Indholdsfortegnelse for 2021-08-30 i Mercury

Aims to simplify its capital structure and benefit from retail property and deal-making experience EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za Dipula Income Fund, the diversified real estate investment trust (Reit) said on Friday it was considering a strategic partnership with Resilient Reit in a R1 billion transaction. The aim would be for Dipula, which has a R9.3bn portfolio of some 191 properties, to optimise its capital structure and benefit from Resilient’s retail property and deal-making experience to create further shareholder value. Apart from its offshore interests, Resilient has 28 dominant regional shopping centres in South Africa. Dipula B shares shot up 7.4 percent to R4.50 on Friday morning after the potential deal was announced, while Dipula’s A shares fell 4.3 percent to R8.45. Resilient’s share price was up 0.6 percent R55.79.…

Banele Ginindza banele.ginindza@inl.co.za THE NATIONAL Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has handed the country a golden opportunity to manufacture and export 100 megawatt (MW) HTMR-100 nuclear reactors which do not require water and could be installed in landlocked areas anywhere. “A lot of African countries are looking to get these small nuclear reactors, South Africa has the resources and personnel to build up this industry. South Africa is a world leader. More than 140 South Africans are working in the United Arab Emirates, which just switched on 4 500MW of nuclear reactors – four heads of reactors are South Africans. In the US, South African engineers are working on nuclear projects because the local industry has been closed off,” said nuclear analyst Dr Kelvin Kemm. Kemm…

Xolile Bhengu xolile.bhengu@inl.co.za THE Msunduzi Municipality has started a campaign to support emerging women-owned businesses, and has called on them to approach the municipality for funding. The office of the mayor in Msunduzi Municipality said the programme was aimed at assisting existing or aspirant businesswomen to identify funding opportunities either through financial aid or grants available from both public and private entities. Speaking at the launch event on Friday, Bongi Sithole-Moloi, MEC for Agriculture and Rural Development, said she believed woman entrepreneurs could be the solution to reviving the stature of Pietermaritzburg as the capital city of KwaZulu-Natal. She encouraged women to take up all the funding opportunities presented to them. “Women need to identify sectors that don’t have enough representation for them and pro-actively seek the funding for those…

Philani Makhanya philani.makhanya@inl.co.za ETHEKWINI Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda has challenged ANC leaders and the private sector to lead from the front in fighting corruption, saying investors will only take the city seriously if it punishes corrupt individuals. Kaunda, who also announced decisive measures aimed at dealing with extortion by business forums, was speaking at the launch of the Chesterville Heritage Foundation at the Pavilion Mall yesterday. The launch was also attended by KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala. The foundation seeks to celebrate Chesterville’s 75th anniversary and use the influence of the township’s prominent figures to eliminate poverty and unemployment, and to promote business opportunities. Kaunda described corruption as the biggest challenge when it came to the management of public finances, adding that those who continued to steal from the state would be…

NAOMI STAPERSMA | Bellair IT IS possible to save many litres of water every day in one’s own home. This is inspired by hearing of the need for saving water in many parts of the world. It is done by pouring “preloved” (used, soapy) water down the toilet whenever necessary. Nowadays we can buy a “green grey water treatment” liquid to add to the used bath- or clothes-washing water, which should be used within a day or so. Deodorant blocks and toilet blocks can also be used, the latter into the cistern for the infrequent flushing. In England 50 years ago, a member of Earthlife said that “earthen closets” were better for the Earth than sending sewage out to sea in “slurry ships”. In that case, this country…

EBRAHIM ESSA | Durban MR DAVID Lawson, fed up with my “tirade” against America (The Mercury, August 28), enquires why so many refugees around the world seek asylum in so-called “Western countries” if they were all that evil. Very, very true. I am also losing sleep wondering why the British sent their third-class citizens and first-class prisoners to be exiled to Australia. I also get night sweats when I think about why the same “the sun shall never set on the British Empire” invaded India to first “trade with the sheepish natives”, then when Indian soldiers rebelled, the British government so gallantly came to the rescue of the East India Company, killed off millions of innocent Indians and gently took over, oh so politely, the whole of the…

