Indholdsfortegnelse for 2022-03-16 i Mercury

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za ABSA, FirstRand, Nedbank and Standard Bank delivered better-than-expected financial performances in 2021 and might reach 2019 pre-pandemic earnings level this year, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) Financial Services Industry Leader Costa Natsas said yesterday. Interviewed at the release of PwC’s 2021 Major Banks Analysis, Natsas said if you were to ask him a year ago when he expected bank earnings to recover to 2019 levels, he would have said in 2023, perhaps. Combined headline earnings of the major banks at R86.8 billion had increased 99 percent in 2021 compared with 2020 and came in only slightly below the 2019 level, he said. The main contributor to the rise in earnings was a 60 percent decrease in credit impairment charges after economies started recovering as Covid restrictions eased.…

LAST week we discussed the sad and untimely demise of my old raconteur pal Pat Smythe, aka Spyker Koekemoer after the literary style of Herman Charles Bosman. I knew Pat through Duikers Rugby Club, the St Clement’s arts soiree and occasional jolly encounters at the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties. At a later memorial gathering of hundreds at Royal Durban Golf Club, I discovered that this accounted for only a fraction of Pat’s activities. He was active in golf, he wrote poetry, he composed music and sang to his own compositions. Some of his ditties were recorded on celluloid and went on sale. He was much in demand as an after-dinner speaker, a function for which he did not receive a cent, the money going instead to charity. The…

DUNCAN DU BOIS | Bluff It is a pity that in conceding that Covid-19 “will be with us for some time” (The Mercury editorial, March 14) the reasons given for its protracted presence are disingenuous. In all the countries where most of the population has been vaxxed, Covid cases continue to spike. And the reason for that is obvious: contrary to the narrative of the WHO and all the jab adherents, it is the contents of the jab which is reigniting Covid in people. The latest celebrity to find that out is triple vaxxed former president Obama. Yet despite the shocking shortcomings and adverse effects of the vax campaign, the so-called experts of the WHO, ignore the contrary findings of thousands of medical scientists and continue to advocate…

Sibusiso Mboto sibusiso.mboto@inl.co.za POLITICAL figures, labour and student bodies have called on Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande to make public the findings of an independent assessor on the affairs of Mangosuthu University of Technology. This was confirmed by higher education portfolio committee chairperson, Nompendulo Mkhatshwa, who said her committee had been inundated with requests for the release of the report. “The committee is inundated with letters of concern from MPs who have been approached by some of the university’s stakeholders as well as other interested persons regarding the delayed release of the Independent Assessor’s Report (Staak Report) of the Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT),” said Mkhatshwa yesterday. She added that they had since written to Nzimande to inform him about the concerns but had not received a response. According to…

Zelda Venter zelda.venter@inl.co.za NEARLY 15 years after a then 5-year-old was so brutally raped by a man she called “oom” (uncle) that she had to receive reconstructive surgery to her private parts and learn to walk again, the court this week ordered that the government had to pay her more than R5 million. The payment is among other aspects compensation for the pain and suffering she had to endure. This is believed to be the biggest award to date in a claim of this nature. The money includes general damages, loss of future income, and ongoing counselling sessions. Her mother, who more than a decade ago instituted a damages claim on behalf of her daughter and herself against the then ministers of Justice and Safety and Security, is set to…

In the past few weeks, popular kwaito artist Bonginkosi Dlamini, known as Zola 7, has made headlines after concerns about his health were raised on social media. Calls were made to get other artists and the government to intervene to help the poet and kwaito star rise again, just as he used his stardom to help others. Apart from making classic hits that speak about township life, Zola was also known for his philanthropy. Dlamini, who was diagnosed with epilepsy four years ago, has silently been battling the chronic condition that has turned his life upside down. His management team started a crowdfunding campaign to help pay for his mounting medical bills. The Soweto-born star rose to fame through his role as notorious gangster Papa Action in Yizo Yizo. From…

Thami Magubane thami.magubane@inl.co.za ALMOST half of the jobs available in the Msunduzi Municipality are vacant. This stunning revelation is contained in the latest report compiled by the administrator, Scelo Duma, detailing the state of the municipality. The vacancy rate has also been highlighted in previous reports. The report looks at the progress made since the municipality was placed under administration a few years ago. It was tabled before the executive committee last week and will be tabled before the council this week. It stated that there was a 48% vacancy rate in the municipality, based on the municipality’s organogram that was drafted in 2013. It said the total number of jobs listed in the organogram was 6 203; 3 173 of these were filled, and 3 030 are vacant. But…

