News Page 5THE INDEPENDENT

on Saturday 2 February 2013

Diven Naidoo, 9, of Glenwood, gets acquainted with tortoise Hingey and rabbitToffee, two of the many fascinating animals that will be showcased at South Africa’smost exciting pet event, The World of Dogs & Cats Pet Exhibition. The show makes awelcome return to the Durban Exhibition Centre from February 22 to 24.

This much-loved family event, which was first held in Durban in 1996, features manyinteresting exhibitors and fun demonstrations. The displays are aimed at encouragingresponsible pet ownership. Expect to see a great variety of dog and cat breeds, aswell as more exotic pets, like hedgehogs, lizards, fish, snakes, rats, mice, hamsters,frogs, spiders, iguanas, rabbits and birds, and all sorts of other interesting furry, scalyand feathery companions. For more information go to www.dogscats.co.za

MEET SCALY AND FURRY FRIENDS

John and Cheryl Dunwoody of Bereaare the third finalists in TheIndependent on Saturday’s ‘Let’sCelebrate Love’ competition.

The Dunwoodys will be celebratingtheir 30th anniversary in May andbelieve the secret to their happymarriage is that they are best friendsand trust each other and encourageeach other’s individuality in therelationship. They also encouragecouples to achieve peace in arelationship by being honest,transparent and through constantcommunication constantly.

There’s one last chance to be afinalist in our competition.

This week’s lucky finalist will win apampering BTogether treatment atThe Spa at the Oyster Box Hotel inUmhlanga for two, worth R2 000, and

they will go through to the finals, towin a second honeymoon at TheOyster Box.

See page 22 for your entry form

SOURCE OF TROUBLE: Berea Court is an all-male residence and is one of three buildings operated by DUT in Glenwoodand Musgrave.

Residences having a ‘negative effect’Students’ noise, under-age drinking and vandalism anger Berea residentsSIHLE MTHEMBU

STUDENTS drinkingwith under-age highschool pupils, vandal-ism, graffiti, late-night

noise and plunging propertyvalues.

These are just some of theproblems neighbours of stu-dent residences in Glenwoodand Musgrave are becomingincreasingly concerned about.

Teachers at schools near theuniversity residences are wor-ried about the “toxic relation-ship” between university stu-dents and high school pupils.One senior teacher at DurbanHigh School, which is close to aDurban University of Technol-ogy (DUT) residence, said therehad been altercations wherepupils and students had foughtin the streets and that some-times students offered pupilsalcohol as they left the school.

“University students andsome of our learners havefought and it’s something thathas happened more than once.Unfortunately, no one is willingto do anything about it. Wehave written letters to the uni-

versity and received no re-sponse,” said the teacher, whodid not wish to be named.

Students at the DUT’s BereaCourt residence have also beenblamed for acts of vandalismand graffiti in Glenwood. Ac-cording to Stone Ndlovu, whoowns a boutique near BereaCourt, his shop has been van-dalised three times since thebuilding was turned into an all-male student accommodationearly last year.

“It’s really having a negativeeffect on us as people who havebusinesses in the area and wehave tried to speak to securityguards in the res to keep an eyeout for any suspicious behav-iour, but no one has been will-ing to do anything about thesestudents. Some people haveeven considered moving theirbusinesses to other places as aresult,” said Ndlovu.

In spite of several attemptsto contact the housing depart-ments at both University ofKwaZulu-Natal and DUT, theycould not be reached for com-ment at the time of going topress.

S’phelele Ngubane, a Berea

Court resident, said studentsdid not disturb the neighbour-hood intentionally and some-times they did it to protectthemselves.

“There are times where stu-dents get left behind or theywant to get back to residence attimes where the buses are notavailable, so they decide to goin groups in case a thug tries toattack them. As they go ingroups, that is when they getexcited and interact, throwjokes and smash things up and

residents would complainabout noise in the area.”

According to locals in thetwo areas, the presence of stu-dents has also made it difficultfor them to sell and rent outflats and it is having an adverseeffect on property values in theareas.

Brian Staple, who owns twoblocks of flats in Glenwood,said people did not want to livein areas near students becauseof the noise and chaos theycaused.

“It’s very difficult for me asa property owner to be able torent out flats and make a profitbecause now I have to decreasemy rent because no one is will-ing to pay a premium for ac-commodation near students.And the fact that there is morethan one res has just com-pounded the problem,” he said.

Speaking about the declineof property value in areas withstudent accommodation, MylesWakefield, the chief executiveof Wakefields, said the declineof property quality in theseareas was something that hadbeen happening for at least thepast five years.

“Areas around tertiary insti-tutions have always been thisway, and nothing has changedin the past five years. Possibly

more properties have been pur-chased for student accommoda-tion due to the demand. Mostbuyers who are wanting to

purchase properties for owneroccupation would not normallylook in these areas,” saidWakefield.

According to Louis Hart-man, who is an independent es-tate agent in Glenwood andMusgrave, the entry of stu-dents and their unruly behav-iour can often become a symp-tom of areas in decline.

“In most areas where there

is a large number of students,the property values tend to bein flux and the presence of stu-dents often means that thatarea is not the ideal place to befor a lot of working-class peo-ple. So in this regard Glenwoodand Musgrave are not the firstto suffer from this problem –many inner city areas have suf-fered from this problem in thepast.”

ABOVE: Graffiti is a common sight in the area.

LEFT: Stone Ndlovu, who owns a small boutique inGlenwood, says his shop has been vandalised three timessince early last year.

DEFENDER: S’pheleleNgubane, a DUT student,believes that sometimesstudents do get rowdy in abid to protect themselves.

RESIDENT: Glenwood businessman and property ownerBrian Staple says tenants do not want to pay high rents inplaces where there are students.

