Witsies leaving campus on foot at night should beware of a group of men posing as students but are actually thieves who want to rob them of their possessions.
Last Friday 3rd year BA student Joseph Tembe was making his way to a friend’s place from a party at Bozzoli when he witnessed two Witsies being accosted by a group of more than four men on Bertha street in front of the chapel, not far from the OLS (Old Mutual Life Sciences) turnstiles.
“There were two guys walking ahead of me [who] looked like students. A group of guys who also looked like students approached them … they looked like they knew each other.”
“I looked at their shoes and everything and they looked just like us,” Tembe said
[pullquote]”There was nothing he could do and that the men might attack him next.”[/pullquote]
The Politics and English Literature major said he became suspicious when it started to sound like there was an argument going on between the two groups of men.
Tembe said he then noticed another man, wearing a dark green shirt, looking on from the traffic island across the street, as if “checking the coast”.
“I remember when I was robbed on Mandela Bridge. A guy came past and and asked the guys [who were robbing me] if they had taken the phone,” Tembe said.
Tembe did not stay long enough to see what happened next, thinking there was nothing he could do and that the men might attack him next
It was not the last he would see of the group though.
Tembe was outside the South Point residence opposite KFC on De Korte street, using a friend’s phone to call a cab home, when he recognised the same group of men approaching him.
“I was on the phone and those guys came … I recognised them; one in the green shirt and the other in a red shirt … [But] when they saw the guy I’d borrowed the phone from and his girlfriend they turned away.”
Tembe said the group carried on walking down De Korte street.
Muggings, car break-ins and violent attacks have been a constant threat to Wits students, and the kidnapping of a University of Johannesburg on campus last Thursday, have made safety on an around campus a real issue.
The post will be filled by the end of the month, and the manager will be responsible for implementing a crime awareness programme aimed at upping student awareness of safety issues on campus.
Students, staff and workers gathered at the Wits Great Hall to question vice chancellor Prof Adam Habib on university related issues. The gathering was part of the university’s first ever town hall meeting.
The session was moderated by president of the Wits Debating Union, Mighti Jamie.
A student was kidnapped on Thursday at the Kingsway Campus of the University of Johannesburg. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
By Mfuneko Toyana and Emelia Motsai
The University of Johannesburg (UJ) student, who was kidnapped on a campus at gun point and then driven around in the boot of her car on Thursday, said she could have been killed because UJ security “did nothing”.
In a live interview with Radio702’s Xolani Gwala, the woman who asked not to be named, said:
“My life was in the hands of UJ security and they did nothing.”
She was describing to Gwala how the man who had kidnapped her managed to drive past boom gates and off the campus in Auckland Park, even though security saw that the card in his possession did not belong to him.
She recalled that the man had driven around for a while with her in the boot until he stopped and she realised he was talking to a UJ security guard at one of the boomed, access-controlled exits.
“He opened the window so slightly, just enough to put out his hand and swipe the card,” she said.
“He rolled forward and rolled forward to ensure his face wasn’t captured by the cameras.”
[pullquote align=”right”]”The whole time he was keeping the card in front of his face so the cameras couldn’t capture him.”[/pullquote]
She was piecing together what she had perceived from inside the boot and from CCTV footage captured by UJ surveillance.
But the card had not been functional and so the security guard approached and asked to the student card.
She says she heard the man speaking to the security guard in a language that was not English, and assumed that the guard had realised the card did not belong to the driver of the car.
The whole time he was keeping the card in front of his face so the cameras couldn’t capture him,” she said.
From the footage caught on camera the 23-year woman said that one could see the security guard taking the card from the man and returning with it to his cubicle.
She said he then put his elbow over the window in such a way that again his face would be hidden from any cameras.
[pullquote]Her student card had been left in the control room and nothing done to verify her whereabouts.[/pullquote]
“He was clever… He knew exactly what he was doing.”
She then describes how the man waited for one of the other booms to open and then drove into on-coming traffic in order to exit the campus.
The woman was found later on Thursday in Eldorado Park, close to Lenasia.
This after the man had forced her to give him PIN numbers for her bank cards, withdrawn the money and then dropped her off near an open veld.
The woman told Gwala that she found out that her student card had been left in the control room and nothing done to verify her whereabouts.
She said “nothing was done” even though the student card contained all her information – car registration, contact numbers of her parents.