I AM fascinated by process, and time and growth, and how life itself gets us ready for life itself. I don’t mean to sound so obscure, but let me illustrate. When my boys were very young, neither they nor I could imagine them leaving the house and going off into life on their own. None of the three of us was ready for that. It is different now. It’s not that I want them out of the house. I do not. But I do want them to forge ahead with their own lives and get on with it. I want them to find adventures in far-off countries and to make friends with people I will probably never meet. I want them both to go to places I have never dreamed…

THE KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Social Development MEC Nonhlanhla Khoza led a massive gender-based violence (GBV) awareness campaign at uThukela District, Bergville, KwaDukuza. The campagin comes after the area has recorded several incidents of GBV, with perpetrators continuing to roam the streets freely. Recently, an 18-year-old first-year university student was raped in the area, an incident which left many people shocked and, in less than five days, another woman also suffered the same fate – when a rapist entered her home at night, and dragged her to the open veld and raped her. The area is also notorious for incidents of ukuthwala (abductions) of young girls, where they are forced into marriages often with older men. In response, the provincial government and other stakeholders led a Peace Walk Awareness Campaign, to…

Sibusiso Mboto sibusiso.mboto@inl.co.za MSUNDUZI Municipality and uMgungundlovu District Municipality will have new mayors after the upcoming local government elections. This is according to the ANC list from the Moses Mabhida Region, which showed that current Msunduzi mayor Mzimkhulu Thebolla at number eight on the proportional representation (PR) list, while his counterpart, district mayor Thobekile Maphumulo, did not feature at all in the ruling party’s list. Before becoming district mayor, Maphumulo served a full term as mayor of Mkhambathini Local Municipality, while Thebolla returned to public office after Msunduzi was placed under administration in April 2019. The district’s PR list has Sbongile Mabaso in first place, with Gugu Dladla in second place and Scelo Majozi third. The list also shows that only one man features in the top 10 for district…

COSATU has thrown its weight behind ANC workers who have embarked on indefinite strike action after non-payment of salaries. The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) said it had instituted a litigation process to ensure members were paid. A crowdfunding initiative was launched by the ANC to raise funds to help it pay employees. In June, workers took to the streets after they were informed in April that their salaries would be late. Last week, the party’s general manager Febe Potgieter indicated that the party’s finances were not in good enough shape to pay its workers. Salaries for July and August were also not paid. At the weekend, the party shared a poster on social media platforms, with banking details, asking members of the public and ANC supporters…

THIS coming week the finance ministers of Mozambique, Adriano Afonso Maleiane, and Uganda, Matia Kasaija, will join 20 counterparts from sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries at the top table at the 46th Annual Meetings of the 57-member Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. As IsDB board governors they will join their counterparts from the five North African member countries and 30 Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin America ones, to discuss the ongoing challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic that has ravaged the global economy. Whether it is GDP growth rebound in 2021, access to and delivery of vaccines and supply of essential medicines, medical equipment and food, the developing countries, especially in Africa and Asia, are at the bottom end of the recovery curve. The IMF, for instance, projects SSA…

Sagar (India): The long wait of a family for their missing son in Sagar district is all set to end after Prahlad Rajput who has been lodged in a jail in Pakistan for the past 20 years will be released today. The Ministry of External Affairs issued a letter to the Border Security Force regarding the repatriation of Prahlad. The Indian Embassy in Pakistan also issued the information that Prahlad will be repatriated to India on August 30 through the Wagah-Attari border. Atul Singh, Superintendent of Police, Sagar said, “17 people from India are lodged in Pakistani jails.”…

