Author: The Free Stater

The Free State’s official unemployment rate for the first quarter of this year has dropped by 5.6 percentage points from 36.7 percent to 31.1 percent. This is the second consecutive decrease since September last year when the province recorded a 38.1 percent unemployment rate. The Quarterly Labour Force Survey Report released by Statistics South Africa on Tuesday also says Free State employment increased by 54 000 from 727 000 in the last quarter of 2021 to 781 000. The expanded unemployment rate for the province however remains high at 40.5 after it fell by 3.7 percentage points to 44.2 percent.…

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has dismissed, with costs, an appeal brought by Adrian Paul Barnes who had been shortlisted as one of the candidates for the position of the first executive head of the Mangaung Metropolitan Police Service or metro police chief, but failed to get the job. The other shortlisted candidate was Ketsebae Israel Kgmanyane, who has since been appointed to the position. The position of metro police chief was advertised in July 2017 and the panel conducting the interview rated Kgamanyane higher than Barnes. On November 17, 2017 the Mangaung council resolved to appoint Kgamanyane as…

The Welkom Regional Court has sentenced Donald Ledima Phogole, 26, to life imprisonment for raping and sexually assaulting a woman seven years ago in the K9 Section of Kutloanong in Odendaalsrus. His co-accused, Thansanqa Mzidi, 20, was given a 15-year jail term in 2017. The two were found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting the woman, then 45, on March 7, 2015 at about 20:30. The court heard that the woman left her house to meet someone to discuss business. But when she arrived at the place, she found the house locked and decided to return to her home. Police…

 The purpose of this article is to explain to new investors in the sectional title market why it is necessary to pay your levies.  It seems many new property investors are entering the market because they see it as a way of getting profit but have no idea how any business works. They are getting into trouble because they don’t understand property and have not been properly primed by the agents that they bought from. Also, they think it is possible to make arrangements when times are tough. One even tried to justify this by giving the example of an…

Deputy President David Mabuza says he wants to see relations between military veterans and provincial governments as well as municipalities improve so that they can be part of any growth opportunities in these local authorities. Mabuza said this when he met Free State military veterans at the Bloemspruit Airfoce Base in Mangaung on Thursday. “We are going to improve our institutional arrangement so that the department of military veterans works directly with the province and works together with municipalities,” said Mabuza who is the chairperson of the Presidential Task Team on Military Veterans. The deputy president said military veterans played…

The Clocolan Magistrates Court has sentenced a 28-year-old man to an effective 10 years’ imprisonment after he was found guilty of murdering his friend two years ago. According to a National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) statement, Magistrate Johan van Zyl sentenced Thabo Paulus Machedi for stabbing Tiisetso Nchaka, 22, to death on April 25, 2020. The court heard that on the day of the incident, Machedi and the Nchaka were drinking at a local tavern when they had an argument and Nchaka left but Machedi followed him. An argument ensued between the them on the street and Machedi took out a…

The ANC Free State’s Interim Provincial Committee (IPC) is holding a crucial two-day economic conference at the Philip Sanders Resort in Bloemfontein starting this Thursday. Announcing the conference, IPC spokesperson Oupa Khoabane said in a statement the party had realised there was an urgent need to reflect intensively on the economy of the province in light of the high level of unemployment rate, the impact of COVID-19 as well as the effects of the global economic crisis and trade wars. “The IPC sub-committee on economic transformation was . . . tasked to develop the provincial economic recovery and transformation plan…

Eskom has warned consumers in the south-eastern Free State that they may not have electricity for up to three weeks due to voltage constraints on the network feeding the Melkspruit Substation. The power failure resulted in electricity users in Zastron, Rouxville and Smithfield as well as those fed directly by Eskom on the RVZ and RVS 22 kV lines experiencing outages over the past weekend. Eskom’s spokesperson in the Free State, Stefanie Jansen van Rensburg, said the problem may persist until major work on a line from the Northern Cape is completed. “The voltage constraint on the network will persist…

Staff and key assets from the embattled Sedibeng Water Board are set to be transferred to the Bloemwater and Magalies water boards following the gazetting of the move by Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mchunu last week. The department’s spokesperson, Sputnik Ratau, said in a statement the development is in line with the minister’s commitment to review the country’s water boards to enable them to perform optimally while enhancing the delivery of water to municipalities and ultimately to households. The decision to disestablish Sedibeng Water – which served Matjhabeng, Masilonyana and Nala local municipalities, among others – means its staff,…

It is apparent that there are more and more buildings, especially in Bloemfontein’s central areas, that are standing vacant and are in a very poor state of repair. Why is this? Some of these properties are commercial properties and all buildings have a life cycle. When new they are effective and efficient but they age physically and socially over the years. A modern office building is designed very differently from the one that was built in the 1930s. Young people probably won’t understand how different the working environment was just 30-40 years ago. At that time there were no computers,…