MyJHB

Stuff from Johannesburg

Lack of police intelligence creates opportunities for Zama Zamas

Dear Editor

The DA calls on the national commissioner of the South African Police Service (SAPS) General Fannie Masemola to appoint a national head of crime intelligence as a matter of urgency.

Despite SAPS’ recent operations on illegal mining enterprises, following the horrific rapes of eight women in Krugersdorp, a connection between the so-called Zama Zamas that were arrested and the crime have yet to be proven.

While the DA welcomes the action by SAPS, belated as it might be, this tragedy could possibly have been avoided had the police and government made any real effort to address the illegal mining activities prevalent all over South Africa. Reactive policing when there is public outcry following atrocious villainy will not put a dent in South Africa’s sky-high crime statistics.

SAPS’ lack of proper intelligence and glaring lack of proactive policing have put all communities, not only those where the Zama Zamas operate, in increasing danger. Criminals have become more brazen in breaking the law. They simply do not fear the police as the chances of them facing the consequences of their actions are infinitesimally small.

It is time Gen Masemola addressed this gaping hole in SAPS’ crime intelligence. Without fully functioning intelligence services, the police will continue to fight a losing battle to the detriment of everyone living in South Africa.

Regards

Okkie Terblanche MP
DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Police

Category:

Top Star Drive-In: Destroyed by What Created it

However, the very thing that created the Top Star eventually destroyed it. Because the early miners had used crude methods, the Ferreira Dump—and dozens of others like it—still contained significant traces of gold. As the price of gold rose and new chemical extraction technologies (like the carbon-in-pulp process) made it profitable to “mine the waste,” the ground beneath the Top Star became more valuable than the cinema itself. In 2006, despite fierce opposition from heritage groups who argued that the dump and the drive-in were culturally significant landmarks, the projectors were turned off for the last time.

The reclamation of the dump was a staggering industrial feat. Starting in 2008, mining giant DRDGold used high-pressure water cannons to “monitor” the dump, turning 5 million tons of solid earth back into a liquid slurry. This slurry was then piped 40 kilometers across the province to a processing plant in Brakpan. By 2011, the “mountain” had completely vanished. The 50-meter-high plateau that had dominated the southern skyline for a century was reduced to a flat, dusty crater.

The disappearance of the Top Star is a poignant symbol of Johannesburg’s “extractive” nature. It is a city that consumes itself to stay alive; even its historical landmarks are subject to the fluctuating price of minerals on the London and New York stock exchanges. Today, if you drive along the M2, there is an empty space in the sky where the Top Star used to be. While the reclamation removed a source of toxic dust and “acid mine drainage,” it also erased a piece of the city’s collective memory. The land where the gold-flecked mountain once stood is now being rehabilitated for light industrial use, proving that in eGoli, even the horizon is for sale if there’s enough gold hidden inside it.