An 18-year-old man was arrested today after the woman’s car was traced to a residence in Ennerdale, about 15km’s from Eldorado Park.
In a statement released earlier today UJ said it was currently unable to link the arrest to the kidnapping that happened on Thursday or if the suspect in custody was a UJ student.
Coffee barons: The Team from HEI cafe with some of their self-made product. A coffee brand, home-made jam are just some the products Photo: Mfuneko Toyana
The students who run the Hillbrow Entrepreneurship Initiative’s (HEI) recently opened coffee shop in Braamfontein, have been getting their aprons dirty proving that entrepreneurship and creativity go together, just as well as coffee and crepes.
Three weeks ago HEI café opened its narrow, wood-panelled doors and beckoned Braamfontein’s creative minds inside.
[pullquote]Beyond those doors is a coffee shop, a conference room, a library, an art gallery and a grandmother of a beige couch that could be auctioned off by next week.[/pullquote]
Good old hard work and determination seems to be the ingredient bringing together these disparate elements.
Early on Tuesday evening, as Braamfontein’s tall buildings emptied themselves out on to the streets and into buses and taxis. Phephisile Mathizerd, tapping on a laptop keyboard and fending off whistles from her cellphone, explained why HEI café was not just another coffee shop.
“It’s a conducive space,” Mathizerd said of the space furnished with odds and ends straight out of a postcard of 19th-century Paris.
“Everything we have here is from (Wits) Hospice, we’re using the space to help them sell their stuff,” she said.
The “library” books are from the Wits Hospice as well, and for R80 a month students can loan out up to four books a week.
The café also serves as a place for the entrepreneurs who work with HEI to display and sell their products, be it paintings or stuffed versions of the big five, to homemade jam and hand-carved furniture.
“Another one garçon”: Howard Hamandishe is one of the barrista’s at HEI cafe trained by fellow Braamfontein coffee shop Post Photo: Mfuneko Toyana
This Sunday they will be hosting their first furniture and art auction.
Barbara Copelovici explained HEI’s entrepreneurship program:
“We offer the entrepreneurs a ‘business-in-a-box’ worth R10 000. A business account, basic start-up equipment and WiFi. If their business runs for more than three months, they can go to the Branson Centre for free,” Copelovici said.
She explained that from a pool of 100 entrepreneurs they had narrowed the number down to five of the best ideas, and worked with this group on a 6 to 12 months basis.
The menu, consisting solely of coffee and crepes, was inspired by French-born Copeloivci, one of the founders of HEI.
Everything at the café has a minimum, not a fixed price, and patrons are encouraged to pay more if they can.
All revenue generated by the cafe goes back into the Initiative’s programmes, and to paying interns and employees who work in the shop.
HEI cafe is entirely student-run, using coffee as the basis for connecting creative minds.
The café is entirely student run.
For entrepreneurs to use the conference room in the quaint café, wedged in the alley between the Nando’s on Jorissen street and the Puma store on De Korte, is buy a coffee and a crepe.
For under R25, they are allowed use of the well-furnished conference room, access to Wifi, in-house computers, as well as help and advice from the staff.
HEI will also host a “speed dating” session this Friday.
Theko Moteane said the session would be on the same principle as match-making, except they would encouraging people to mingle and make business connections, rather than romantic ones, and establish the basis for future collaborations..
“This is where the rich meet the poor, where big corporates meet students,” Theko said.
THE WITS student team did most of the early running against the University of Pretoria (Tuks) in their second-round match of the Varsity Football tournament.
But Wits, just as they did last Monday in a 4-0 loss to North West University – Mafikeng Campus, failed to turn that pressure into goals, going down 2-0 to Tuks.
Again, Wits was put to the sword by an opponent simply more ruthless in front of goal than our boys in yellow.
Tuks scored two unanswered goals in front of their home crowd at the Tuks Stadium to notch up their first win in the second week of the nine-week tournament.
Wits just cannot score
Wits suffered their second straight loss and another 90 minutes without scoring on a cold night on the Highveld, made colder by the disappointing result.
Things, however, did not start out bleakly for the Witsies, and a powerful shot from outside the 18-yard area in the 12th minute forced the Tuks goalkeeper to punch the ball past his right-hand upright for a corner.
It was a signal of intent from Wits, and while Tuks struggled to settle into a rhythm, Wits passed the ball with purpose.
