African press review 12 December 2016

President Zuma promises reparations at last for the victims of the Marikana mine massacre.

Kenyan death truck

We start in Kenya where shocked witnesses recount the horrific accident in Naivasha where a lorry lost control on a highway ramming into twelve other vehicles before bursting into flames, killing thirty-nine people including three police officers with scores of others seriously injured.

Daily Nation sat down with survivors as they narrated the harrowing scenes of huge fireballs lighting the skies after the truck carrying inflammable materials hit several cars in traffic before bursting into flames.

Standard digital reports that road bumps with no signage raised in February 2016 by some locals are to blamed for the deadly night accident.

Daily Nation describes the Nairobi-Nakuru road as being the most dangerous in Africa, claiming at least one life every three days.

Marikana

There is good news for the victims and relatives of the Marikana massacre in South Africa after President Jacob Zuma's announced on Sunday that the government is ready to compensate them.

The Mail and Guardian reports that Zuma made the announcment in an update on steps taken by various government departments to implement the recommendations of the Farlam Commission of inquiry into the police crackdown on the Lonmin mine strike four years ago in which 34 miners were shot dead.

For its part, Times Live looks at President Zuma's statement pertaining to personal injury claims and reparations for unlawful arrest and detention filed against the police agency SAPS by 275 people.

Also according to The Times, Zuma revealed that four police officers‚ one of them a major-general‚ are facing murder charges while several other officers are indicted for attempted murder for their role in the 2012 crackdown on miners.

Nigeria, tax-dodging nation?

Meanwhile, in Nigeria, Vanguard leads with  news from the Federal Inland Revenue department that only 16 percent of Nigerians pay taxes.

The paper quotes the chairman of the taxation authority Babatunde Fowler, as saying that the figures represent just 13.4 million Nigerians out of the population of 180 million inhabitants.

Vanguard describes the revelation as a thunderbolt, saying the non-payment of taxes by 80 percent of Nigerian adults ranks alongside corruption as a reason for the country's backwardness as a nation.

It is indicative of a seriously flawed system, explains the paper adding that in other countries, tax dodgers are criminals and outcasts; rotten apples in the barrel, according to Vanguard.