Table of contents for 2025-10-10 in DFA News

SOL PLAATJE municipal officials were lambasted by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) for allowing the city to deteriorate into a state of neglect, where residents were left to “live like animals” in sewage and without access to clean water. The SAHRC held an inquiry into service delivery failures at Northern Cape municipalities in Kimberley this week. SAHRC commissioner Dr Henk Boshoff said that political turmoil at the Sol Plaatje Municipality was hampering service delivery and refused to accept the “feeble excuses” offered by officials. “Council should be dissolved. Good grief, nothing is being done about the mess while people are living like animals and human rights are being violated. This is an absolute embarrassment for Sol Plaatje Local Municipality. Councillors and the administration do not know what they…

THE COMMISSION of Inquiry to Investigate Traditional Leadership Disputes in the John Taolo Gaetsewe District of the Northern Cape has not been able to commence its work as it is still waiting for the necessary funds. The chairperson of the commission, Professor Joseph Mandla Maseko, explained that the commission was established by Premier Zamani Saul in terms of a court order in July. “The commission was given two years to complete its investigations, and we are falling behind schedule. For reasons beyond our control, the commission has not been able to commence its work. To mitigate the loss of public faith, the commission has written to the premier, highlighting the challenges,” he said. He added that meetings scheduled this year with traditional leaders had to be cancelled, as a budget…

Celebrating Dave Alexander’s quiet devotion to the game of cricket IF YOU have been a player or a spectator at a club cricket match in Kimberley over the last four decades, chances are you’ve had the privilege of watching Dave Alexander in action. Dave would be the seemingly unassuming, but very alert and switched-on umpire standing on the field making key decisions that would decide batsmen’s fate — and therefore the course of the game. I had the privilege of working with Dave at the DFA a few years ago, and every end of the week, he’d announce which games he’d be umpiring. I would jokingly encourage him to keep his itchy trigger finger loaded and ready, but he’d calmly remind me – ensuring that I understood it clearly –…

A GROUP of unemployed Kimberley job seekers set tyres alight outside the Transnet depot in Austen Street, Beaconsfield, this week, disrupting traffic flow. They alleged that they were excluded from an intake of 79 recruits who were instead hired from Bloemfontein, QwaQwa and the North West. “Their home addresses were falsified. The positions are for general workers, and if we do not have the required skills, they can send us for training,” they stated. Community Alliance South Africa (Casa) provincial secretary Chantel Jaftha added that meetings were held with Transnet, where an undertaking was made to employ the local workforce; however, workers from outside the province were given preference. The Transnet Rail Infrastructure manager indicated that all fixed-term contractor appointments made at the Kimberley depot followed a transparent recruitment process.…

IT SEEMS to be true what they say – there’s really no rest for the wicked. So there I was on Monday, with one of those extremely rare days off. The problem is, I’ve become such a workaholic that I hardly know what to do with myself when I’m not working. One thing I do know: I can’t stay home, where my laptop lurks and tempts me like a stocked refrigerator at midnight when my tummy starts to growl. So on days off, I get in my car and drive around to keep myself away from that screen. That’s when I noticed a plume of smoke nearby. Out of mild curiosity – and just to avoid work – I drove over to check it out. It turned out to be…

Look … here’s the thing; it’s very simple – no one is going to come from outside Kimberley to outshine our city’s runners. At least, that seems to be the attitude of Kimberley’s athletes, if you carefully consider the evidence at hand. Since October 1, when entries opened for the Diamond & Dorings Kimberley Big Hole Marathon, roads in and around Kimberley have been bustling with local runners clocking up kilometres, so that come November 22, they can get more mileage out of their legs. So impressive has been the rush, that not even a week after entries opened, organisers announced that by October 7, they had reached the 500 entry milestone. No time to lose Yes, that’s correct, if you’re still mulling over whether you are going to…

A NUMBER of Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) workers who embarked on strike action in Kimberley last week are refusing to return to work after an interdict was obtained against them. The workers tore up the urgent interim interdict that was handed to them on October 6, which prevents them from being within 500 metres of Sol Plaatje Municipality’s business sites. They were aggrieved that stun grenades were fired at them on October 3 during a protest at the municipal yard in Ashburnham, where the entrance was barricaded with burning tyres, bricks, and rubble. “One worker was injured. This is while the protest action was peaceful,” they said. EPWP workers are also upset that they were marked as absent during the strike and stated that no feedback had been received…

HIGH drama unfolded in the Northern Cape High Court this week at the start of the trial of George “Barney” Peters, along with other alleged members of the “Hollanders gang”. Peters and his co-accused — Britney Arends, Stephanie McAnda, Simone Rose, Chinaaz Mentoor, Abigail van Wyk, Chane Adams, Michael Peters, Clive Peters, Deon May, Pamerston Mentoor, Henry Blom, Vincent Rosen, Tshepo Malambi, Nico Hofuza, and Shawn Smith — are facing 117 charges, including murder, attempted murder, gang activity, illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, discharge of a firearm in a built-up area, public violence, money laundering, racketeering, defeating the ends of justice, assault, kidnapping, fraud, and dealing in drugs. According to a death certificate that was handed in, accused Thabo Sekapano, who previously sustained a head injury after being shot,…

In Leo Tolstoy’s short story How Much Land Does a Man Need?, a peasant named Pahom becomes obsessed with owning more land, convinced it will bring him peace and prosperity. What transpires is that the more he gets, the more he wants – until, offered a chance to claim as much land as he can walk around in a single day, he pushes himself past exhaustion. He completes the circuit, but collapses, and dies due to exertion. Tolstoy ends with a line that has echoed for generations: all a man truly needs is six feet of land – heels to head – enough to be buried in. We can learn from Pahom; more is not always better. Yet in modern sport, “more” seems to be the only thing that matters.…