NEWS

Last Man Standing - Chickens Coming Home to Roost

As those who have had the joys of sex will tell you, the peak of that activity is the climax. That spasmodic giant boo-ya-ka, a real throwdown. Well, that is what I felt this week as the chicken finally came home to roost. The vampire I have been trying to see removed from the Blood Bank finally got its marching orders – Frank Segolatseleng Mogakane will no longer be part of the academic life of hundreds of learners who have had to endure maladministration, incompetence, nepotism and fraud. Ditau was a dysfunctional entity until I declared war everlasting against its deep-rooted culture of entitlement that saw learners becoming mothers because their teachers felt they were their fringe benefits. I came, I saw and said such free-for-all conduct must stop.

South African Democratic Teachers’ Union said it can’t ge done. They said that anybody trying to trample on the rights of their members will be met with their strong force. Well, that’s me – strong force versus me equals – well, nothing. Today I am the last man standing.

I am a patriot. I might not hang the national flag on my house or the mirror sock on my car. I wear my heart on my sleeve.

Recently controversial Ditau High School principal Moganake resigned. It came weeks after his suspension and charging with financial mismanagement by the department of education. Following a series of investigative articles in this blog which exposed alleged graft at the school the department finally suspend him on 06 October 2010.

No one knows if Mogakane was pushed or chose to jump, but indications are he might have jumped to save not his reputation but his retirement and pension funds.

Following his suspension School Governing Body chairperson Platus Mokoena said they welcomed move. Speaking to this blog last week Mokoena said the move to remove Mogakane was a vindication of the body’s pursuit for clean governance in the face of mounting political pressure to turn a blind eye.

“We have received calls from parents who are happy about developments. We are happy that he (Mogakane) has been removed from the school. His removal has contributed to stability since in his presence days were spent holding damage-control meetings as the teaching staff conspired to get rid of the SGB. Teaching has now stabilised”, Mokoena says.

Mokoena adds that it was time the department dug deeper and suspended more people as there were more educators involved in various misconduct. Without mentioning names Mokoena alludes to the fact that some of the financial mismanagement that drove Mogakane to jump before he was pushed couldn’t have been executed without co-operation from other teachers given that cheques are not signed by the principal alone.

He says even those alleged to be abusing learners should be investigated and removed. This blog can confirm that for some few years the second signatory to the school cheque was Mogakane’s younger brother’s best friend’s wife, an explicit conflict of interest.

Sources told us that cars from the department descended on Ditau weeks ago to issue Mogakane with his Notice of Suspension. “They wanted him to vacate the school immediately. He was sobbing and trying to negotiate the terms of his suspension”, a source revealed. On the day the political support he has received from heavyweights such as the Executive Mayor of Bushbuckridge and ANC regional chairperson Cllr Milton Moreme was nowhere to be found.

Unveiling a road project early this year Moreme told community members that the allegations against Mogakane were unfounded and were politically motivated. Mokoena said as an SGB they now feel vindicated in their pursuit of justice against union and political pressure.

Mogakane was earlier this year fingered in a dossier compiled by the SGB of mismanaging approximately hundreds of thousands of public funds meant for the school. A 23-page dossier spelt out how a school grant of R393961, 00 was allegedly spent in a space of two months. It decried the absence of a tariff policy to regulate travelling after the former principal claimed R57843, 00 in seven months.

The dossier alleged that bricks to build a guard house were bought for R58200, 00. A Kasiekulture Blog investigation of the brick type used at concluded that they retail for R2800, 00 per thousand.

He was also accused of appointing his younger brother, Lawrance Mogakane’s company to audit Ditau’s books, concealing massive fraud that could have been picked by a first year Accounting student in the process. Young Mogakane is the former Chief Financial Officer of Bohlabela District Municipality who was fired under a cloud five years ago.

“The department (of education) noted levels of mismanagement at the (Ditau) school following an investigation done by the internal audit. As such the principal was suspended, will appear before the departmental disciplinary committee in due course”, education spokesperson Jasper Zwane said last week before Mogakane resigned.

Zwane adds that, “the department conducts internal audits in schools, train SGBs on financial management and constantly monitor how funds are being managed”.

Concerned teachers at Lehlasedi High School have requested the department to investigate the disappearance of building material worth tens of thousands of rands at the school two years ago on the same day that it was delivered regardless of the presence of a security guard. No one has been arrested for the theft regardless of the SGB of the school being led by a police commissioner.

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TRUE

From a Consumer to a Producer - The Tale of My Baby

Since I moved into my new place I have been fixing to go organic. Big time organic - eat greens, no chicken, no beef, no mutton no pork. Okay, my approach was to eat pork only if it's swinehead with my friends over cold beers. My analysis was that we could do this every once a month, only when Pirates is playing a big team. So, while I don't have any television in my house I figured while the matadors are chasing dead skin a thousand kilometres away we could be playing mind games. See, me and my boys don't just talk about women when we are chilling.