A series of powerful explosions rocked residential districts of Kyiv early yesterday, killing two people, just hours before talks between Ukraine and Russia were set to resume. The airport in the eastern city of Dnipro also came under heavy bombardment overnight, as the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia travelled to the besieged capital Kyiv in a sign of EU support for Ukraine. Nearly three weeks into Russia’s invasion of its pro-Western neighbour, the human toll of the deadly conflict was increasingly laid bare, with more than three million forced to flee to neighbouring countries. The UN said yesterday that nearly 1.4 million children have fled Ukraine since the conflict began on February 24 – nearly one child per second. Ukraine’s capital has been transformed into a war…

LOS ANGELES: Tyrese Gibson is to star in Hard Matter. The 43-year-old star has been cast alongside Harvey Keitel and Frank Grillo in the new movie that is being written and directed by Justin Price. It’s set in a new America that is divided by quadrants and where a power-hungry corporation takes over the prison system, with the new law enforcers inflicting capital punishment to get back into society. Tyrese has previously hit out at “colourism” in Hollywood and claims he’s lost out on roles to Terrence Howard because his friend is “lighter-skinned”.…

It has not rained on Habiba Maow Iman’s farm in southern Somalia for two years. Her animals are dead; her crops failed. Wrapped in a shawl stamped with rows of white flowers, the 61-year-old is one of tens of thousands seeking aid on the outskirts of Baardheere town. The Horn of Africa region is facing the driest conditions in more than four decades after three consecutive rainy seasons failed, according to the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP). More than four million Somalis like Iman will struggle to find food if the rains don’t come in April, WFP said. “We fled from the drought,” she said, surrounded by domed huts built with a patchwork of cloth and plastic sheeting. “Every day I go out and knock every house in the…

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s government yesterday approved a proposal to grant an allowance of about $385 (about R600) to each family with a missing member in the 30-year conflict between government forces and the Tamil Tiger rebels which ended in 2009. The government information department said that the proposal, submitted by the justice ministry, is aimed at providing financial support to the affected families in the South Asian country. The money will be given to the closest relative of the missing person, who possesses an authorised certificate of the missing person.…

Morgan Bolton morgan.bolton@inl.co.za THE Sharks travel to Loftus tonight to face a Blue Bulls team that have made their intentions crystal clear, but coach Etienne Fynn has taken a more unostentatious route for the top-of-the-table Currie Cup clash. Bulls coach Gert Smal revealed a match-day 23 yesterday for the mid-week encounter packed with the same players that beat Munster in the United Rugby Championship on Saturday. It certainly is a surprise when considering they have another match in that competition on Friday, against the Scarlets, and could conceivably rely on the same batch of players then. In stark contrast, Fynn & Co have opted for a more measured approach, naming a side devoid of “big-name” United Rugby Championship players after their recent victory over the Scarlets. “I have no idea…

Yogashen Pillay and Kailene Pillay MEDICAL experts and economists have reacted with shock and dismay to the extension of the National State of Disaster, with opposition parties calling for answers from President Cyril Ramaphosa and Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma to justify another extension. Dlamini Zuma announced yesterday that the National State of Disaster would be extended until April 15. It has been 24 months since the National State of Disaster was first declared in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The State of Disaster was set to expire yesterday, however, under Section 3 of the Disaster Management Act, 2002 (Act No. 57 of 2002) it can be extended by the minister by notice in the gazette for one month at a time before…

IAIN ROBERTS | Durban North While I feel for the people of Ukraine, the whole affair has demonstrated to me the inherent racial bias of the West and of the mainstream media. We have seen support for the Ukrainians from people of all walks of life, offering institutional and personal support. Where is all this outpouring of emotion, aid and assistance while there are other conflicts equally devastating to an innocent population suffering in conflicts around the globe? Rohingya, Uyghurs, Ethiopians, Yemeni spring to mind. Add to that, the clear discrimination against non-white people trying to flee Ukraine, backed up by the racist statements by the president of Hungary, among others. So why aren’t we being fair? Perhaps because the Ukrainians are seen as “one of us”, their…

