Indholdsfortegnelse for 2021-06-23 i Mercury

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa yesterday gave a strong hint that the government could move the current lockdown restrictions to a higher level as new Covid-19 cases continue rising, dampening rebounding business confidence at a time when it was still trying to recover to pre-pandemic levels. Ramaphosa said the government was considering reviewing the current lockdown restrictions and moving the country to a higher level. South Africa moved to a level 3 lockdown on Tuesday last week, introducing further restrictions around gatherings, the sale of alcohol and a tighter curfew. “Infections are rising and that calls on us to review where we are. We will be making an assessment,” Ramaphosa said. The president’s concerns come as business activity continued to pick up at the beginning of the second…

Zintle Mahlati zintle.mahlati@inl.co.za Education unions have expressed support for thousands of teachers to get vaccinated as today marks the first day for the sector to start a targeted vaccination programme. Education Minister Angie Motshekga said the sector is targeting 582 000 teachers, including support staff, to get vaccinated in 10 to 14 days. A total of 300 000 Johnson & Johnson (J&J) one-shot vaccination jabs have been earmarked for the sector by the Department of Health so far. The targeting of the teaching sector follows rising cases being reported in schools of pupils and teachers testing positive for the coronavirus. In some instances, rising positive cases have led to schools being closed for days. The teaching sector was impacted by the risk-adjusted lockdown which came into effect last year…

VIVIENNE ATTWOOD-SMITH Durban I AM a qualified graphic designer, home tutor and PA and have been looking for work for the past two months. From my ads on gumtree I get people wanting a PA for sexual favours, willing to pay through the nose. I attended a job interview as a dental assistant and haven’t heard back on the outcome. That was three weeks ago. The same thing happened to me for a position as a data capturer for a property company. I attended an interview and they said they would inform me the following day, as yet I haven’t heard back from them. Today (Tuesday), I received a call responding to my CV for a job as a home schooler and was asked to send through my certificates. I…

NARENDH GANESH Durban North IF YOU teach your children to stand up against injustice, unfairness and inequality, but you do nothing about it, what have you taught them? The pidgin-style saying, “monkey see, monkey do” is often used to describe the kind of behaviour that is mimicked by children. When I entered high school, I had a penchant for world leaders and learning about them – what they represented, who they represented and how they behaved in leadership roles. Unlike today, I had to painstakingly search for such information the old-fashioned way, in the absence of modern technology. One speech that I came across in a textbook at the time, was delivered in South Africa in 1966 by US senator Robert F Kennedy on the affirmation day of the young…

MANYA BREDELL | Cape Town FOLLOWING two recent articles about the state of the Home Affairs Department and its response that IT problems are causing ineffectual service to the public, I would like to confirm that the department is not serving us. No telephone is ever answered, no matter what number you call, at any office, at any time of the day. Every day sees the public crowding to get assisted, only to be herded into lines and given a number or else told to leave or arrive the next day at 6am. Day after week after month. I wonder if most of the staff have gone on paid leave and the telephone lines have all been cancelled? Why can the SA Revenue Service work efficiently, but Home…

Goitsemang Tlhabye goitsemang.tlhabye@inl.co.za DESPITE successes in combating the illicit trade market in the country, the time has come to become smarter and more efficient, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) says. It said it was for this reason that it had implemented the Sars Vision 2024 programme of action to address the illicit trade amid minimal resources and tight budgetary constraints. Director of customs border operations, ports of entry and customs compliance, Beyers Theron, said the programme would focus on achieving higher levels of automation and data-driven operations. That would result in customs featuring smart borders that included 100% screening capabilities through pre-border automated processes, in-line scanning technologies, and seals with radio frequency or satellite- tracking abilities. It would ultimately ensure a centrally controlled arrival and exit management of border…