This did not last though and soon Tuks took control of the game and besieged the Wits goal with attack after attack.
Unsurprisingly, Tuks took the lead after attacker Mosa Sesele headed in a cross from a well-taken corner.
Before and after the goal, goalkeeper Mohale Kgabusi more than proved his abilities, making many brave saves to keep Wits in the game.
Wits had opportunities to level the score, but did not do enough to breach the Tuks defence.
When Wits finally does score…
Tuks got their second goal handed to them on a platter in the 89th minute when Wits defender Nelson Mwale scored an own goal.
Mwale was caught stranded after he could not get out of the way of a low and powerful cross following a Tuks counter-attack.
THE MAN accused of holding eight Wits Law council members hostage last Friday has been released because he is “mentally unwell”.
According to Hillbrow Police spokesperson Constable Mduduzi Zondo, charges of intimidation and trespassing against the man, Sibusiso Mahuli, were withdrawn by the senior prosecutor at the Hillbrow Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
It is unclear whether a psychologist was involved in the decision to drop the case.
On Monday, Wits Vuvuzela reported that eight Wits Law School council members locked themselves in a storeroom and called police after two men barged into a meeting and used the threat of a gun — which was not seen — to intimidate them.
Campus Control apprehended one of the men, Mahuli, while the second managed to escape. No gun was found on the scene or among the arrested man’s belongings.
[pullquote align=”right”]When Campus Control senior investigator Michael Mahada called Mahuli’s mother, she told him that her son was mentally “not well”.[/pullquote]
Wits Vuvuzela contacted Mahuli and questioned him about Friday’s incident. He said he was not allowed on campus anymore but that he still intended to study at the university.
However, he said his mother had forbidden him from returning to the university.
A Campus Control report, compiled from CCTV footage, testimony from involved students and Campus Control officers, as well as Wits Vuvuzela interviews has established Friday’s sequence of events.
Campus Control said the two men entered the campus via Senate House without signing in to receive a visitor’s slip.
At 5.07pm they are seen on camera entering the Law School, and at 6.16pm they are seen leaving.
Two Campus Control officers entered the building at 5.30pm, followed 10 minutes later by armed police.
The footage then shows Mahuli returning to the Law School building at 5.50pm, where he was pointed out by one of the Law council students and arrested. Campus Control and police found a letter in the Law School council offices from the university acknowledging Mahuli’s application to study at Wits next year.
Hostage man speaks
Asked about Friday’s events, Mahuli said he had come to the Law School to find out more about courses.[pullquote align=”right”] In the middle of the interview with Wits Vuvuzela, he broke out in song: “92, 92, 92, verse 92….that’s my song for Vuvuzela”.[/pullquote]
Jeanette Phiri, head of student enrolment, told Wits Vuvuzela that the university could not deny any person a place at the university based on their mental state. If a student was found to be mentally disabled when they registered, the onus was on the faculty to accommodate the student.
Phiri said an incident like this was unprecedented.
One of the students held hostage, Nonkululeko Sunduza, said he did not believe Mahuli should be allowed back at Wits.
“If he is mentally ill … he could pose the same threat to us and other students. He should be institutionalised. We cannot have another saga,” said Sunduza.
Sunduza complained that Campus Control took too long, about 30 minutes, to respond to their call for help. He said the lengthy wait resulted in the students calling the SA Police Service.
Mahada said Campus Control had passed on its findings to Wits management.
Members of Wits’ Law School locked themselves in a storeroom and called police after they were threatened with a gun by two men on Friday evening.
Nonkululeko Sunduza, academic officer of the law school council, said two men barged into their meeting; one of them holding what she says was a letter of admission, wanting to “know” about law.
Sunduza said one of the men was tattooed and had a gold tooth, while the other looked as if he were a “ hobo”
[pullquote align=”right”]“Ithii ngikhiphe izibhambu zam ngizonibonisa kahle” [Let me take my guns out so I can show you][/pullquote]
“I noticed that the other guy (The hobo), wasn’t really paying attention, he was just looking around” said Sunduza.
According to Sunduza the tattooed man became increasingly frustrated as he didn’t seem to understand what they were saying to him about the letter.
When they couldn’t answer his questions, he said in IsiZulu:“Ithii ngikhiphe izibhambu zam ngizonibonisa kahle” (Let me take my guns out so I can show you.)’