HOUSE OF BOTHER: Campbell residence is located in the heart of Glenwood and houses female students only.

Questions about Nkandla spending haunt NxesiMARIANNE MERTEN

IF PUBLIC Works MinisterThulas Nxesi thought he hadslammed the lid on the contro-versy over the R206 millionspending on President JacobZuma’s Nkandla homestead byannouncing a probe had found“no evidence” public moneyhad been used for the privateresidence, he was mistaken.

Opposition parties prom-ised this week not only to askquestions in Parliament aboutthe spending – R71.2m on secu-rity arrangements and R135.2mon what were called “opera-tional needs for state depart-ments” – but also to push forthe tabling of the Public Workstask team report before the na-tional legislature – and ulti-mately for another debate on it.

Fifteen service providers,including consultants, were in-volved in work at Nkandla and,according to Nxesi “it is veryclear that there were a numberof irregularities with regardsto appointment of serviceproviders and procurement ofgoods and services”.

However, he stopped short ofnaming them.

Instead, he said the reporthad been referred to the police,the auditor-general and theSpecial Investigating Unit(SIU).

However, the referral to theSIU again raises more ques-tions than answers: its investi-gations can only commence af-ter the president signs aproclamation to this effect.

“No formal request has beenmade to the SIU. The unit willonly be able to comment on thismatter when it has been for-mally referred to it,” the SIUsaid this week.

Further questions remainover the role of the auditor-general. While it was reportedin November last year that Nx-esi told the National Council ofProvinces (NCOP) the expendi-ture on Nkandla would go tothe auditor-general becauseprices may have been inflateddue to lack of controls withinhis department, the auditor-general’s office said this weekthere was no investigation.

The response to requests forcomment on whether the officehad received the Public Workstask team report and for an up-date on its own probe was: “The

auditor-general of South Africahas not conducted an investiga-tion into the matter you are en-quiring about.”

The police did not respondto requests for comment bydeadline.

Meanwhile, Public Protec-

tor Thuli Madonsela has beeninvestigating the spending de-bacle since December last year.

The public protector is onrecord saying the probe wouldbe completed at the end ofMarch.

Nkandla, built on Nxam-alala traditional authorityland, was declared a nationalkey point by Police Minister

Nathi Mthethwa in April 2010.This, Public Works argued lastyear, meant everything relatedto Nkandla was classified.

However, three days afterDeputy Auditor-General KimiMakwetu revealed the govern-ment had spent R102 billion onconsultants over three years,often for work not delivered orwork departments could dothemselves, Nxesi admittedR26.6m of the Nkandla costshad been spent on variations –accountant-speak for alter-ations to approved costings,which Treasury regulationslimit to no more than 20 per-cent. “This was not observed,”said the minister last week.

Opposition parties said thisweek they would get to the bot-tom of the Nkandla spending.

DA parliamentary leaderLindiwe Mazibuko said she hadfiled an application for the Pub-lic Works task team reportunder the Promotion of Accessto Information Act.

She had also written to thepolice and defence and militaryveterans ministers askingthem to outline contributionsto the security upgrade andwhen Zuma would be requested

to repay the money in keepingwith Section 3 of the NationalKey Points Act.

IFP Public Worksspokesman Petros Sithole saidhe had also written to Nxesiasking him to make the reportpublic.

“We want to find the truth ofthe matter,” he said, addingPublic Works had received twoconsecutive disclaimers fromthe auditor-general and beforethat a disqualified audit opin-ion. There is something wrongin Public Works,” Sithole said.

Cope acting chief whip Den-nis Bloem said it was “a cover-up” and it was unacceptablethat R206m had been spent on“one person”.

Freedom Front Plus PublicWorks spokesman Pieter Groe-newald said the report must betabled in Parliament – and itmust be debated there.

United Democratic Move-ment leader Bantu Holomisasaid: “Nxesi and his palacepraise singers have under-mined the intelligence of SouthAfricans. We never said Zumawas involved. The questionswas: ‘Why so much moneyspent in one place?’”

Health MEC taken to court over non-paymentFATIMA SCHROEDER

A DURBAN-BASED companyat the centre of a controversyabout an allegedly faulty HIVtest kit last year, is takingWestern Cape Health MECTheuns Botha to the WesternCape High Court over non-payment for kits it supplied tothe department in June lastyear.

Medical products developerand marketer Pantech madeheadlines last year after it wasreported that problems wereidentified with the SD Bioline

test kits during a factory site in-spection by the World HealthOrganisation (WHO). It foundthat certain batches gave in-valid results – not a false posi-tive or negative – which meantthe result could not be read.

After the news broke, theWestern Cape Health Depart-ment recalled all test kits untilthe issue was resolved.

It said at the time that, whileadditional test kits were sup-plied by Pantech, health facili-ties were instructed to returnall stock.

About a month later, Health

Minister Aaron Motsoaleditold the media the testing kitsbought by the governmentwere from a different batch tothose tested by the WHO, butwere recalled as a safety meas-ure.

In the High Court action, in-stituted in October last year,Pantech is suing the MEC foralmost R2 million for 16 000units of SD Bioline screeningrapid test kits supplied in Junelast year.

Each unit contained 25 tests.The company said it had de-

livered the kits in accordance

with an agreement it had en-tered into with the state and thatit had performed its obligationsin terms of the agreement.

According to it, the depart-ment paid it R115 748 in Julylast year but the balance ofR1.968m was still due.

In December, the MEC fileda notice indicating that hewould defend the suit.

He has not yet responded tothe merits of the claim.

Pantech has lodged an appli-cation for summary judgmentwhich is expected to go to courtnext week.

TOGETHERNESS IS...

We never said Zumawas involved. Thequestion was: ‘Whyso much moneyspent in one place?’

Bantu HolomisaUDM leader