Loyiso Sidimba loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za COSATU affiliate the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) is expected to decide today whether its members will accept or reject salary increases of between 3.5% and 4% over three years proposed by the wage talks facilitator. The union last night held its national executive committee meeting to consolidate views from its members across all nine provinces on the offer it has described as “anti-worker and pro-employer”. Samwu spokesperson Papikie Mohale told Independent Media yesterday that the consensus among the union’s members was to reject facilitator advocate Naledi Burwana-Bisiwe’s proposal. Mohale said Samwu would write to the SA Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC) today to indicate its decision. The union, which represents the majority of municipal workers, can either head to mutual arbitration or a strike after starting…

THE CONSTITUTIONAL Court judges are a proud bunch. But not too proud to change their minds, or to admit as much. Only a few months ago they felt the heat of the public reliance on their powers to adjudicate intra-party infighting disputes. This was so even after the thrust and counter-thrust of the battle for control of the ANC spilled into the legal arena, following the ongoing spate of suspensions and counter- suspensions of the party’s leadership in the run-up to the local government elections scheduled for October 27, and the ANC’s national general council later in the year. Of paramount concern to the general public is the crucial role of the judiciary to prevent what the Zondo Commission described as a risk of a “spectacle” where former president Jacob…

Rome: The Vatican confirmed yesterday it had lodged a diplomatic protest against a draft Italian law against homophobia, in what a news report called an “unprecedented” act of meddling in Italy’s affairs. The so-called Zan law, currently being debated in Italy’s parliament, seeks to punish acts of discrimination and incitement to violence against gay, lesbian, transgender and disabled people. According to the Corriere della Sera newspaper, the Vatican argued in a letter, or “note verbale”, that the bill violates the Concordat, the bilateral treaty between Rome and the Holy See, by curtailing Catholic freedom of belief and expression. Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said that the document was “informally delivered” to the Italian ambassador to the Holy See on June 17. “It is an unprecedented act in the history of relations…

GENEVA: China has called for an independent investigation into the discovery last month of the remains of more than 200 indigenous children at a Canadian boarding school. The remains of 215 children, some as young as 3 years old, were found in British Colombia at the site of a former residential school for indigenous children, a discovery Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described as heartbreaking. “We call for a thorough and impartial investigation into all cases where crimes were committed against the indigenous people, especially children, so as to bring those responsible to justice and offer full remedy to victims,” Jiang Duan, an official at China’s mission to the UN in Geneva, told the Human Rights Council.…

Stuart Hess stuart.hess@inl.co.za THERE was no sense of relief for Mark Boucher after South Africa’s first Test series win away from home in four years on Monday evening. The Proteas coach has been under pressure following a period in which the team’s results have tendered more towards the negative. That he has had to deal with a team that was in the midst of radical transition, was of little defence for him. Then before the team left for the Caribbean, Cricket SA’s Director of Cricket, Graeme Smith appeared to apply some more pressure saying the tour to the West Indies and the weeks following it were “a crucial period for the players and management”. However, having secured the series win on Monday, and seen big improvements in several areas, most…

Sandile Mchunu sandile.mchunu@inl.co.za OMNIA Holdings rose almost 6 percent on the JSE yesterday morning after the diversified chemicals group returned R1 billion in dividends to shareholders for the year to end March. The group declared an ordinary dividend of 200 cents a share – the first since 2018 – and a special dividend of 400c, boosted by a strong cash generation of R2.3bn during the period. The group ended the year with R1.8bn of cash on hand after it paid down its R1.9bn net debt following the disposal of Oro Agri during the year. Omnia sold Oro Agri in January to European Crops Products 2 SARL for $146.9 million (R2.1bn), with the proceeds used to settle its net debt. Oro Agri was reported as a discontinued operation in the results.…

EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za JSE-LISTED EPP, Poland’s biggest retail landlord, said yesterday that the outpacing of vaccine roll-out targets led to a robust retail rebound and promising economic prospects for that country. With one of the lowest and declining Covid-19 infection rates in the EU, a growing number of vaccinated residents, entertainment and schools reopened, and social gatherings resumed, Poland was returning to pre-pandemic normality, EPP chief executive Tomasz Trzósło said in the group’s pre-closing update. By June 17, 26 million Covid-19 vaccine doses had been administered in Poland, and 42 percent of the popu- lation had received at least one shot. Oxford Economics has forecast cumulative GDP growth of the EU’s sixth-largest economy at more than 8 percent by the end of next year. “EPP operates in one…