Waterloo (Canada): New research by Canadian scentists has found that people with a history of neurological and psychiatric disorders are potentially at an increased risk of developing future conditions. “Globally, neurological and psychiatric disorders are leading causes of disability and death,” said Colleen Maxwell, a professor at the School of Pharmacy at Waterloo and lead author on the study. “Understanding which disorders or conditions are risk factors for, or early manifestations of, later disorders will help with proactive care.” The researcers analysed data from more than 5 million Ontario residents aged 40-85 over 14 years. They examined the associations between pairs of common neurological conditions, such as dementia, Parkinson’s disease or stroke, and psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety. In almost all cases, the researchers found that the…

A SURFBOARD by Cape Town artist Richard Joshua fetched a near-record R115 000 at a comedy-filled charity auction at the Wavescape Surf and Ocean Festival. Comedian Nik Rabinowitz had the crowd in stitches while encouraging bidders to spend money for a good cause. Eight surfboards auctioned at Jack Black’s Taproom in Cape Town last Thursday night raised a total of R301 000 for a range of ocean charities. Joshua’s horizontal painting in the style of abstract realism depicts an ice-cream seller on the beach at the Strand, 40 minutes from Cape Town. His artwork almost trumped the surfboard painted by Kirsten Sims that sold in 2018 for R130 000. Joshua, well known for the way he uses bright colours and patterns to draw cultural and historical references from his work,…

THREE suspects were beaten and stoned to death by an angry mob for allegedly stealing and robbing people in different areas, in Cape Town. The three men were attacked in Social Distance informal settlement Mfuleni on Monday after they were allegedly found with several stolen items. One suspect was declared deceased on the scene, another died on the way to hospital, while the third suspect was receiving medical treatment. Police spokesperson FC Van Wyk said a double murder and attempted murder was being investigated but no arrests had been made. “Mfuleni police received a complaint of an assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm in progress at Mjikelo Street, Bardale Informal Settlement in Mfuleni at about 3.30pm, Monday afternoon. Upon arrival they found three unknown males laying on…

Baldwin Ndaba baldwin.ndaba@inl.co.za Lawyers of former ANC political staff members facing the axe from the City of Johannesburg have threatened legal action if the staff members are not retained. Early this month, the city announced that it would rescind the full-time employment of about 130 employees as they had been illegally employed as full-time staff members of the city. According to the previous administration, under executive mayor Geoff Makhubo, they had illegally converted the fixed-term contracts of political staff members making them permanent without following due processes. Lawyer Mojalefa Motalane told the media that Section 3 of the Constitution requires the city, when deciding to take the decisions that adversely affect its employees, to adhere to a procedurally fair administrative process which, in the circumstances, required not only adequate notice…

Sihle Mavuso sihle.mavuso@inl.co.za SOME staunch supporters of former president Jacob Zuma are planning a series of events to mark the 80th birthday of the former head of state. Zuma was born on April 12, 1942, in Nkandla. To show their appreciation to the man they proudly call the father of the radical economic transformation (RET) ideology, his supporters want the day to be marked in with much fanfare. The series of events have already started and the grouping behind them is called “My President Group”. This is the same group that in late December, visited Zuma at his home in Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal to thank him for his “nine glorious years”. At that time, there was a renewed raging debate about Zuma’s legacy after being in power for nine years…

It is hard to call Zondo’s appointment a victory for the Ramaphosa administration IN CASE you weren’t paying attention, the Union Buildings and a chorus of public commentators on social media are claiming President Cyril Ramaphosa’s appointment of Justice Raymond Zondo as the next chief justice with effect from April 1 as a vindication of his style of leading by consensus. Almost as soon as the announcement came out on March 11, the Presidency and these commentators began spinning to the media that Ramaphosa’s light footprint approach to the process was infinitely superior to that followed by former president Jacob Zuma. They fell over themselves to point out that the entire appointment process had not cost a single judiciary casualty. One commentator even crowed that (vulgarity excised) “Zuma embarrassed…