Sunduza screamed and told her fellow council member Lerato Thini to lock the door.
The eight council members then ran and locked themselves in the storeroom where they called Wits Campus Control. From the storeroom, Sunduza said she heard the men say: “We have to do this … we’ve been in cells together”
[pullquote]”Eight policemen arrived armed with rifles.”[/pullquote]
She said she also heard one guy explaining to the other how to use a gun. “Kufanele kuqhume isbhamu” (A gun must go off).
Fearing that Campus Control was taking too long to respond, the hotages called the police.
Senior investigating officer at Campus Control, Michael Mahada, told Wits Vuvuzela that he arrived on the scene and found Sunduza and Thini outside talking to Campus Control officers.
He said a few minutes later, about eight policemen arrived armed with rifles.
Mahada said one of the first things he noticed was a bag laying in the hallway with its contents scattered all around.
“There were some study guides of some sort, some clothing, and other documents”, Mahada said.
The “documents” turned out to be a letter from Wits acknowledging one of the men’s application to study at the University, as well as other personal papers.
Mahada said there was no gun in the bag or amongst the scattered items.
[pullquote align=”right”]She also told Mahada that her son was “not right”.[/pullquote]
“At first I thought the stuff belonged to a student. When I asked the suspect he couldn’t explain himself.”
Mahada said he then called one of the numbers on the documents, and the woman who answered said she was the suspects’ mother.
She also told Mahada that her son was “not right”.
Mahada said Campus Control would be looking at CCTV footage as they continue to investigate.
Constable Mduduzi Zondo of the Hillbrow Police station confirmed that a case of intimidation has been opened against the suspect, after he was apprehended on campus by the police.
The suspect remains in custody and is set to appear in a Hillbrow court tomorrow.
His accomplice ran away and has yet to been found.
More than a month before the University releases the findings of a commission into widespread sexual harassment incidents, Campus Control (CC) officers are undergoing intensive training on how to handle any issues.
Since last Thursday, the 150-plus staff members of the University’s security arm are receiving training from the Career Counselling and Development Unit (CCDU) aimed at arming officers with greater knowledge and sensitivity about sexual harassment.
Sexual harassment officer at the CCDU, Maria Wanyane, told Wits Vuvuzela that the seminars would take an “interactive approach” to the training, rather than lapsing into “lecture mode”.
[pullquote]“The training will be influenced by what people bring to the seminars. It’s a learning opportunity for everyone. We want to pose the issue of sexual harassment to the officers in a wider context, working on what they tell us and slowly building on that,” [/pullquote]“The training will be influenced by what people bring to the seminars. It’s a learning opportunity for everyone. We want to pose the issue of sexual harassment to the officers in a wider context, working on what they tell us and slowly building on that,” Wanyane said.
Campus Control officers will also be educated about Wits’ harassment policy (currently in the last phase of revision), what procedures to follow, and what kind of language to use when a student comes forward to report an incident.
Measures to address the ability of Campus Control to deal with sexual harassment came after a series of articles by Wits Vuvuzela earlier this year.
The training also aims to empower officers enough to be able to identify sexual harassment in the workplace, and to report it if they themselves are victims.
Wanyane said that a “mind shift” needed to happen at the University as a whole if sexual harassment was going to be dealt with effectively.
“We will be asking the officers to talk about myths they have about sexual harassment and challenging those myths,” she said.
The training is recognition by the University of the importance that awareness plays in tackling sexual harassment; however it does need to extend beyond Campus Control.
For now, CCDU is struggling to convince lecturers and heads of schools to work with the unit to arrange awareness talks and programmes for students, as well as for the lecturers themselves.
Wanyane alone is responsible for coordinating the process of dealing with sexual harassment complaints from students, only being assisted by staff psychologists with counselling.
Recent incidents have shown the magnitude of the sexual harassment problem and the amount of work that still needs to done.
A CHOICE TO MAKE: Zimababweans go to the polls on Wednesday Photo: Mfuneko Toyana
A LARGE number of Zimbabwe-born Witsies will not be able to cast their votes in what is supposed to be a watershed election for the country next Wednesday.
The July 31 ballot takes place only two weeks into the current university term. Many Witsies say they cannot, financially and academically, afford to travel back to their home towns and exercise their right to vote.
