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Stuff from Johannesburg

Recover the R480 000 spent on installation of 15 low-quality burglar bars

Dear Johannesburg

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng notes the response by the Gauteng MEC for Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation (SACR), Mbali Hlophe on the corruption exposed by the DA where R480 000 was spent on the installation of low-quality burglar bars on only 15 windows at the Gauteng Archives centre.

The MEC states that preliminary investigations have revealed that there was a parallel procurement of the service that was initiated over an existing contract with the main service provider at the time.

MEC Hlophe states that the officials that were found guilty of the illegal procurement and installation of surveillance cameras are also signatories to the payment of these exorbitant window prices. Some of these officials implicated in the window corruption scandal have been dismissed and others have resigned following the receipt of their suspension letters.

The department has engaged with law enforcement agencies for criminal charges to be laid against those implicated.

We will closely monitor the progress of this case to ensure that those implicated in corruption and criminality in stealing taxpayer’s money pay back every cent looted and face the might of the law.

The DA is concerned about MEC Hlophe’s lack of oversight of this department.

If the DA did not expose the rot in this department, such actions, and pronouncements by the MEC would not have happened.

We will write to the Gauteng Premier, David Makhura to raise our concern about a lack of focused oversight by the members of his executive who consistently fail to execute their oversight responsibilities in terms of the running of their departments.

Regards

Lebo More MPL
DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Sports, Arts, Culture and Creation

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Top Star Drive-In: The Cinema on the Mountain of Gold

The Ferreira Dump began growing in the late 1800s, composed of the crushed rock and chemical residue left over after early, inefficient mining processes had extracted as much gold as the technology of the time allowed. By the 1960s, it was a flat-topped, man-made mesa overlooking the city. In a stroke of entrepreneurial genius, the surface was tarred and the Top Star Drive-In was opened. It quickly became a South African institution. Its appeal was not just the movies, but the unparalleled view: as the sun set, the massive white screen would flicker to life against a backdrop of the glowing skyscrapers of the Central Business District, separated from the viewer only by the elevated M2 highway.

In the decades before television arrived in South Africa (1976), the Top Star was a primary social hub. It was a democratic space in an undemocratic time; while the city below was strictly segregated, the “car” served as a private bubble that allowed a degree of social freedom not found in traditional theaters. For many Johannesburgers, the Top Star was a site of nostalgic rites of passage—first dates, family outings where children were piled into the back of station wagons with blankets and flasks of tea, and the Saturday “car market” where the parking lot transformed into a sprawling hub for buying and selling second-hand vehicles.