For two years I couldn’t get a water/electricity/tax bill from the city of Johannesburg. Water and electricity are socialist enterprises here. I didn’t have an account number, nor did I know how much to pay. I tried calling the bureaucrats, but no help there: they said they’d get back to me, but they didn’t.

On September 25th, they showed up to turn off my electricity for failure to pay. The city workers refused to show identification, wouldn’t say whose account they were turning off, and wouldn’t show any legal authorization to do so. In fact, they told me they didn’t have to speak a language I understood (English). I called the police. I have a videotape of these civil servants telling me they aren’t obligated to identify themselves, and that if I refused to allow them on the property they had the right to tear down my gate. When I asked one of them for anything that would show them to be city workers, he replied, “This isn’t America you know.” I know! I know!

I told him, “It’s not Nazi Germany, either.” He later chastised me for running down “Nazi Germany.” “I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t realize you were a Nazi.”

I went to the city hall and waited hours for someone to see me. I was finally told to make a plan to pay the account. I was willing. I had R7,000 (7,000 rand) cash on me. But the bureaucrats wouldn’t let me pay or make a plan. They had forgotten to transfer the account to my name, you see; it was still in the old owner’s name and the bill was going to the wrong address. I was ordered to wait until they changed it over and sent me a statement.

I pay a R700 deposit and go. Two days later they turn on the electricity. Two months later, and still no statement has arrived. I call and call. “I’ll call you back,” they say. They don’t. I keep calling. Finally I get a sour bureaucrat who tells me I’ll have to pay R9,000 immediately and the rest over six months. I asked about the year payment plan. That was discontinued in November. “But I wanted to pay in October and you people wouldn’t let me,” I protest. “That’s your problem,” she says.

Back at city hall, I see another woman who spends the entire time screaming at everyone who comes near her. She screams in the phone. She screams at the switchboard for “bothering” her with phone calls. She informs me that it’s my obligation to pay my account whether or not the city sends me a statement. It doesn’t matter if I don’t know the amount owed. It doesn’t matter if I don’t have an account number to which the money is to be credited. My obligation is to pay an unknown sum into an unknown account, and if I don’t get it right they’ll turn off my electricity.

I got off relatively easy, though. Today’s newspaper told of one man who received an account for R500,000 in water use. The man owns a well and doesn’t even use city water. When he went in to talk to the bureaucrats, they were very sympathetic. They told him to pay 50 percent now or have his electricity cut off.

The UN warns personnel in SA to never land at night at the Johannesburg International Airport because of violent crime gangs. SA employees say the UN now views SA as so dangerous that they are at the same alert level as conflict-driven countries such as the Sudan’. Specific regions may not be entered by UN personnel now, Johannesburg inner-city, Hillbrow, Mamelodi, Mooikloof, Durban, the Cape Flats, Brits, Sasolburg, Knysna and Jeffrey’s Bay.In most cases, victims are ambushed in their driveways or hotel lobbies with firearms, or robbed when they travel from the (Joburg)

The International Space Station photographed Joburg’s population’s close proximity to lethally radioactive uranium-dumps, waste from the goldmines: the angular patches,arrowed.Millions live on and next to these lethal uranium dumps.A Jan 2008 report by the SA nuclear regulator shows lethal radiation levels in groundwater and crops near the mines – and soil is 150 times as radioactive as legally allowed around two gold mines in Randfontein and Potchefstroom.The Wonderfonteinspruit crops are 150 times more radioactive than legally-allowed – but the ANC-regime, which also ropes in witchdoctors to ‘cure Aids’, said this food is perfectly safe to eat…http://www.news24.com/Beeld/Suid-Afrika/0,,3-975_2263165,00.html

“But the person who helped to fill in their forms even assisted them outside (the customs department), and the women even tipped him. Since when does one TIP?! a customs officer? Only in the NSA!!
During that period he could have had instant communication with anybody,” she said.
The guesthouse owner said the women spent their time in Joburg the next day arranging new passports and cancelling all their bank and credit cards. They left Joburg for Durban on Wednesday evening.
“Many of them just want to go back home as quickly as possible,” she said, adding that she did not know where in Durban they were staying. This is the second such attack to have happened this week. On Monday, a couple, their 2-year-old child and an adult relative were ambushed by a gang outside their Sandringham, Joburg, home after arriving from OR Tambo International.

They had just arrived from Nigeria.Over the past year, dozens of people have been attacked shortly after arriving at the airport. And while evidence suggests there might be a syndicate colluding with airport staff to carry out the attacks, the police have denied this. Hohoho! Do you for one minute think they will admit it? Sheesh!
This week, the police said there was no evidence to suggest that a syndicate might be involved in most of the attacks. Yeah, right! If you believe this, , you’ll believe anything..although, they are so bloody useless, I suppose its possible.
The police said that while they investigate every case where people claim to have been followed from the airport, they had not been able to establish a definitive link that the robbers were operating out of the airport. No arrests had been made. So whats new?

A Midrand resident, who witnessed a hijacking on Thursday morning, pulled out his firearm and shot dead one alleged hijacker and critically wounded a second one, police said.

Police spokesperson Superintendent Eugene Opperman said the two hijackers were attempting to rob a man of his vehicle on Old Pretoria Road in Midrand when the crime was spotted by a resident of the area.

“The member of the public tried to confront the robbers but they opened fire on him,” said Opperman.

“Using his own licensed firearm, he then fired shots at the robbers, fatally wounding one and critically injuring another,” he said.

Police recovered a stolen pistol at the scene.

Cases of armed robbery and attempted murder have been opened.