Zimbabwean citizens living and working in South Africa will not be able to cast their votes at the Zimbabwean embassy either, as many had hoped.
This comes after Zimbabwean Electoral Commission failed to put in place organisational measures necessary to allow Zimbabweans living South Africa to vote.
Logistics, however, are not the only reason Witsies born in Zimbabwe said they would not be voting.
Witsies Speak
Third-year BA Law, Politics and International Relations student Tapiwa Gozhore said he hadn’t registered to vote because he did not see a reason to vote.
“I believe there is no choice in the Zimbabwe elections,” Gozhore said.
A Bulawayo-born student, who did not want to give her name, said she was a registered voter but would not be crossing the border to cast her vote.
“In the last one [elections] even though I voted the results were already there, so I think it is a waste of time and money when there’s already a winner,” she said.
In Previous Times
Last month, President Robert Mugabe proclaimed the July 31 election date, citing Zimbabwe’s constitution requirement to push for elections within 30 days.
Opposition parties, mainly the Movement for Democratic Change led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC-T), as well as the Southern African Development Community, pleaded for a 14 day extension to prepare for the vote, but this was rejected by Mugabe’s ZANU-PF.
Tsvangirai told the New African magazine: “President Robert Mugabe has proceeded to pass unlawful decree enacting on his own amendments to the Electoral Act.”
Bulawayo-born Langa Moyo, Masters Engineering, told Wits Vvuvzela that he had also not registered to vote.
“The time frame wasn’t good enough for me. It [registration] was a rushed thing. You know the opposition and everyone was trying to extend the dates, and the ZANU-PF guys were trying to make sure elections come as early as possible. Everyone was confused about whether to go to Zim now, or should I go later to register.”
Witsie Cassian Mavhaire said he had no plans of returning to Zimababwe because there were no opportunities for graduates in the country.
Mavhaire said Mugabe was the bad guy and MDC-T were the good guys.
“The best situation is for the unity government to be in place rather than for us to have a one-party government,” he said.
Democracy?
Gozhore said he did not see a reason for elections at all in Zimbabwe. He said people were supporting opposition parties only because they despised ZANU-PF.
“For me that’s not a democratic country…People should vote based on choice, so that I vote for MDC because I don’t like ZANU-PF, but I vote for MDC because they have policies that will develop our country for the next 30 years.”
A member of what is believed to be a group of thieves operating along Jorissen Street was nabbed by Campus Control this past Friday – but despite this victory, crime on and around Wits increased slightly between May and June.
The arrested man was apparently preparing to break into yet another parked car outside Senate House. Campus Control and the orange-jacketed officers of Genesis security have been watching the area closely in the past few months, after Witsies reported valuables going missing from inside their locked vehicles.
Campus Control investigations, mainly through CCTV cameras pointed at the street, revealed that a group of men, driving a white Toyota Corolla, were using a remote control to jam the signals of car-locking systems. This allowed them to gain access and steal whatever items of value they found.
On Friday, Campus Control officers spotted the Corolla and arrested the driver.
“We found the man in possession of big remote that looked like what was being used to interfere with the locking systems of the cars”, Campus Control Head of Investigations Michael Mahada told Wits Vuvuzela.
The man confessed to the crimes without much coercion. “He could see we knew how he operates. He said he had sold some of the stuff [stolen from inside the cars] and that he still had some of the other stuff.”
The suspect was handed over to Hillbrow police and was expected to appear in court on Monday or Tuesday.
While these thieves may have been foiled, other crime remains a problem – particularly theft under “false pretences”. According to Head of Campus Control, Rob Kemp, students frequently fall victim to con men who use a number of stories to coax cell phones away from them.
Kemp said the I’ve-lost-my-phone story was still the most popular tactic used by criminals to convince students to hand over their phones, thinking they were helping somebody in need. More bizarre tactics were also used to target students with the latest cellphones, such as Apple i-Phones and Samsung Galaxy phones.
“One guy walks around with a packet of white stuff and offers it to students in exchange for using their cellphones,” Kemp said.
Like the gullible students who took the bait, Campus Control had suspected the substance was cocaine, said Kemp. After it was sent to the police for testing, it was found to be mealie-meal.
More unsettling was Kemp’s estimation that about 50% of arrests this year were of Wits students.
“Students are stealing from each other. It’s worrying that it’s happening in our community.” Kemp said theft of laundry at residences was a frequent occurrence.
