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20100501

Municipal employee raped at her City Hall office

     

    “No security guards since Easter weekend…’

    Bloemfontein City Hall complex where municipal worker was raped in her office April312010 BLOEMFONTEIN MUNICIPALITY – May 1 2010 -  Despite a multi-million rand security system with CCTV and 24/7 security patrols, the  city hall complex of Bloemfontein in the Free State  was breached by an unknown number of attackers – and a female employee in her fourties was brutally assaulted, raped and robbed of R5,000 at 7am inside her own office yesterday, reports Pieter Steyn of Volksblad.

    The woman was reportedly found unconscious and naked by a collegue in the complex of the municipality, which unilaterally renamed by the ANC-regime to “Mangaung’.

    Personnel were reportedly deeply upset and had to undergo trauma councelling, said spokesman Qondile Khedama. While the victim ‘s race nor her official job at the complex were identified,  (in South Africa it’s now apparently illegal to identify people by race news media reports) she apparently controlled a municipal cash supply which someone must have known about:  R5,000 in cash was missing from a cupboard at her office, said police.

    “No CCTV cameras at city hall complex’

    One distraught personnel member, speaking to journalist Pieter Steyn, also accused the municipality of having had no security guards on duty at the complex since Easter weekend – this was  denied by Khedama. Despite the municipality’s  multi-million Rand security costs, there are no CCTV-cameras inside the city hall complex, he said.

    Life-Rosepark hospital spokeswoman Esmarie Cronjé said the victim has been ‘badly injured and traumatised. Under the circumstances she’s in stable, satisfactory condition. She and her family now are too emotional and traumatised to address the news media.’

    SAPS captain Chaka Marope said signs of forced entry into the woman’s office were found and about R5,000 cash has gone missing from a cupboard in her office. The police did not say what the woman’s function at the complex is.

    Freedom Front Plus city councillor Prof. Elizabeth Snyman-van Deventer said the party was ‘shocked about the attack. A 16-day campaign against violence targetting women and children is already being held each year but obviously that’s not enough. It’s a campaign which must be maintained every second of the day.’

    Local ANC-mayor Playfair Morule said it was ‘worrying that something like that had to happen to an employee at her workplace.’ He rushed off from a meeting to visit the worker in hospital.  http://www.volksblad.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Aanval-op-Bfnvrou-skok-wyd-20100430