Sandile Mchunu sandile.mchunu@inl.co.za JSE-LISTED financial technology company Capital Appreciation yesterday reported a full-year earnings decline, largely due to the delayed delivery of a substantial order of terminals after the year-end cut-off period. As a result, the group reported an 11.1 percent decline in headline earnings to R126.4 million for the year to end March and a 3.1 percent decline in headline earnings per share to 10.34 cents a share while earnings per share fell by 8.5 percent to 10.28c. Its revenue declined by 11.7 percent to R619.5 million and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) declined by 15.5 percent to R172.9m. Joint chief executive Brad Sacks said the company’s operations performed extremely well under the circumstances of generally declining economic conditions compounded…

DUNCAN DU BOIS Bluff IF JOHN F Kennedy were alive today, it is unlikely that he would vote for the Democratic Party he once represented as president. In the closing lines of their resume of JFK’s presidency, historians Morison, Commager and Leuchtenburg wrote: “No legacy of John F Kennedy is more important than his championing of reason against anarchy of Right and Left and his understanding that liberty is possible only in an ordered society.” Although 60 years separate Kennedy’s presidency from Biden’s, both took the same oath of office. Both pledged to “preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States”. The first obligation of that oath is to the sovereignty of the US. Kennedy rightly saw communist imperialism as a threat to the US and he…

A rare pear-shaped diamond that is expected to fetch up to $15 million can be bought at auction next month using cryptocurrencies, Sotheby's announced yesterday. Sotheby's said it would be first time a diamond of such size has been offered for public purchase with cryptocurrency. No other physical object of such high value has previously been available for sale with cryptocurrency, the auction house added. The 101.38-carat pear-shaped flawless diamond, dubbed The Key 10138, is one of just 10 diamonds of more than 100 carats to come to auction, only two of which were pear-shaped. It carries a pre-sale estimate of $10 million - $15 million (roughly R214m) and will be sold on July 9 in Hong Kong. Bitcoin or ether, along with traditional money, will be accepted as payment.…

Sibusiso Mboto sibusiso.mboto@inl.co.za THE introduction of alternative energy, especially for poor communities, will help stabilise the power grid, reducing episodes of load shedding and enabling municipalities to meet their service delivery mandate. This is the view of Nhlanhla Ngidi, head of energy at the South African Local Government Association (Salga), who has decried the scourge of non-payment, copper theft, vandalism of infrastructure and the sense of entitlement among communities. Speaking to The Mercury on Monday, Ngidi said electricity theft and vandalism of infrastructure were costing close to R10 billion each year, and creative methods were needed to curb the expenditure. “An audit conducted around 2017 indicated that R6bn was lost each year owing to vandalism and theft and, when factoring in that each year there is a rise, we…

Sakhiseni Nxumalo sakhiseni.nxumalo@inl.co.za NINE people who were arrested on Sunday for being in unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition were on their way to attend a Mid-Illovo ANC branch general meeting. This was heard by the Durban Magistrate’s Court yesterday, when three of the men made their first appearance in court. The other six were released, due to insufficient evidence linking them to the charges. The police said it was alleged that police officers from the provincial Trio and Vehicle Task Team received information about suspicious individuals in a bakkie with no registration plates travelling along Isipingo Old Main Road on Sunday morning. Upon searching the vehicle, the police officers discovered five pistols, as well as ammunition, in possession of the occupants. “It was established that two of the pistols…

Robby Mokgalaka an order dated May 27 handed down by the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria declared that the environmental approval for the planned 600MW Khanyisa coal-fired power station had expired. Khanyisa would have been built on the outskirts of Emalahleni, an area already plagued by toxic air pollution. The court’s ruling that Khanyisa’s environmental authorisation lapsed was a victory, but not only to groundWork as applicants, but a victory for the entire country, particularly people living in the highveld, who would have been impacted by yet another coal-fired power station. If the proposed coal power plant were to go ahead, this would have meant more sick people and more deaths in the highveld and the neighbouring province of Gauteng. The decision by the court is a demonstration…