The injured hijacker was recovering at a nearby hospital under police guard, police said. – Sapa

This is unbelievable. How can a hospital function with less than twenty percent of its elevators working? It is ridiculous that whoever has managed the hospital has failed to hire a contractor to maintain the elevators.

Working on elevators is extremely laborious and expensive

Johannesburg – Only four lifts out of 21 are operational at Johannesburg Hospital, the hospital’s chief executive said on Thursday.

Extra staff have been employed to carry patients up and down the stairs

Signs have been posted that the lifts are not working and apologize for inconvenience caused.

This is the latest example of the ANC’s sheer incompetence. How can a government agency not pay its phone bills? What will these stupid Black Economic Empowerment morons do while the phone lines are down? I suppose they will sit around doing nothing. The inordinately high salaries that government officials receive for doing virtually nothing continually amazes me. South Africa is a country where the electricity supply is unreliable, the traffic lights do not work, and the criminals roam free. I suppose not paying phone bills is the next step in South Africa continuing demise.]

Phone lines have been cut at East Rand home affairs offices – allegedly due to unpaid phone bills, a home affairs official said on Monday.

Regional home affairs manager for Springs Themba Ndebele said the lines had been out of order since last week.

“This is crisis point,” said Ndebele. “We can’t function.”

He said no-one could phone out, receive calls or fax at home affairs offices in Nigel, Brakpan, Benoni and Springs.

Nowadays home affairs seems to be a dysfunctional governmental department with or without telephones anyway. Corruption lack of skilled staff been the order of the day.

Yeoville’s streets turned into a slum of disease and violent crime.

Below are some more disturbing pictures of Johannesburg’s slum status. How this is kept out of the tourist brochures is unbelievable.

Flats to rent are readily available but remember three months non refundable rental deposit is required. There are no guarantee’s for water and sanitation connections. The fire department has its hands full extinguishing fires as the buildings are stripped of anything valuable especially cable due to the current resale value of copper to scrap metal merchants.

Exculator’s are stripped for there scrap metal value. This particular one has been blocked with a car bonnet as its just too dangerous to use. How long the bonnet remains there is a variable. Many petrol stations have been abandoned in crime ridden residential areas. Owners and staff being murdered at filling stations common. Oil companys havent even bothered to remove pump stations as its just not worth the risk.

The picture below is what Joubert Park used to look like followed by present day.

Buildings, roads, parks every where you turn is in ruin.

Since the birth of black empowerment laws – thanks to the ANC (Mandela’s political party) – a once proud city has been reduced to a slum. Municipal services are almost completely halted. The once vibrant inner city dwellings – broken and dilapidated – resting in the hands of unscrupulous slum lords.

The people who originally own the inner city properties – driven out by crime.

Now these next photos speak for themselves, the transport department.

Below left shows outside of bus depot all proudly South African, Lets empower to destroy together.

Why a once clean prosperous city has been reduced to this is beyond comprehension. With Gauteng having the highest population density in South Africa where does the money go the the city collects for services.

Even after buying the politicians top of the range BMW and Mercedes vehicles, there should still some money left over for the garbage truck?

The issuing of a ticket to a taxi for a traffic offense led to the wild shootout and chase that left the suspect dead and two people injured.

Two Tshwane Metro Police officers stopped a taxi driver for apparently skipping the traffic light at the junction of Prinsloo and Church streets. The chase ended with the suspect’s body riddled with bullets
While the traffic officer was writing the ticket, the passenger began arguing with the officers before pulling out a gun and firing shots at them.

The chase ended with the suspects body riddled with bullets, a Metro Police officer with a bullet wound to the arm and a bystander with a bullet in his backside. The section of Church Street between Prinsloo and Du Toit streets was cordoned off for several hours as police carried out their investigation.

Tshwane Metro Police spokesperson Superintendent Alta Fourie said two of their officers had been issuing a ticket to a taxi driver when the passenger began an argument.

The passenger produced a firearm and started shooting at the officers before fleeing on foot down the street. “Both officers ran after the suspect. One called a third officer who was in the vicinity.”

‘I found a place to hide and then I heard gunshots’

Pretoria Central police spokesperson Captain Tessa Jansen said it was unclear why the suspect started shooting at the police. “After the shooting he ran down Church Street. He shot a civilian standing in front of the Reserve Bank and tried to hijack a taxi,” she said.

A woman who lives in the vicinity said she was in her flat when she heard gunfire. “One, two, three shots. I looked out of my window and saw a man with a gun climb into a taxi that had stopped at the traffic light. “But then he got out and started shooting again. Then I saw the Metro Police with guns chasing after him. The man ran into my building and there was a lot of gunshots,” she said.

Fourie said the suspect ran into the NHG block of flats on the corner of Du Toit and Church streets with the three metro officers, and a SAPS captain who had joined the chase, in hot pursuit. A Freedom House Services security guard, who was manning the gate at the flats, said he opened it to investigate the gunshots.

“I saw a man with a gun shooting wildly.”

“I ran back through the gate but it takes a long time to close. The man came in after me and we ran into the flats. I found a place to hide and then I heard gunshots,” he said.

Fourie said the suspect ran down a corridor on the first floor and climbed over a balcony.

“Holding on to the wall with his left hand, he shot at the officers with his right hand.” (Jungle Tactics)
“One of our sergeants was shot in the hand. The police captain shot and hit the suspect who fell into the Protea Driving School grounds.”

The balcony where the suspect made his last stand was littered with bullet casings and projectiles. The suspect’s 9mm pistol landed on the ledge of the balcony. Jansen said the suspect has yet to be identified and it was unclear what his motive was.

Fourie said the sergeant was in a stable condition in Muelmed Hospital . The bystander was in a stable condition in Pretoria Academic Hospital.