Human Rights Watch yesterday said it was “highly unlikely” 81 men Saudi Arabia executed in a single day received a fair trial, calling it a “brutal show of its autocratic rule”. More than half of them, 41, belonged to the Shia minority “who have long suffered systemic discrimination and violence by the government”, the rights group said. The executions on Saturday were the most announced in a single day in Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s most prolific users of the death penalty, and outstripped its entire total last year. “Saudi Arabia’s mass execution of 81 men this weekend was a brutal show of its autocratic rule, and a justice system that puts the fairness of their trials and sentencing into serious doubt,” HRW’s deputy Middle East director Michael Page…

LONDON: UK-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been held in Iran since 2016 on suspicion of plotting against the Iranian government, has had her British passport returned, UK lawmaker Tulip Siddiq announced yesterday. “I am very pleased to say that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been given her British passport back. She is still at her family home in Tehran,” Siddiq wrote on Twitter. “I also understand that there is a British negotiating team in Tehran right now. I will keep posting updates as I get them,” the Labour lawmaker, who is an MP for Zaghari-Ratcliffe´s London constituency, added. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a Thomson Reuters Foundation employee at the time, was arrested in Iran on suspicion of plotting against the Iranian government. Sentenced to five years behind bars, she was released from prison and…

MAPUTO: The Mozambique National Meteorology Institute (INAM) announced yesterday that it plans to install at least one weather station in each of the country’s 154 districts by 2030, an initiative that will cost around $11 million (about R166m). The announcement was made by the INAM’s general director, Aderito Aramuge, in an interview with the national Radio Mozambique. The “One District, One Weather Station” programme was launched by Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi last week in Sofala, one of the provinces that are cyclically affected by meteorological disasters. At present, only 51 of the 154 districts in the country are covered by weather stations,…

Sibusiso Mboto sibusiso.mboto@inl.co.za DEPUTY mayor of Newcastle Municipality, Musa Thwala, says he will not soften his stance against corruption at the municipality regardless of the death threats made against him. This comes after he survived an assassination attempt on Monday evening, where one of his bodyguards died. Thwala, chairs the Technical Service Committee at the municipality which covers units such as water and sanitation and refuse collection. He said yesterday that he had recently embarked on an investigation into the activities of the unit and across fraudulent activities. “An audit was conducted. It revealed plant equipment was not working, and water trucks were lying idle and we sought to correct that,” Thwala said. The deputy mayor said the attempt on his life was linked to efforts by the new leadership…

Brij Maharaj Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed’s latest book, Colour, Class and Community – The Natal Indian Congress, 1971-1994, is a stunning recovery of a slice of South African history. Drawing from a myriad sources, they bring alive the debates that animated the revival of the Natal Indian Congress (NIC), an organisation established by Mahatma Gandhi in 1894. The NIC famously joined the Congress Alliance of the ANC in the 1950s and many of its leading cadres were banned and imprisoned. As repression took hold, the NIC slid into the background until murmurings of its revival began as the ’60s folded into the ’70s. More specifically, Desai and Vahed “seek to understand the past-present by digging deep into the history of the NIC from its revival in 1971 to 1994…

ANTHONY STARKEY | Morningside THE comment (The Mercury, March 14) by Kamvelihle Goba, Honours student and ANCYL member, contains all the hallmarks of the ANC School of Revisionist history and fake news. Does Mr Goba really believe that Russia is a democracy, that Bill Gates runs the US government and that the Guptas did not plunder the South African fiscus with the aid of Zuma and his tenderpreneur cronies? Does he really believe that the Russians are fighting Nazis, when the president of Ukraine is Jewish? I am certain that the university Mr Goba attends is relieved that their name wasn’t published and that their reputation was not associated with such rubbish.…

A series of fabulous, exciting opportunities await you both today and for the rest of the week. Beauty is everywhere. Choices abound. There are people to love, sights to enjoy, ambitions to advance or fulfil, and kindness and joy to spread. How you respond to whatever happens to you today is largely up to you. Decide now to embrace the goodness before you. It’s another day to listen much more than you speak. It’s another day to both listen and to hear. It’s a glorious opportunity to acknowledge others, to appreciate their beauty and to express thanks for their contribution to your life. Establish eye contact, smile, say “please” and “thank you” a lot. Observe with patience and care and you will see all are struggling in some ways. Allow…