So, back to my organic ambitions. Of all the first things I planned to do, which included cultivating a beautiful garden was to grow weed. First, my ambition was that feeling of misdemeanour. I wanted to look suspiciously at cops as they drive by. It's always worth your life to be up to something illicit - stimulates your toes. I know how if feels when I hack into some people's email addresses searching for evidence of infidelity - it feels good and it's only anti-climax when I don't find what I suspected to be there.

So, I wanted to grow marijuana on my garden, and maybe one day when I have that terrible headache I would harvest a handful, dry in humid conditions and roll in Rizla to make myself a fat spliff. Maybe chill in a brand-new Benz with my ID (thanks to the Teflon Don) and cause an environmental harzard. However, that was somewhere in the back of my mind.

Then, some time last year one of my weedhead friends popped in with some nice grass that got him seriously goofy. After he sparked a fat cone he was out and left me the left-overs. I gingerly gathered the dust (it wasn't magic - I noticed) and splashed it on my garden to stimulate the soil. I was also hoping that it could grow and beautify my garden. I also felt that with hash in my garden all them damn demons will find landing a stress.

A week later there was nothing. A month later there was nothing and I started stressing. What the fuck does weed need to grow? I remember it grew without permission in my flower pot twelve years ago after just a single seed was thrown there. I culled it when my grans started looking at me suspiciously. I knew if I got arrested she would have said 'he's my grandson, finish and klaar. Plus these hands are clean', hahaha.

So, with no weed from my friend I enlisted the services of one of my she-friends who brought me a carefully rolled spliff and some seeds. She dropped them on the next flower complex. Two weeks later she pitched with some fresh weed but the plantation was still begging. I complained and she adviced me to look the other way and not stress the process. But woman I want the muthafucka to grow before the rains start so that I can grow something to conceal its beauty.

Then a beautiful woman - one of the intelligent few I have since come to know closer came by my crib the other day. We had an hour long session whereby I picked her brain like an early bird catching the fattest worm. When she was leaving I once again complained to her about the apathy that weed was showing towards my garden. She adviced patience. A week after that visit, which I should confess left me feeling very important indeed I saw my five-leafer raising its head. I felt, aha, I'm on my way from graduating from being a consumer to a producer. I am nursing my baby-weed as if it was a comatose patient on life support. Next time i post a picture of my baby-weed. Once it's up and growing, I move to full-organic and make vegetarians happy - hahaha

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REVIEW

Ethekwini Will Never be the same Again – thanks to Bana ba Bongi

So, the last time I blogged about the drama troupe I have so much confidence in, Bana Ba Bongi was before they sojourned to Ethekwini for their overdue initiation into the world of thespians at The Playhouse. In Sepedi they say, ‘le kobja le sale meetse, ge le ka oma le ya hlaba’. Well, this is one of those proverbs without an English translation – however if I have to try it says that clay can be molded into anything only while wet.

So, with these kids that’s exactly what community builders and committed teachers Nkoto Malebye and Zakhona Mogane are doing – catching them young like sardines. The brains of these kids are still at that stage where anything can be inculcated and made to stick. That’s the same age Hitler Youth were introduced to a doctrine of hate.

The first time I saw Baba ba Bongi stage a show was their inaugural performance infront of their parents and invited guests at Narishe Primary School. You could see that they were still pretty rough in the edges while the hunger for knowledge was disarming. However roughness is romantic when it’s on a diamond. It means that the value of the stone is still locked – is it 9, 18 or more carats? Or maybe it’s the elusive blue diamond.

So, I am reliably informed that the kids went to Ethekwini and had a ball. The last time I had a conversation with Nkoto I gathered that while it should be an educational trip for the young thespians it should also open the world for them. They need to have fun. They need to know that there’s a body of salty water called sea which does not swallow people as legend has it. They need to interact with like-minded people in the industry. They need to be told by someone they respect – probably someone they might have seen on television such as Nthati Moshesh or Sello Maake ka Ncube that they have potential.

Well, that’s a story for another day. That’s still to happen I reckon. They’ll still meet lots of them in the future. However I am told that they went to Ethekwini, had two performances, went out, attended shows, went to the art gallery, went to the Bat Centre, Moses Mabhida Stadium, the beach and various other spots in Ethekwini that a tourist from inland would like to visit.

They went there and had fun. The snapshots, which we are taking a please of sharing with you show a bunch of naïve children smiling at every frame. Happiness was indeed the theme. You felt you could freeze their little smiles and their optimism forever.

Now back home they shared with their parents what they showed the world. It was my second time seeing these confident kids perform and I was humbled. I wasn’t humbled because they are local kids. I was humbled because I have seen people perform and bowl the world – however I have never seen people this young do it with so much commitment that the following day I told Nkoto and Zakhona that I pray that the pedophiles in our community do not derail them.

I believe these kids deserve all the love, care, attention and altruistic spirit they can get from their teachers and society at large. They need to look at older males and see their brothers, uncles and fathers and not perverts out to give them babies and HIV.

I felt sad because there is no place called careful where we could just take these young talents and groom them far from prying lusty eyes.

That aside, I could put my dime that while millions will be called and a few chosen; if these kids continue at this pace millions might be called and millions chosen. They deserve all the success in the world. The world is their oyster – Shakespeare would have said.

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