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador condemned the attacks in the Mexican city of Reinosa in the Tamaulipas state, which left 14 people dead amid a wave of violence sweeping across the country. “Everything indicates that in Reynosa it was not a confrontation but an insidious attack against innocents that cost the lives of 14 people,” the president said at a press briefing. He sent his condolences to the families of the victims and described what happened last Saturday as a “cowardly” attack. The shootings provoked the mobilisation of the army, the national guard, the state police, and personnel of the state prosecutor’s office, which were deployed throughout the city. Reports indicated that a group of armed people in cars organised a series of violent attacks in Reynosa. These events…

LONDON: Coronavirus cases are rising in Cornwall – but Downing Street says the Group of Seven summit held in the British town earlier this month is not to blame. The seven-day case rate in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly has soared from 4.9 per 100 000 people in early June to 130.6 per 100 000 people on June 16, the Guardian reported. Rates of infections are particularly high in Carbis Bay, where the summit was held, and nearby areas where delegates to the gathering of world leaders stayed. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesperson this week denied any direct causation between the G-7 summit and the rise in the coronavirus infection rate.…

Banele Ginindza banele.ginindza@inl.co.za SOUTH African ports, ranked poorly on the global stage despite their crucial importance to continental and global trade, are getting a new lease on life, with President Cyril Ramaphosa yesterday announcing the establishment of Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) as an independent subsidiary of Transnet. Ramaphosa said the establishment of the independent National Ports Authority with its own board was an essential part of addressing the challenges at the ports. He said the authority would create a clear separation between the roles of the infrastructure owner and Transnet, the terminal operator. “The functional and legal separation of these roles, which are currently operating divisions of the same company, will enable each to be fulfilled more independently and with greater efficiency,” Ramaphosa said. “In particular, it will mean…

Move has no basis in law and employees have the right to privacy Thami Magubane thami.magubane@inl.co.za THE eThekwini Municipality’s proposed anti-corruption plan of subjecting employees to lifestyle audits has been dealt a blow after the national Department of Public Service Administration (DPSA) told them the move had no legal standing. According to the City Integrity and Investigations Unit (CIIU), employees would only participate in such audits on a voluntary basis or when they were a target of an investigation. The move is a setback for Durban mayor Mxolisi Kaunda, who proposed in 2019 that employees should be subjected to lifestyle audits. Kaunda championed lifestyle audits as part of the pledge to clean governance. They were meant to determine whether employees were living within their means. In a story published on…

◆ MAKE regular phone calls and frequent visits. You know what is meaningful and important to your parents so try to deliver accordingly. If you are too busy to make regular contact, you are too busy. If you want a future of limited regrets, care for your elderly parents will be among your top priorities. ◆ Make room for your parents to tell you stories about things you may have heard a thousand times. These stories are powerful links to an important past. Your parents’ repeated telling of their stories provides a valuable service to your parents and to you. ◆ Make opportunities for your parents to be with your children. While a grandchild is not a commodity, he or she is the promise of hope to a grandparent. If…

THYAGARAJ MARKANDAN Kloof YOU probably wouldn’t have heard of Bishopstowe if it hadn’t been for the Hackland Aloe Garden. It’s a little farming village in the midst of cane fields a few miles north of Ashburton on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg. Femma’s famous aloe garden has now put this unknown place on the map. Unfortunately, Bishopstowe also made the news headlines for the wrong reason – a tragic event which took place a couple of weeks ago. Three K9 unit police dogs were ambushed in the cane fields while chasing after criminals. Two died on the spot and the other was shot in the head but is recovering. The terrified farming community now wants to install cameras in the area. It wants to raise funds by having a charity event…

