Current Edition >> Archives Section >> Spot Coverage >> December / January 2004
The exciting nationwide car rental franchise, Abba Car & Combi Hire, has just been brought to the Free State and Northern Cape by Mr. Fred Harmse, who has purchased the franchise for the region.
Based at 50 King Edward Road, Willows, Bloemfontein, Harmse says that besides the highly competitive services and packages offered by Abba Car & Combi Hire, their personal attention is a definite value-add.
African Getaway Tours and Safari’s, based in Bloemfontein offers the discerning traveller quite unique safari opportunities to explore the unbeaten track on the sub-continent. Led by experienced and qualified guides, the routes being covered include a “Brush with the Wild” 15 day tour of Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, a “Desert & Dune” 15 day safari of Namibia, five routes in South Africa and a “Mountain Kingdom” tour of Lesotho.
The owner of African Getaway Tours and Safari’s is Pierre Craven, whose love of nature was nurtured in his country of birth, Zimbabwe, but presently a citizen of South Africa. He simply has a passion to explore Africa's soul - the wildlife and scenery that has shaped its cultures for centuries.
African Getaway Tours & Safari’s are also actively involved in community tourism and they have lately been involved in the building of a museum in the Namibian Caprivi Strip near Sangwali village.
Hulle gaan uit van die standpunt dat stene nie maar net boumateriaal is nie, maar dat daardeur vir elke individuele geval in 'n spesifieke behoefte voorsien word en dat hoe elke klant die stene gebruik wat hy aankoop, 'n boodskap oordra. Dus word met stene 'n kultuur van sy eie geskep.
Dit is hoe Joubert Martins en Johan Germishuys van African Brick Centre, langs Casino op die Jagersfontein-pad, hul produkte en diens sien.
Kwaliteit, tekstuur, kleurskakerings, ens. en natuurlik sakpaspryse al die pad is alles dinge wat vir hulle by stene 'n rol speel en waarin hulle persoonlike en kundige advise aan elke klant gee.
Martins en Germishuys bedank graag al hul klante vir die ondersteuning die afgelope jaar en nooi hulle, en alle voornemende klante om hul vanaf vroeg in die nuwe jaar te besoek.
At a gala event held on 24 November 2004 in the Bloemfontein City Hall, the Dept. of Local Government & Housing named the municipalities in the province found to exercise the best practices and performances and present them with the Vuna Awards, which include cash amounts. The purpose with the Vuna Awards is to motivate municipalities to continuously seek mechanisms of improving performance and to facilitate shared learning among municipalities. For the second consecutive year the two top municipalities did it again : Mantsopa Local Municipality based at Ladybrand was judged overall tops, while Mangaung Local Municipality was again runner-up.
The Portfolio Committee on Tourism, Environmental and Economic Affairs of the Free State Legislature has recently visited Gariep Dam to obtain firsthand knowledge on the Lake !Gariep tourism development project. After a briefing by the vice-chairperson of Lake !Gariep Tourism, Dr. Danie van Huyssteen, the Committee visited the wall of the Gariep Dam, where a model of the dam wall built in the late 60's was showed to them. For years the model has been neglected, but since Mr. Vernon Blair, the new area manager for the Dept. of Water Affairs & Forestry, took over, it was renovated and is now open for the public.
In the national bus driving competition for 2004, two entrants from Interstate Bus Lines, Bloemfontein, did exceptionally well. In the male category Mr. Steven Matlala, a bus driver of IBL was the overall winner, while in the female category, Ms. Ouma Motleleng, also from IBL, was awarded runner-up.
The SA Police Services in the Free State are warning businesses and institutions dispatching cash via cash collecting security firms, to be aware of bogus cash collectors.
A SAPD spokesperson, Insp. Lorraine Kalb, told the Free State Business Bulletin that in several instances recently in the Free State bogus security officials have arrived at a business or institution to collect cash just before the real security firm is due to do pick up. Inadvertently then the money is handed to the disguised defrauders.
Business and institutions are advised to be on the look-out for this kind of fraud and to double check with their security providers or to contact the SAPD.
The just announced new taxi plan for South Africa, involving the subsidized scrapping and replacing of the current 97 000 taxi's in the country by 2010, has been generally welcomed. President of the SA National Taxi Council, Mr. Tom Muofhe, have said that taxi unions are in support of the programme.
However, while the original initiative to replace the country's taxi's was in 1999 expected to cost between R4 billion and R6 billion, the revised recapitalization is estimated at R7,7 billion.
Key elements of the new programme include the introduction of a once-off scrapping allowance of R50 000 per scrapped vehicle to legal operators. The scrapping allowance will be rolled out over a period of five years and will be applied regardless of the age or condition of a vehicle. In terms of this, taxi operators would be allowed to buy any vehicle of their choice as long as it adheres to a new set of standards, to be released in three months and expected to focus on safety.
The taxi plan is seen as a comprehensive effort to rid the country's highways and byways of aged, dilapidated, often dismembered taxi's and impounding unroadworthy vehicles. To this end, a large chunk of the R7,7 billion is expected to go towards law enforcement.
Some 9,8 million South Africans use public transport, 64% of whom make use of minibus taxi's. In this regard a 2004 Dept. of Transport household travel survey indicated that 42% of train users are dissatisfied with the service provided, 31% of bus users and 48% of taxi commuters. Dissatisfaction with public transport is driven by problems around safety from accidents, crowding, punctuality, frequency and, with reference to taxi's specifically, driver behaviour.
For more info on the situation in the Free State, Adv. TJ Phahlo, Director of Transport Management, Dept. of Public Works, Roads and Transport, can be contacted at tel. (051) 430 3663, email nancy@freetrans.gov.za.
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