Day: February 9, 2023

Ghana international soccer player Christian Atsu is missing after the earthquake in Turkey, his club and agent said Thursday, following earlier reports he was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building and taken to a hospital.

Atsu’s well-being and whereabouts were unknown. Aydin Toksoz, the deputy head of Hatayspor soccer club, told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency news service that club sporting director Taner Savut was also missing after the massive earthquake that struck southern Turkey and Syria and has now killed more than 19,000 people, with that number expected to rise.

The 31-year-old Atsu, who previously played for English clubs Chelsea and Newcastle, signed for Hatayspor late last year. The club is based in the southern city of Antakya, near the epicenter of the earthquake that struck in the early hours of Monday and devastated the region. Atsu and Savut were believed to have been in buildings that collapsed, the club had said.

Nana Sechere, the agent for Atsu, said in messages to The Associated Press that he traveled to Turkey to try to find Atsu but the player “is yet to be found.”

Hatayspor and the Ghana soccer association announced on Tuesday that Atsu was rescued from a ruined building on Monday night and taken to a medical facility for treatment.

Toksoz said Hatayspor was now “not able to confirm this information.”

“We have not been able to reach Atsu or Taner Savut,” Toksoz told the Anadolu Agency.

Ghana’s ambassador to Turkey said she was also searching for Atsu. Francisca Ahsitey-Odunton told Ghanaian radio she was given a list of 200 hospitals or medical facilities that Atsu could have been sent to if he was rescued and she had also been unable to confirm where the player was.

She said she hoped he was in one of those hospitals and his location hadn’t been confirmed “in all the confusion, which is understandable under the circumstances.”

Antakya is one of the cities hardest hit by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake, which has destroyed thousands of buildings in Turkey alone and sent more than 110,000 rescue personnel scrambling to find survivors trapped under wreckage. More than 63,000 people have been injured in Turkey.

Atsu scored late in injury time to give Hatayspor a 1-0 win over Istanblul-based Kasimpasa S.K. in the Turkish league on Sunday, earning him praise from his new club hours before the earthquake struck.

Source: Voice of America

North West MEC for Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, Nono Maloyi has challenged officials in the department to turn around the situation in municipalities in the province.

Maloyi who was addressing the departmental strategic planning lekgotla held at the weekend, said the state of affairs in most of the municipalities, “leaves much to be desired”. He maintains the department, has a responsibility of ensuring that all municipalities across the province are able to discharge their constitutional mandate of providing quality services to their respective communities.

“The Auditor General’s previous reports depict a worrying picture about the municipalities in the province. Municipalities are not able to use their infrastructure grant. No municipality has received a clean audit and for us to have functional municipalities, we first need to stabilise the department by making sure that we deal with the high vacancy rate in the department. Once we have stabilised the department, we will then be able to stablise our municipalities’’, Maloyi said.

He bemoaned the high vacancy rate of senior managers in municipalities. “All most all our municipalities have vacant positions of senior managers. You cannot talk about building a capable state when you do not have qualified people to do the work’’, he said.

Maloyi said while the whole country is grappling with load shedding, municipalities must explore possible alternative sources of energy to mitigate the current challenges. He said municipalities are unable to use their infrastructure grants and the department must develop a strategy to assist municipalities to utilise their grants.

He said his department should set up proper systems to deal with the traditional leadership disputes involving traditional leadership without taking sites. “The department must have a good working relationship with the North West House of Traditional and Khoi-San Leaders”

He said before a dispute on traditional leadership is referred to the provincial government, the NWHTKL must find a way of dealing with dispute because they understand the issues on traditional leadership much better. Maloyi has also called for capacity building for disaster management to deal with disasters and the effects of climate change.

Source: Government of South Africa

The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) invites members of the media to the officially launch of Brandvlei Dam Feeder Canal by the Minister of Water and Sanitation honourable Senzo Mchunu, on 10 February 2023 in Rawsonville near Worcester.

The Greater Brandvlei Scheme consists of two state owned off-channel dams, the Brandvlei Dam and Kwaggaaskloof dams, riparian to the Breede River and is part of Minister Mchunu’s priority projects for the Western Cape.

The project entailed the increasing of the wall of the feeder by 300 over a 4 KM stretch which enabled 33 million cubes of additional water can be stored. The newly uplifted canal will increase the water flow to the dam, contributing to an increase irrigation activity which will in turn boost Agri-economy of that region.

Source: Government of South Africa