Sibiya stays in custody as court postpones bail to 13 October

The bail application of suspended deputy national police commissioner Shadrack Sibiya has been postponed to 13 October, after a court appearance on Tuesday in which the state set out part of its case against him and his lawyers pushed back.

Sibiya faces charges including three counts of sexual grooming involving a 16-year-old girl, human trafficking, and the rape of an 18-year-old woman. He has not been convicted on any count.

At the centre of the state’s opposition to bail is a recording of a phone call in which one of Sibiya’s friends, Bishop Azuangu Ma, can allegedly be heard planning to find and speak to the 18-year-old complainant.

Sibiya’s legal team has distanced him from Ma. Advocate Estelle Killian, appearing for Sibiya, told the court that Ma is a politician who talks at every opportunity and that remarks about retaliating should be read as political speech rather than a threat of violence.

Detective Nkosinathi Dlovu, the investigating officer, told the court that Ma was introduced to him by Sibiya during the arrest, and that what passed between Ma and the applicant on the 22nd can therefore be concluded to be between the two of them. The state is relying on Ma’s wording, in which he is heard saying they would retaliate if the president could not intervene.

Sibiya’s lawyers have also dismissed claims that he intimidated the father of the 16-year-old girl he is accused of grooming.

Outside the criminal case, the broadcast carried a separate economic argument. The Budget Justice Coalition has called for government intervention on the fuel price, saying the midnight increase will deepen pressure on households that were already strained. Coalition representative Daniel Peter Al-Nadaf said consumers had been under sustained pressure and that poorer South Africans were hit hardest, pointing to inflation targeting and austerity as policies that left people without easy access to social services and social protection, and borrowing at high interest rates for necessities. Fuel price shocks, he said, do not affect everyone equally.

The South African Federation of Trade Unions has also called for an emergency subsidy, singling out an increase of R3,58 in illuminating paraffin. The federation said there was no cushion for paraffin when government intervened earlier this year, and that the burden falls hardest on unemployed people, and disproportionately on unemployed black women in informal settlements and rural areas. It argued that workers in South Africa and elsewhere are not responsible for the crisis, and blamed instead the interests it says surround US President Donald Trump.

Drivers at the pumps told eNCA they had little room left. One said the price does not come down enough when it falls. Another said the increase reaches beyond petrol into transport and food, with no reprieve. An Uber driver said a full tank lasts him two days and that the fares he earns do not cover the cost.

Electricity prices are rising too. The electricity minister said the high cost of electricity is being addressed and that Eskom now has surplus generation. He said Eskom does not set the tariff itself, that it applies and the regulator determines the price on the basis of policy, and that the electricity pricing policy is being revised for the first time since 2008. He said work is under way on how surplus daytime generation could be used to give consumers and industry relief, subject to regulatory tests, and that the public has been given an opportunity to comment on the pricing policy.

In Limpopo, the High Court has cleared all 50 former pupils accused of group cheating in the 2024 final exams. Their results have been withheld for two years since the department said their exam scripts showed similarities. Section27 wants individual officials in the education department held accountable rather than the department as an abstract. Its representative said the past two years had been emotionally and psychologically difficult for the learners, that lost opportunities for education and employment cannot be recovered, and that one learner had lost the parent who would have taken them to school.

The broadcast also reported renewed calls in South Africa for the reintroduction of the death penalty to deal with gender-based violence and femicide. Retired judge Edwin Cameron said the evidence does not support the claim that capital punishment inhibits crime, that the strongest argument for it is vengeance, and that he respects the anger of people who have lost loved ones but does not believe vengeance belongs in the legal system. He said better crime intelligence, policing, courts and prosecution would do more, and named the National Prosecuting Authority’s work under its head.

Source: eNCA (YouTube), eNCA News Bite | Sibiya bail bid, Fuel hikes and Christa Pike awake after failed execution | 7 October 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rCqM4m8iLI