THE Delhi government seemed to be in a hurry to inaugurate the Smog Tower project even while the work is not even 50% completed yet. The tower’s major mainstay – the air filters – to make air pure for inhaling are still missing, with not even one of the total of 5 000 required being installed. The primary work of electricity supply to the tower is still in the progress. Only after this is completed, will the installation of air filters commence. Each side of the tower was supposed to have 10 fans, or 40 in total, but many of these were still to be installed at the time of inauguration. Air pollution is one of the leading causes of death across the globe, and has been established as a…

Mexican scientists have developed a unique “nanobubble” system using solar energy to improve water quality in the canals of Mexico City’s Xochimilco ecological zone, a popular tourist attraction. Officials in Mexico City have been focused on cleaning up the long-polluted waters of Xochimilco, a Unesco World Heritage Site and one of the few areas of the capital that still boasts canal networks dating to Aztec times. Researchers from the Centre for Research and Advanced Studies have developed a method using solar energy to activate a pump that sends cleansing “nanobubbles” into the water. The bubbles help oxygenate the water, eliminating harmful pollutants and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which leads to healthier flora and fauna, according to Refugio Rodriguez Vazquez, one of the researchers. “We’ve seen in the places that we…

ALLAN WOLMAN | Tel Aviv, Israel AS THE deadline for the evacuation of those desperate to flee the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan approaches, Isis-K detonated two deadly suicide explosions in the airport precinct of Kabul, killing more than 160 civilians together with 13 US military personnel. This tragedy as the events in Afghanistan unfold brought home the reality of having to contend with these types of contemptible and despicable atrocities that are not foreign to the Middle East – not to forget where suicide bombings originated more than 20 years ago. The untimely deaths of the 13 US servicemen have a terribly profound effect on the psyche of the American public, whose outrage expressed in most prominent press reports and a stark reminder of the dangers of foreign…

THEY must have had the snowploughs out at King’s Park. The game went ahead. And a most entertaining match it was between the Sharks and Western Province, though our guys fluffed it by too much kicking away of possession. But we’re here today not so much to talk about rugby as to alert people to the peril in these snowy times of drunken horses. I was once snowed in for three days in Matatiele. It was an emergency. The pubs didn’t close because the farmers were out on their tractors pulling their sheep out of the snow. They (the farmers) needed R&R and warmth. A local razzler of note late at night crashed his farm truck into the railings of the bridge over the town’s river. He insisted on giving…

Ian Landsberg BEAUTY may be skin-deep, but for forgotten trailblazer beauty queen Pearl Janssen, the first black South African contestant in the Miss World pageant, skin colour seems far more decisive. Fifty-one years ago, the sultry Jansen, now 71, a factory worker from Bonteheuwel on the Cape Flats, made history when she was crowned the first princess in the historic 1970 Miss World beauty pageant in the UK. The contest saw Jennifer Hosten, Miss Grenada, become the first black Miss World. Janssen, incidentally was also the first black South African to enter the contest, although she had to represent her country under the sash of Miss Africa South because of the colour of her skin. Her white South African counterpart, Jillian Jessup, who came fifth in the contest, entered…

Baldwin Ndaba baldwin.ndaba@inl.co.za THE SACP has called for the introduction of a universal income grant following the latest unemployment figure which now stands at 34.4%. SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande said these dismal statistics must serve as a wake-up call, not least to those in the government, who continued in their blinkered way to impose ultra-orthodox, neo-liberal austerity. “They do so at a time when much of the rest of the world, including most of our peer group developing countries, have responded to the Covid-19 crisis with a range of imaginative, heterodox stimulus interventions. “The levels of social desperation are evident in the fact that over 6 million South Africans registered for the meagre R350 per month Special Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant.“It is less than what the richest…

