Author: The Free Stater

THE University of the Free State (UFS) rugby side, the Shimlas, will be looking to get off to a flying start when they open their campaign for the 2024 Varsity Cup at home to the University of Cape Town’s Ikey Tigers on Monday. The season-opening match will be played at the Shimla Park in Bloemfontein, starting at 1645 hours. Later in the evening, another Free State team will be in action as the Central University of Technology (CUT)’s Ixias host the University of Johannesburg at the CUT Stadium, with the game kicking off at 1900 hours. The two Bloemfontein-based institutions…

BUYING a home is a great idea because it is the best way to build up your own personal savings – called capital. When you rent a property, it is one on a month-to-month basis and when you move out that is the end. Even if you have lived in a property for 10 years you will walk away with nothing. Somebody who bought a house 10 years ago and then decides to sell will receive the net income from the sale – that is: the selling price, less the outstanding bond. All that a tenant is doing is helping…

SHOCKING negligence by maternity staff during a baby boy’s birth at a Free State public hospital meant signs that the foetus was in distress were not acted on, resulting in him suffering brain damage. Born on 19 October 2012 at the Mofumahadi Manapo Mopeli Regional Hospital in Phuthaditjhaba, he was later diagnosed with severe cerebral palsy as a result of oxygen deprivation during prolonged labour. Children with cerebral palsy may have exaggerated reflexes and their arms, legs and trunk may appear floppy, with common symptoms including irregular posture, movements that can’t be controlled, a walk that’s not steady or some…

WHILE the Free State is still trying to come to terms with the gruesome murder of a 16-year-old girl who been reported missing, yet another woman has been found dead in the province. The lifeless body of Jessica Michael, a 28-year-old social worker and mother of a two-year-old, was discovered on Tuesday this week at the Kalkfontein Dam outside her hometown in Koffiefontein. She had been reported missing on 6 December. Her father, Andrew Michael, said his family was reeling in shock following the discovery of his daughter’s body. “The whole family is heartbroken, we cannot work through this, this is…

AN additional 395 military personnel will be deployed to the Free State to help combat illegal mining and other criminal activities in the province. This was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa during his interaction with local communities in Welkom last Friday. Last month he authorised the deployment of 3 300 army personnel to help the police in the fight against illegal mining activities across South Africa, but it could not be established how many of those had been sent to the Free State. In response to concerns raised during the District Development Model Presidential Imbizo held at the Kopano Indoor…

BLOEMFONTEIN has been confirmed as one of the five venues for the ICC Under-19 Men’s Cricket World Cup 2024 to be hosted in South Africa. The Free State capital will host the blockbuster match between five-time champions India and 2020 winners Bangladesh. The International Cricket Council (ICC) released the schedule for the 16-team event on Monday, with five venues across South Africa to host a total of 41 matches over more than three weeks in January and February. India prevailed in the last edition of the tournament in the West Indies in 2022 and are placed in Group A with…

THE Free State High Court has given a local church 15 days to vacate the premises from which it has been operating in Bloemfontein. Radiant Hour Ministry International, led by Charles Dunyoh, a self-proclaimed prophet from Ghana, has been conducting its services from a plot in Rocklands since entering an agreement to purchase the property on 10 September 2014. However, when the church failed to honour the payment terms, the owner of the property, CS Oosthuizen Boerdery, proceeded to cancel the agreement and approach the court seeking an eviction order. The application was heard by Acting Judge PJJ Zietsman on…

THE Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality is battling a water crisis that has seen some parts of the Free State capital going for days without supplies of the precious liquid. The city administrators blame the interruptions on extended power cuts and burst pipes. Within the past two weeks, the municipality has been forced to deploy tankers to deliver bulk water to some of the affected areas, including Bloemfontein’s affluent suburbs of Woodlands Hills, Heuwelsig, Pentagon Park and Lilyvale. High-density areas such as Thaba Nchu have also had to go for days with dry taps. The municipality has promised to stabilise water provision…

FORMER Free State Social Development MEC Motshidise Koloi’s corruption case has been postponed and will be set down for trial next year. She was arrested alongside two others in October. They made their first appearance in the Kroonstad Magistrates Court shortly afterward and were granted bail of R10 000 each. The three are accused of siphoning more than R150 000 from the public purse under the pretext that it was needed to source a sound system for a Nelson Mandela Memorial Lecture, which never even took place in the end. They made another appearance in the dock on Tuesday this…

THE ANC in the Free State has expressed outrage in the face of the latest spate of killings of women and children in separate incidents around the province. The party vented after the lifeless body of 16-year-old Machaka Radebe was discovered in an open field in Bloemspruit, Bloemfontein, in the early hours of Monday morning. She had been reported missing after she was last seen leaving her family home in the nearby Rocklands township on Saturday. On Tuesday, an eight-year-old girl was discovered lying dead in an open field in Lindley, a small farming town in the eastern region of…