitoring Africa: “Inthis context, it would hardly besurprising that if children areexposed to more violence in gamesand media, then it is likely tonegatively impact them. Violencebegets violence.”
He also points out that politi-cians use violent discourse, andthat “some of our biggest mediastories like Marikana, (Shrien)Dewani and (Oscar) Pistorius areall focused on violence”.
But he adds: “I would be loathto suggest that exposure to violentgames or media alone will lead toviolent behaviour.
“It is more likely to flow fromthe home experience and atschool.”
He says we urgently need tochange the culture of violence inthe country, and suggests high-lighting non-violent role modelsfrom celebrities to politicians andmusicians.
Website portraying fights slammedANGELIQUE [email protected]
AT FIRST it looks like a sick joke,but then you realise it’s real.
Someone has started a websiteencouraging South Africanchildren to post videos of schoolfights in exchange for cash.
SchoolFights.co.za started onMay 6 as both a website and apage on Facebook – and in justone week has already received 744likes on Facebook.
It offers a subscriber option.and if you sign up, all new videoswill be sent to your e-mail.
”We’re looking for your#fightvideos. Have a video of afight at school or somewhere else? Inbox us – it might be worthsome MONEY,” the website says.
It has posted videos of childrenand parents beating each otherup, with captions underneath like“Rugby. There’s clearly no love lostbetween these two teams” and“Watch. Two SA schoolboys fightover a cheating girlfriend”.
One video, captioned “watch aschoolboy knock out an older guy.The guy hits the floor like a sack ofpotatoes”, clearly shows a womanand a schoolboy involved in afight.
While some of the people whohave liked the page on Facebookhave expressed delight at whatthey are seeing, others criticised it.
Izabella Little, author of theLifetalk books, which encouragebetter behaviour in teenagers andresponsible parenting, saidhearing about these sites made
her blood run cold. She said they had seen a
dramatic increase in schoolviolence over the past year andshe felt sites like this would fuelthis negative trend.
“This is the opposite of whatwe need; all it will do is encouragechildren to fight.”
VICIOUS: A girl roughs up a schoolmate in one of the videos postedon the SchoolFights Facebook page. PICTURE: FACEBOOK
We urgently need tochange the cultureof violence in SA
I gave certificate toMdunge, court toldTANIA BROUGHTON
A TEACHER who claims he taught former KZN policespokesman Vincent Mdunge 30 years ago came tocourt yesterday to testify that he personally remem-bered handing him his matric certificate.
Donald Khumalo, now an uMlazi school principal,said he had taught Mdunge English in 1984 and 1985at a school in Hammarsdale.
“He was good at English and participated indebates. That is how I remember him,” he told Dur-ban Regional Court magistrate Thandeka Fikeni.
Mdunge is on trial for fraud relating to his matriccertificate, which the state says is fake. Evidencebefore the court is that education department recordsshows it bears an exam number beginning with “83”,which was allocated to Mdunge when he wrote hisStandard 8 exams.
Records reflect that in 1985 – under an exam num-ber beginning with “85” – Mdunge wrote and failedmatric, and he also failed supplementary exams he satthe following March.
But the former police colonel – who retired from theSAPS last year just before his arrest – claims he is thevictim of a vendetta and he passed matric in 1985.
Under cross-examination by State prosecutorBarend Groen, Khumalo said he was not friends withMdunge and had met up with him only once, aboutfive years ago, at a function.
He said while he could not remember properly, hebelieved there were about 50 pupils in two matricclasses at the school when he taught Mdunge.
Khumalo said he doubted there would be anyrecords left at the school because of political violencein the area at the time.
The trial has been adjourned to August when,Mdunge’s advocate Saleem Khan said, five morewitnesses would be called.
SA and Mozambiqueteam up to save rhinosJOYCE [email protected]
ALREADY this year, 245 rhinoshave been poached in KrugerNational Park, according to theDepartment of Environmental Affairs.
With the figure expected to grow, South Africa andMozambique, which share a border inside Kruger, havefinished a draft to implement the agreement signedbetween the two countries early last month.
The draft agreement also includes plans to pumpmore money and people into the anti-poaching unit inthe park, where the problem is most severe.
Last month, just a week after the country signed thememorandum of understanding with South Africa,Mozambique passed a Conservation Areas Act, makingsentences for rhino poaching and other wildlife crimesmore severe.
South Africa has similar memorandums with Chinaand Vietnam, where rhino horns are in high demand fortheir rumoured medicinal benefits.
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