Vernon Mchunu vernon.mchunu@inl.co.za | Additional reporting Xolile Bhengu THE “slap on the wrist” imposed by KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala on Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane for defying Covid-19 protocols has set tongues wagging, and has ruffled some feathers. The IFP said it was appalled by Zikalala’s findings, saying they indicated that he had not seen the footage, and the DA called for the premier to step down for demonstrating unethical leadership. Video footage went viral on social media showing Simelane celebrating her birthday and appearing without wearing a mask or practising social distancing. Announcing his sanction at the weekend, Zikalala said the MEC regretted the failure of guests at the party, including herself, to wear masks. “The MEC must within seven days issue a public apology for having been at an…

Lorato Tshenkeng SOUTH Africa may be lagging behind with the roll-out of its vaccination programme, but it is without a doubt that MEC of Health in Limpopo, Dr Phophi Ramathuba, has been an outstanding champion of the vaccine drive in her province. With close to 12 million vaccine doses administered nationally as of Friday, the national Department of Health had reported that 19.8% of adults in Limpopo had been fully vaccinated, putting Ramathuba’s province ahead of all others. It is also reported that 70% of Limpopo’s senior citizens had been vaccinated – a feat Ramathuba attributes to Limpopo being a rural province, where the role of religious and traditional leaders has been instrumental in spreading the message about the benefits of vaccination. She also attributes the success of the communication…

Time for government to start delivering on its promises THE alarmingly high unemployment statistics and the disproportionate impact they have on women and the youth underline the government’s obligations, which do not end with heaps of empty promises to better the lives of all the people. For all that it had been warned of, was perhaps even half-expected, the findings of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the second quarter of 2021 released by Stats SA on August 24 were yet another deeply shocking announcement. The setting for the final unravelling of the failure of our economic policies was already frightening. With confirmation that this was the third fall in employment since the national lockdown in March 2020, pushing the unemployment rate to between 34.4 and 44.4%, and that…

THE Bill of Rights in the Constitution provides everyone with the right to fair labour practices. This cannot be said of employees of the ANC, who have not been paid their salaries for at least two consecutive months. The workers have had to endure not being paid their salaries and other benefits such as medical aid and pension fund contributions for the months of July and August. The non-payment is not just affecting ordinary workers in the party’s offices, but also officials in the headquarters, Luthuli House, such as Deputy Secretary-General Jessie Duarte and Treasurer-General Paul Mashatile, as well as the secretaries in the nine provinces and dozens of regions. That some elected officials have not been paid does not make it better in any way, and it should be…

BERLIN: Four weeks ahead of the German general election, the Social Democrats are in the lead by 3%, according to a new poll conducted by the Institute for New Social Answers. The survey, conducted for Bild on August 23-27, showed on Saturday that the Social Democrats had 24% support, while the conservatives’ bloc consisting of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party – the Christian Democratic Union of Germany – and the Christian Social Union, had 21%. The Greens have 17% support, while the Free Democratic Party is fourth with 13%. Merkel is planning to retire after September.…

Hurricane Ida was upgraded to a Category 4 storm as it stayed on course to hit New Orleans with maximum sustained winds reaching 225km/h, the US National Hurricane Center warned yesterday. Ida was due to make landfall 16 years to the day Hurricane Katrina devastated the southern US city, flooding 80% of New Orleans, and leaving behind 1 800 casualties and billions of dollars in damage. “Dangerous Category 4 Hurricane Ida strengthens some more,” the NHC said in its latest advisory. “Life-threatening storm surge, potentially catastrophic wind damage, and flooding rainfall will impact portions of the northern Gulf Coast beginning later this morning.” Shops were boarded up and evacuations were under way on Saturday, with officials warning residents to leave immediately or hunker down to ride out the…

Zaahier Adams zaahier.adams@inl.co.za CAPE Town City may rue missing a host of chances in a 0-0 MTN8 first-leg home semi-final against Swallows FC at Athlone Stadium yesterday. City made one change from their midweek victory over Royal AM as new signing Khanyisa Mayo started ahead of Douglas Mapfumo. Swallows coach Brandon Truter also made just the solitary change with Strydom Wambi coming into the Dube Birds’ line-up. City hit the upright twice during the first half when Abbubaker Mobara found himself unmarked collecting a Mayo cross, but the defender could only manage to direct his strike against the post. City coach Eric Tinkler was up on his feet already just before halftime when Mayo struck a pile-driver at the Swallows goal, but Swallows goalkeeper Virgil Vries tipped the ball over…

