Parktown Boys’ tragedy: no excuses and no peace

Parktown Boys’, your attitude is apathetic, your statement weak, and if I were a parent of a boy in your school, I’d be removing him as we speak.

Why were the children not marked on a register as they arrived for the camp, before the buses left? Inexcusable.

Where were the camp facilitators or teachers when the catastrophe was unfolding? Where were the people in charge? Again, inexcusable.

Then we come to the part where children told the teacher Enoch Mpianzi was missing, and told the teacher he’d been swept away. This teacher phones the father because he isn’t sure Enoch was on the bus! With no further concern, the children are sent on a hike (keep in mind how many of them must have been traumatised from this incident). The entire afternoon and evening continues, and at no stage does the teacher or any other adult check to see if in fact Enoch is missing. What harm would it have done to do a roll call? For whatever reason, late on Thursday morning, they suddenly decide to search. Far too late of course. Death and disaster have visited and the lives of Enoch’s family and every child on that camp are changed forever.

I’ve run dozens of camps with many different age groups. Every safety precaution was always in place, every child was on a register and roll calls or head counts were done regularly.

Yes, tragic accidents do happen. But this was gross negligence on the part of the teachers, the facilitators, the school and the camp venue. Many basic safety rules were broken. There are no excuses.

I pray for peace for Enoch’s family, and for the children who witnessed this tragedy. But for the adults in charge, for the organisers, teachers and facilitators who were there that day — you don’t deserve the honour of working with children. And you definitely do not deserve peace.

Sally Meyer, Amanzimtoti

Personal trackers for those on bail

It’s great that Justice Edwin Cameron acknowledges the serious crimes routinely being committed by violent criminals released on bail — “Botched bail decisions can be curbed” (January 19).

In my area, which has a relatively low crime rate, there have been at least three murders committed by accused released on bail against the advice of the prosecuting officers. Not once was there any apology or personal accountability by court officials for the lifelong tragedies these reckless decisions inflicted on the families involved.

The general effectiveness of the judiciary needs to be ruthlessly audited. Violent offenders should never be given bail in the first place. All those who argue for bail must be held to account when things go wrong. That means the magistrate, defence attorney and social worker must all be charged and forced to offer recompense to the victims’ families.

My further suggestion is that criminals on bail should be fitted with personal trackers. It’s highly unlikely they would commit a crime knowing they would be immediately identified and apprehended. The efficacy of this idea could be easily tested in a small trial and rapidly implemented with immediate benefits.

Perhaps Cameron can press for this to be implemented.

John Godsiff, Clovelly

Give all a chance with ICT training

This past week has been eventful, with two key investment gatherings — the UK-Africa Investment Summit and the World Economic Forum in Davos. We hope those gatherings will lead to actual investments and create much-needed jobs.

Unfortunately, many of the jobs that will be created will be out of reach for most of our people who do not have information and communications technology (ICT) skills. Current ICT skills programmes are geared towards people under 35 and are mostly in urban areas.

There is a great need for ICT skills training programmes for people over 35 and those in rural areas, so that people from Nquthu to Mokopane, from, Kranshoek to Boipelo and Mbalenhle will also be ready for the upcoming jobs or able to create businesses that leverage technology.

We should be creating opportunities to teach computer literacy to grandparents, uncles, aunts, helpers and gardeners. Tafadzwa Mutyambizi, Randburg

Hogarth too will fail to destroy me

I am a seasoned Sunday Times bête noire, so I was not surprised when my tribute to the late Dr Richard Maponya struck a raw nerve with Hogarth (January 19). The moment my photo appeared with Richard and Marina [his late wife], the old propaganda machine was galvanised: Buthelezi must be lampooned.

This generation may not understand the knee-jerk need to vilify me. The standard Hogarth lines, like “Not-Gatsha”, are probably meaningless to them. What Hogarth calls “the world record for the longest speech” doesn’t even relate to a speech, but to the wrapping up of the KwaZulu government in 1994 when I delivered reports on all our departments in a sitting of the legislative assembly.

Hogarth’s claim that “prominent South Africans shunned” me during the apartheid years is equally nonsense. Even Nelson Mandela continued to correspond with me throughout his incarceration.

In 2002, Mandela acknowledged the ANC’s propaganda war against me, saying: “We have used every ammunition to destroy him, but we failed. And he is still there. He is a formidable survivor. We cannot ignore him.” Evidently Hogarth feels the same way.

Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi MP, IFP founder and president emeritus

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