Author: The Free Stater

Staff Reporter South Africans will no longer be required to wear masks while outdoors, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Tuesday night when he gave an update on national efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. The wearing of masks indoors however remains mandatory. “As before, it is mandatory to wear a cloth mask or similar covering over the nose and mouth when in public indoor spaces,” said Ramaphosa in a televised address. “However, a mask is not required when outdoors,” he added. “This means that we still need to wear masks when in shops, malls, offices, factories, taxes, buses, trains or…

Staff Reporter A 36-year-old man from Clocolan has been sentenced to six life terms by the Free State High Court after he was found guilty of raping his 14-year-old daughter. In a statement, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said Judge Pina Mathebula sentenced the father, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his daughter, for raping her six times between May and July 2021. “The victim was staying with the accused, his wife, who is her stepmother, and two other siblings,” read part of the statement issued by NPA regional spokesperson Phaladi Shuping on Thursday. “In May 2021,…

Staff Reporter Premier Sisi Ntombela has described the late SABC journalist Thabo Katsande as a disciplined, dedicated and hardworking man. She said this in her special tribute to Katsande, who was based in Bloemfontein, during a memorial service held at the Rose Hall at the Mangaung Metropolitan offices on Thursday. The journalist passed away at a Pretoria hospital last Saturday following a short illness. “The Thabo I knew was focused on his work,” said an emotional Ntombela. “The Thabo I knew was passionate about his trade and wanted to see journalism, particularly in the Free State, grow in leaps and…

When buying into a sectional title scheme it is important to remember that while you are buying ownership of your flat or townhouse, you are also automatically becoming a member of the body corporate. The body corporate is essentially all the owners acting together. At an annual general meeting (AGM), the owners will elect trustees who represent the body corporate and these people are the scheme’s connection to the real world. While in practice the managing agents will handle much of the day-to-day affairs of the body corporate – paying accounts, buying cleaning materials, handling the sending out of accounts…

Staff Reporter A 21-year-old woman has been arrested for allegedly breaking in at the Central University of Technology (CUT) in Bloemfontein and setting a storeroom on fire on Thursday. Police spokesperson for Mangaung Metro, Lieutenant Colonel Thabo Covane, said in a statement the incident happened along Goddard Street at the campus. He said a security officer who reported the matter said he was called to the site to assist with two suspects believed to have forced entry into the store room and burnt it. “One male suspect managed to escape but the female was apprehended and handed over to the…

Owning your own home is very important. Even though it may seem not so key to some people for now, when you retire you will realise the importance. Those that plan well should, by the time they retire, have bought their own home and paid it off. Can you imagine the stress of retiring and having to continue paying rent at the risk – no certainty – of annual rent increases. It must be hell. When you are paying rent, you are simply allowing somebody else to pay off an investment property. By the time they retire, not only will…

Staff Reporter At least one in 13 South African adults has chronic kidney disease (CKD) and about 250 people around the world die from complications related to kidney disease every day, a health expert has said. According to the head of the Nephrology Clinical Unit in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of the Free State (UFS), Dr Feziwe Busiswa Bisiwe, kidney disease-associated mortality is on the rise around the world and people of African descent have a higher risk of developing kidney disease due to genetic predisposition and other factors. “Some forms of kidney disease are inherited…

Staff Reporter The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has upheld, with costs, an appeal against the decision of the Free State High Court in which Letsemeng Local Municipality was granted an interdict to prevent the interruption of the supply of electricity by Eskom. As at January 31, 2020, the municipality’s debt to the national power supplier had accumulated to an astronomical figure exceeding R41 million. Based on Letsemeng’s recurrent failure to comply with its obligations, Eskom issued a final notice to interrupt electricity supply with effect from February 18, 2020, which would have affected Koffiefontein, Jacobsdal and Petrusburg, among other…

Staff Reporter President Cyril Ramaphosa has named Raymond Zondo as South Africa’s new chief justice. Zondo, who was appointed as the country’s deputy chief justice in June 2017, has been acting as chief justice after Mogoeng Mogoeng’s term ended in October last year. “I have every confidence that Justice Zondo will acquit himself with distinction in this position,” Ramaphosa said in a statement on Thursday. According to the statement, Ramaphosa’s decision followed consultation with the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) and leaders of parties in the National Assembly on four nominees for the top post. The JSC had recommended Supreme Court…

Unbidden, the spectre of a failed state haunts the contemporary imagination of South Africa. State responsibility and accountability have been piecemeal, with the citizenry of South Africa is left to fend for itself, as organs of state have grounded to a halt due to historical missteps in securing our physical and knowledge infrastructures, and contemporary endemic mismanagement of vital resources. Many have warned us of the spiralling road to purgatory – Justice Malala, the Arch, Kader Asmal, Thabo Mbeki, Athol Williams. And many social phenomena have been harbingers of a South Africa in violent transition – the Marikana massacre; roiling…