SO SAD that the KwaHlathi diamond rush, near Ladysmith, should have turned out to be an illusion. Those chips of quartz looked so much as if they could have been the real thing. Geology can be cruel. In days of yore my pals and I would marvel at the flecks of gold we could clearly see in the sand of the Intsuze River, which rose in the Qudeni hills of Zululand and ran very clean. But the flecks were iron pyrites – fool’s gold. Yet in the hills around there certainly was gold. The farm where I spent many a school holiday had on it mine workings from the 1920s – stamp mills, sieves and so forth – and horizontal shafts dug deep into the hillsides through granite. That mine…

MORE than 100 firefighters were yesterday still trying to contain the Tsitsikamma fire which broke out on Monday along the N2. Teams from Working on Fire (WoF), a programme attached to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, had been working with Southern Cape Fire Protection, the group Mountain to Ocean and SA National Parks to tame the fire in the Eastern Cape, WoF communications officer Nthasbiseng Mokone said. Some 134 firefighters, two helicopters and a fixed-wing spotter plane were hard at work late on Monday afternoon, but strong north-west winds had made it extremely difficult to contain the fire, she said. Yesterday, over 100 firefighters from six teams were still battling the blaze. “The Fire Danger Index (FDI) is standing at yellow this morning (yesterday). Firefighters are busy…

Sihle Mavuso sihle.mavuso@inl.co.za AS the court deadline looms for King Misuzulu of the Zulu kingdom to file his responding papers to counter those challenging his ascension to the throne, the names of royal family members, supporting the legal action, have started to emerge. Among those who have come out, to confirm that they have joined the battle, are senior Princess Thembi Zulu-Ndlovu and Prince Buzabazi Zulu. Zulu-Ndlovu is the sister of the late King Goodwill Zwelithini and she is famous for repeatedly saying only God knows who will be the next Zulu king. Yesterday, she said “several princes and princesses have filed their supporting affidavits” for the court battle. Another family member who has joined the fight is Prince Buzabazi Zulu, the brother of Prince Nhlanganiso Zulu, the prominent prince…

Leonard Ngcobo | DA Ugu Caucus Leader The DA in Ugu District will raise our call in Thursday’s council meeting on Eskom and the municipality to urgently implement the power infrastructure upgrade project that was initiated to help increase water supply at the Umtamvuna Water Treatment Works. In March 2020, the Ugu District municipality made a payment of R14 million to Eskom for a power infrastructure project that would connect to the Eastern Cape’s power supply, to extract more water from the Umtamvuna River for distribution in the Ray Nkonyeni local municipality. More than a year later, there has been no progress in the project. In a municipality where our water systems are highly dependent on Eskom, the stalling of the project, including the recent power outages, have…

THE COVID-19 pandemic has not only exposed the dire state of our public health facilities, but also the inept leadership on the part of some of those appointed to be Health MECs. As the country starts to feel the impact of the third wave, perhaps it is convenient that we reflect on the role of those MECs whose actions, or lack thereof, could have been catastrophic. But we cannot do so without reminding our readers that South Africa enters this battle without the health minister, who is fighting for his political future following allegations of corruption regarding a multimillion-rand contract awarded to a company with links to him. Dr Zweli Mkhize could soon be following in the footsteps of sacked Gauteng MEC Dr Bandile Masuku. He was dismissed after the…

Fifteen Nigerian hostages have escaped from their abductors as they slept, weeks after they were among more than 130 pupils and teachers snatched by gunmen from an Islamic seminary, the school’s head teacher said yesterday. On May 30 around 200 motorcycle-riding gunmen stormed Tegina town in Niger state, abducting 136 pupils and some teachers, according to authorities. On Saturday, 15 of the hostages slipped past the bandits guarding them in a house in a village in neighbouring Zamfara state while they were asleep, said Abubakar Alhassan, the head teacher of Salihu Tanko Islamic school from where the hostages were taken. The escapees, nine boys and six girls, including a seven-year old girl, had trekked through the night to Birnin Gwari district in Kaduna state. The 15 had been separated from…