AN ANC activist believed to be a staunch supporter of a campaign to elect Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi as the next party chairperson in Gauteng is fighting for his life in hospital after he was shot in Hammanskraal on Sunday evening. | Mercury Correspondent The activist, Jabu Sibanyoni, was spotted in the afternoon among the people who attended a rally to bolster Lesufi’s campaign in Atteridgeville. Lesufi is expected to go head to head with his human settlements, urban planning and co-operative governance and traditional affairs colleague Lebogang Maile. Sibanyoni was allegedly shot in the back three times and rushed to a hospital in Ga-Rankuwa. He was shot by unknown people who allegedly knocked on his door, masquerading as police officers. Some people have linked the incident to the…

Mayibongwe Maqhina mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za THE Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) has made confiscations to the value of R1.7 billion since 2002 in 48 matters referred by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU). The unit has obtained 70 freeing orders to the value of R4.1bn. This is according to special director of public prosecutions Priya Biseswar when the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) was briefing the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) yesterday. The committee was receiving a follow-up briefing by the NPA on cases referred to it by the SIU. Biseswar told the MPs that in terms of the Criminal Assets Recovery Account (Cara) they had recovered R5.3m from 28 SIU cases. The unit also made payments to the victims of crime to the tune of R1.69bn. She said the total value of recoveries…

THE failed and wasteful Gauteng Department of Health has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in recent years. Since 2020, when it led the charge in the R15 billion personal protective equipment (PPE) tender corruption and irregularities, the department has limped from one scandal to the next. After the PPE scandal, the department incurred arrears of R3bn to its creditors. The majority of the affected service providers are black-owned small, medium and micro-enterprises. The non-payment forced some of the companies to retrench workers or close shop due to cash flow problems. Last week, we reported that Buhle Medical Waste stopped collecting waste from Gauteng medical facilities after the department failed to pay the service provider R27 million. Some of its invoices date back to 2015.…

The issue of change of power in Ukraine has not been raised at the talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations, Russian Ambassador to France Alexey Meshkov said yesterday. “Russia does not set an objective of changing power in Ukraine. The people must choose their future. This issue was not even raised at the talks between the two delegations,” Meshkov told a press conference in Paris. Beijing called on Washington to avoid damaging China’s interests when trying to settle its relations with Russia, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said yesterday. On Monday, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price raised concerns over alleged attempts by China to use the Ukrainian crisis “to advance Beijing’s long-term interest in its competition with the US”. He warned Beijing that any support extended to…

The farmers’ union has announced that it will hold a nationwide protest on March 21 as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has not fulfilled promises that were made to end their 14-month protest. These assurances, farmers say, included setting up a panel to establish the Minimum Support Price (MSP). Atamjit Singh of farmers’ organisation, Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), said: “On Monday the farmers’ union held a review meeting in Delhi to discuss the status of the assurances given by the federal government to end their year-long protest.” The SKM is an umbrella body of all farmers’ unions that co-ordinated the year-long protest at the three border points on the outskirts of Delhi. “So far no committee on the MSP has been formed. On February 4, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh…

DONETSK: Mine workers trapped underground at the Skochinsky coal mine in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) as a result of shelling by the Ukrainian troops, were rescued and brought to the surface, the DPR Territorial Defence said yesterday. The DPR defence headquarters said that a ventilation shaft had been powered down at the Skochinsky coal mine, leaving 80 miners underground. Later in the day, the DPR Ministry of Coal and Energy said that 294 people had been stuck underground. “Thanks to the professionalism and operational work of specialists, all the miners were brought to the surface,” a statement read.…

Stuart Hess stuart.hess@inl.co.za LUNGI Ngidi said he hopes the presence of even a small number of spectators will provide energy for the Proteas as they pursue World Cup qualification in the three match one-day international series with Bangladesh that starts on Friday. Sadly for Ngidi and the Proteas, neither Centurion, which hosts the first and third matches, nor the Wanderers, which hosts the “Pink ODI” on Sunday, will be full of spectators or even half-full. A limited number of vaccinated people were granted access for the start of the Cricket South Africa One-Day Cup matches that took place last weekend, with Ngidi saying yesterday how much he enjoyed their support. “It was great having some supporters there on Friday,” Ngidi said. “It makes a massive difference. For certain players, it…