As in previous interviews with the Wits Vuvuzela, Kemp stressed that non-students who gained illegal entry were responsible for many of the crimes on campus. Lost or stolen student cards should be reported and blocked, and students should refrain from swiping in non-students.
North West University (NWU) are early favourites to lift the inaugural Varsity Football title, after the men from Mafikeng thrashed Wits 4-0 at Milpark Stadium on Monday night.
The launch of Explosive Mondays, where student football teams from eight universities around the country will compete every Monday for the next nine weeks, was festive and filled with entertainment on and off the field.
The match, played in front of a packed a home crowd was beamed live by DStv channel Supersport, as will 15 out of the total 33 games, and this raised the atmosphere to fever-pitch on a frosty night in the Highveld.
Prizes on offer for those who braved the cold added to the atmosphere. Cash prizes for the most vocal fans and res’s with the most colourful supporters, a raffle for five cases of beer and a sea of freebies made it a memorable evening.
Memorable that is, for all except the Wits student team, who were a goal down within the first 15 minutes, and forced to chase shadows in the second half when UNW put on an exhibition of idiski, or more precisely “ukupencila” – vernacular in South African townships for “keep-ball” and dribbling.
While the team from the North West was much fitter, quicker, and more aggressive in attack throughout the 90 minutes, the score at half-time could have been in Wits’s favour had the home team turned their dominance in possession into goals.
Wits were comfortable on the ball playing crisp, one-touch football that delighted Witsies, who chanted war-cries and bayed for NWU’s blood.
Phenyo Mongalo, Zachary Cohen, and captain Mzimkhulu Nhlengethwa were inventive in midfield and fed the strikers well, but Wits front-line just wasn’t up to the task and squandered plenty of chances to score.
Wits paid the ultimate price for their wastefulness, conceding a penalty in the 11th minute and another three goals in the final quarter of the game.
Wits head coach, Karabo Mogudi attributed the disappointing performance to the recent university vacations, which he said affected his team’s fitness.
“If our conditioning level was at the required standard we would have done much better,” he said.
He also said the tournament was a great initiative, but stressed that it was important for the players to be successful on and off the field.
“I’ll only know the benefits of the tournament at the end of the year, when everyone passes and does well in their studies … when they come back to me and say ‘coach, I don’t owe the University anything”.
Oh dear! The fourth goal really knocked the stuffing out of Wits Photo: Prelene Singh
Premier Soccer League team Bidvest Wits in action. File Photo: Wits Vuvuzela
A Bidvest Wits footballer was detained by airport security shortly after his plane landed at Lanseria, after the player was apparently involved in a fight aboard the plane.
The PSL (Premier Soccer League) outfit was flying back from a pre-season training camp in Cape Town last Saturday evening, and according to an eyewitness who spoke to Wits Vuvuzela on condition of anonymity, there was a commotion on the plane involving a group of athletes in sports tracksuits.
The eyewitness, a fellow passenger tweeted after the flight: “@kulula whichever soccer team was misbehaving on cpt to lanseria flight, I hope the cops won’t treat the offenders lightly #badbehaviour.” Kulula then responded by saying: “Sorry for disruption, we will follow up with Lanseria.”
In a telephonic interview with Wits Vuvuzela, the passenger said she first heard a commotion on the plane, and then saw for herself one of the players being escorted after the flight by airport security.
Bidvest Wits CEO Jose Ferreira requested a meeting with Wits Vuvuzela at the club’s Sturrock Park offices on Friday morning, but refused to comment on the record.
Ferreira asked for an opportunity to respond to further questions via email but at the time of publishing, was yet to respond to these questions.
Another source who wishes to remain anonymous has said that Kulula confirmed that an incident had taken place aboard the aircraft but added that the matter was settled amicably. Wits Vuvuzela spoke with Kulula officials who referred the matter to Comair. Comair’s legal advisor Kathleen Ireland has also not responded to queries sent by email on Thursday.
Since her announcement as the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille has dominated national headlines. In this bonus episode of We Should Be Writing podcast, hosts Lulah Mapiye and Bonolo Mokonoto dissect a media meet-and-greet with the mayoral hopeful. From her extensive political résumé to her controversial public utterance, we examine why the Democratic Alliance has chosen Hellen Zille as their candidate for the 2027 local mayoral elections. Additionally, […]