Liberty Holding was mauled by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 and so was its parent, Standard Bank Group. Standard also recently made an offer to the minorities to acquire their shares. Is the offer fair and is Standard Bank Group fairly priced? Liberty’s market capitalisation (number of issued shares multiplied by the share price in rand) tracked the “group equity value” report published in Liberty’s financial statements that reflects the combined value of the various components of Liberty’s businesses. Liberty’s long-term insurance entities and related asset holding entities are valued by using the embedded value methodology which effectively is the present value of future profits plus the company’s capital and surplus. Liberty’s equity value excluding non-controlling interest over the past three years was about R8 billion higher…

Karen Singh karen.singh@inl.co.za the weekend’s snowfall over the Drakensberg and surrounding areas could be the last cold front the province sees before spring’s expected warmer conditions. This was according to South African Weather Service (SAWS) forecaster Wisani Maluleke, who also added that no further snow was expected to fall. Maluleke said the expectation was that this could be the last of the worst cold fronts and we may be “saying goodbye to winter”, adding that one never knows what could happen with unpredictable weather patterns. Maluleke said snow began to fall on Friday at midnight and continued into Saturday. “The areas affected by snow, which the satellite showed this morning, were mostly over the Drakensberg, Underberg and Giant’s Castle areas, and even some parts of Kokstad, among other areas,” he…

DAVID CARTWRIGHT | Hillcrest I READ in your weekend sister newspaper that technology seems not to favour the freeloaders of this world. All those Samsung flatscreen TV sets (LCD or LED) which were carried off by sheer hooligans from goodness knows how many sites during that incident in July, are set to “bite back”, or so it seems! The “TV block” technology reportedly disables reception of signal on Samsung TV receivers. Thus, it would seem that all those looted TV sets will simply not work.…

DUNCAN DU BOIS | Bluff THE Mercury is to be commended for its bold and timely editorial on August 26 exhorting voters not to put their trust in the hands of ANC cadres because the ANC “cannot self-correct and rid itself of criminal elements in its ranks”. Unfortunately, however, since Jacob Zuma’s presidency South Africa has moved from being a flawed democracy to becoming a hybrid regime where the locus of power is not in legislatures or councils, but in the ANC’s National Executive Committee. As Dr Heinrich Matthee, a political risk analyst of the Africa Studies Centre in the Netherlands, has written in the South African Monitor, the ANC has reverted to the democratic centralism of its exiled years where decisions are unquestioned and it is impervious…

MALCOLM COBB | Hillcrest The letters on Firearms Control printed in The Mercury on August 16 and August 25 refer: Please accept my thanks for pub lishing my original letter of the 16 and also to activist Mary de Haas for her honest response of the 25 which shows great integrity. It is surely a good sign for the future of this country that while we may be diametrically opposed in some matters, we can nevertheless find common ground as a basis for moving forward with the matter of firearms control in an open and democratic manner. It is pleasing that Ms de Haas and I are agreed that the proposed Firearms Control Act of 2021 is badly framed and needs to be withdrawn and redrafted with proper…

| Mercury Correspondent MOTORISTS frustrated by the online system to book appointments to renew their driver’s licences will be pleased to know that their expired cards will remain valid until the end of March next year. Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula said this extension would benefit motorists whose driving licences expired from March 26 last year when the lockdown was implemented and Driving Licence Testing Centres (DLTC) had to be closed. This resulted in a serious backlog where nationally at least 1.2 million licences were still not renewed out of a total of 2.8 million expired licences by the end of the previous week. Moreover, frustrations with the introduced online system of booking appointments to renew a driver’s licence saw many motorists crying foul and calling for an extension…

