The first day of the academic year is always eventful, sometimes overwhelming, for pupils and their caregivers.

Some parents took to social media to share pictures and videos of their children’s first day in “big school”.

“Bundle of joy” was trending at number two on Twitter on Wednesday with South Africans sharing anecdotes of how the first day was going. Parents and guardians noted, in jest, that they were glad the children were going back to school as they could be a handful during the holidays.Another commentator pointed out the inequalities that still exist in the education system, saying there were still pupils living in rural SA who had to overcome numerous challenges including walking a long way and crossing rivers.

‘Prasa has suffered from mismanagement and deteriorating corporate governance. Today it is a broken organisation,’ says Fikile Mbalula.
Image: Ruvan Boshoff
The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) – incorporating the South African Rail Commuter Corporation, Metrorail and Shosholoza Meyl – has in the past two years lost almost R1bn to train fires, vandalism, public disorder, train collisions and floods.

Speaking at a media briefing on Wednesday, transport minister Fikile Mbalula and Prasa’s administrator Bongisizwe Mpondo conceded that the state entity was a “broken” business in need of urgent intervention.

“Prasa has suffered blows from many years of mismanagement and deteriorating corporate governance. Today it is a broken organisation, struggling to provide an efficient commuter and passenger rail service,” said Mbalula.

Mbalula said overcrowded trains, ageing infrastructure, old rolling stock, rampant crime, poor internal controls and other ills were the order of the day at Prasa.in August after realising that Prasa had seen a sustained decline over the years in its ability to provide a reliable, safe and predictable service with Metrorail and Shosholoza Meyl.

He said the war room focused on service recovery and getting operations to a level that meets, if not exceeds, expectations. He added that the war room unearthed many landmines due to internal dynamics and external factors.

Mbalula also took a swipe at the old interim board, which he fired in late 2019, stating that even if they went to court and challenged his decision, they would never return as Prasa board members.

“They can do all their tricks. The thing is the old board lied about the problems at this entity. In this place people do as they please … there are no consequences for poor performance and theft.”

He said the downward spiral of Prasa was self-inflicted due to poor and indecisive leadership, which had allowed a culture of impunity to prevail.

“In his 2018/19 audit report, the auditor-general was scathing in his assessment of leadership at Prasa. We declined from an unqualified opinion … we are now at disclaimer, the worst audit you can get … but all this happened when we had an interim board.”The work of the war room was supplemented by an organisational assessment conducted by the Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC), part of the National Treasury.

Mbalula said the GTAC report “flagged critical systemic issues that caused bottlenecks in the achievement of the war room targets”, including:

the collapse of internal systems and controls;
dysfunctional supply-chain management processes;
hollowed-out project management capability; and
a business model that requires urgent review.
“These were further compounded by incidents of theft and vandalism and prevalent crime,” he added.

In the past year, Prasa incurred a deficit in revenue of R1.7bn. In 2018 it had a surplus of R1.4bn.

Prasa could not provide appropriate documentation to enable the office of the auditor-general to do its job. The A-G issued a disclaimer of opinion on the 2019 annual financial statements, meaning that no reliance could be placed on the financial statements.

Mbalula dissolved the interim board in December and placed Prasa under administration.

The man accused of the rape and murder of 12-year-old Michaela Williams in Cape Town was on parole after serving time for an attack on another child, angry family and friends heard in the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court on Monday.

Michaela’s mother Beatrice Adams was so distraught that she started crying out helplessly and hyperventilating as she waited in the packed court to see the man accused of murdering her daughter.

READ: Man accused of killing Michaela Williams, 12, ‘lived two doors away’

Friends held her and prayed fervently over her, and finally helped her out of the court for some fresh air.

Michaela went missing in Pelican Park near Muizenberg on January 7. She was reported missing, and, according to initial information submitted to Magistrate Goolam Bawa the accused co-operated with police and her body was found.

He was arrested and faces charges of rape and murder.

Bawa ordered that no pictures nor his name be published either in the news media or on social media. He issued a stern warning that there would be consequences if anybody posted it on Facebook or elsewhere.

This is for the purpose of a final identification process and other aspects of the investigation.

The accused, a thin man wearing a vest under a grubby shirt, said very little during the appearance as police kept a stern watch on the public gallery to make sure everybody stayed quiet for his appearance.

Prosecutor Nicky Konisi said the State would oppose bail, but the accused’s Legal Aid lawyer Kyle Jason said his client would not be applying for bail.

A long remand date was set so that all the necessities of the investigation can be gathered, and he will return via “court TV” on April 14. This means he will appear via a feed from prison which will be screened in court.

As soon as the accused turned in the dock to go down the steps back to the holding cells, angry residents could not hold it in any longer.

‘You rubbish! You are evil’

“Pig!” they shouted in Afrikaans. “You rubbish! You are evil,” they shouted as orderlies tried to shush them and prevent them from rushing into the dock.

Among those in court were members of Cape Town’s Walking Bus initiative who walk with children to school and back. It’s one of a multitude of measures by communities to keep themselves and their children safe from gangsters, predators and murderers.

Outside court, handmade signs that read “Leave our children alone” and “No bail” were tied to trees opposite the court.

Eskom has denied telling municipalities that stage 8 load shedding is imminent, describing media articles claiming this to be “erroneous and incorrect”.

In a statement on Tuesday, the power utility said that while it has developed contingency plans for a severe supply constraints this does not mean that it is planning to implement stage 8 load shedding, which would see up to 8 000MW shed from the national grid.The highest level of power cuts Eskom has yet implemented is stage 6.

“When Stage 6 load shedding was implemented in December, not all metros or municipalities had published their extended load shedding schedules,” said Eskom in a statement. “The Association of Municipal Electricity Utilities therefore engaged most of its members to confirm their compliance to the code – i.e. whether stages 5 to 8 had been published by those Metro’s that had not yet done so.”The utility said in a separate statement that it is not planning power cuts on Tuesday, as emergency reserves would likely be adequate to supplement a shortfall in generation capacity on should the need arise.

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