Tarryn-Leigh Solomons Tarryn-Leigh.Solomons@iinl.co.za TWO suspects arrested for their alleged involvement in the unrest that erupted in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in July are expected to appear in court today. A 35-year-old man was arrested in Gauteng, while a 36-year-old woman was nabbed in KZN. Hawks spokesperson Katlego Mogale said the duo faced charges of incitement to commit violence. “It is alleged that the KZN suspect, a 35-year-old man, was involved in the incitement of public violence, through social media and other platforms, during the period of unrest in KwaZulu-Natal. “As a result, Brookside Mall in Pietermaritzburg was broken into and criminal activities, such as theft of goods, occurred. During the incident, the mall was set alight by the suspects. “The search and arrest warrants were authorised and executed yesterday,” said Mogale.…

Baldwin Ndaba baldwin.ndaba@inl.co.za THE National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) plans to march to the ANC headquarters at Luthuli House, claiming that black people are being overlooked for senior positions at Eskom. The union is also calling on the government to stop the unbundling of Eskom, saying the planned unbundling was a “precursor to privatisation”. NUM acting general secretary William Mabapa said they had seen SOEs being privatised without proper consultation, saying his union was against the unbundling of Eskom. Mabapa said they believed that the vertically integrated structure of Eskom was still relevant. “On the Eskom implementation of the 1.5% and unilateral change in conditions of employment, the NUM views this as a declaration of war towards our members. This unilateral implementation of changes in conditions of service is not…

Helmo Preuss The actions of the US in Afghanistan have been reviewed; and its motives analysed leading to the US being labelled “untrustworthy”. The US image as “the champion of democracy and human rights” has further collapsed. Afghanistan has replaced Syria as the least safe country in the world. A data set reveals the truth of the war in Afghanistan. Over the past two decades, the number of terrorist organisations in Afghanistan has grown to more than 20 from a single digit. More than 100 000 civilian casualties have been caused by the US military and its allied forces, and over 10 million people displaced. The war in Afghanistan has taken its toll of $60 million (R884m) on average per day. The war cost the US $2.2 trillion…

MADRID: A ferry ran aground off the Spanish island of Ibiza at the weekend, leaving 25 people injured, two seriously, including a 10-year-old boy. The San Gwann ferry, operated by German shipping company FRS, runs between Ibiza and Formentera, the smallest of Spain’s Balearic islands. It was leaving Ibiza’s port at 9.30pm on Saturday night when it ran aground on the islet of Es Malvins, emergency services said. It said the ferry was carrying 35 passengers and 12 staff at the time. Spain’s coastguard airlifted the patients to hospital. The ferry has a capacity of 427 passengers. The line has been suspended because of the accident.…

Rebel forces from Ethiopia’s war-torn region of Tigray yesterday accused the AU of bias, days after the bloc appointed former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo as a mediator in the months-long conflict. The spokesperson for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Getachew Reda, accused the AU of “partiality” towards the Ethiopian government and said it would be “naive to expect this mission to work”. Northern Ethiopia has been wracked by violence since November, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into Tigray to topple the TPLF, the regional ruling party, saying the move came in response to attacks on army camps. The 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner promised a swift victory, but the war has instead dragged on for months, triggering a humanitarian crisis in Tigray, while the rebels have pushed…

Kabul: American forces launched a military strike in Kabul yesterday targeting a possible suicide car bomb that was aiming to attack the airport, US officials said. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strike targeted suspected ISIS-K militants. They said they were citing initial information and cautioned it could change. Witnesses reported an explosion near Kabul airport and television footage showed black smoke rising into the sky. There was no immediate word on casualties. Two witnesses said the blast appeared to have been caused by a rocket that struck a house in an area to the northern side of the airport, but there was no immediate confirmation. It came hours after US President Joe Biden warned of another terror attack added to frayed nerves in the capital as…