Sommaire pour 2022-04-20 de Cape Times

THE BUSINESS sector has welcomed the declaration of a National State of Disaster to tackle the severe economic impact of the floods which resulted in deaths, damage to infrastructure and loss of production. Last week’s devastating floods left untold destruction and at least 443 people dead while almost 50 others are unaccounted for. Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) yesterday said the declaration of a disaster signalled the seriousness with which the government was tackling the task, as well as the lessons learned from the emergency responses in the last few years. BLSA chief executive Busi Mavuso said urgent lifesaving support must be a priority, but it was important that businesses and the authorities also focus on restoring transport connections. “The search-and-recovery effort is clearly the priority, while also bringing immediate…

THE SOUTH African government has proposed R5.2 billion in tax relief while the Department of Small Business Development plans to support at least 15 000 youth-owned enterprises to boost economic recovery and youth unemployment. While the proof is still in the pudding, this is a step in the right direction given that small businesses are the backbone of the economy and youth unemployment is one of South Africa’s biggest and most pressing problems. To ensure the proposed measures have the desired outcome of small business development and youth employment creation, it is necessary that all stakeholders are involved – from government agencies to private sector players and educational institutions. This will achieve greater collaboration and help to understand what support and development the small to medium-sized businesses really…

TONGAAT Hulett, which faces financial challenges following management fraud in previous years, said yesterday that it expected earnings for the year to March 31 to plunge at least 120 percent below the earnings of last year. Further bad news for its shareholders, many of whom have been attempting to stall a rights issue they believe is not to their benefit, was that the proposed rights issue to recapitalise the group was being increased to R5 billion from R4bn. The group said in a trading statement and operational update that it had expected to navigate difficult trading conditions in its 2022 financial year, but the impact of the unrest in July 2021 in KwaZulu-Natal had a much more prolonged impact on production, while the forced stoppages aggravated the neglect…

THE South Africa Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) says it is consulting with its legal team following the Supreme Court of Appeal’s (SCA) ruling that regulations concerning complementary medicines were invalid. The court held that the General Regulations, promulgated on August 25, 2017, are declared unlawful to the extent that they apply to “complementary medicines” and “health supplements” that are not “medicines” or “scheduled substances” as defined in section 1 of the Medicines and Related Substances Act No 101 of 1965. The act was in response to the substantial market worldwide and in South Africa for complementary medicines and health supplements. The regulations, therefore, introduced a new category: complementary medicines – Category D. The regulations attach a number of obligations to complementary medicines and, where applicable, health supplements. These include…

A HOME affairs official has been arrested at OR Tambo International Airport for allegedly facilitating the illegal entry of Bangladeshi nationals into the country. Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) said it worked with a range of law enforcement agencies to help bring the official to book. Mzwandile Petros, Acas’s group executive for enterprise security, was accompanied by Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi and law enforcement agencies during the arrest. “Airports are critical government assets and a key point of entry, transporting passengers, goods and services within and outside of our borders. “Its business, by its nature, is highly complex, with security fundamental and at the heart of what we do. “Consequently, persons found entering South Africa illegally will be charged with illegal entry and thus a criminal offence,” Acsa said.…

I ONCE saw a litter of eight kittens euthanised because an organisation could not keep them financially even though the option of fostering was available. First of all, what is fostering? Fostering is where you take on a child or animal, in this case, and house it and feed it while trying to find a permanent home for it. Fostering could save that animal’s life because a lot of animal rescue shelters do not have enough space to keep all the animals, and this forces them to euthanise the animals that aren’t as likely to find a home. If they are euthanised, we will never know if they could have been adopted and had their happy, loving “forever home”. The other issue is that some rescue organisations do not…

A GANGSTER affiliated with the Junky Funky Kids (JFK) has been sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment after he confessed to being part of a plot to bomb the house of late Anti-Gang Unit member, Lieutenant Colonel Charl Kinnear. NPA spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila yesterday said Fareez Smith was convicted in the Khayelitsha Priority Crimes Court for aiding and abetting the activities of a gang, possession of explosives and conspiracy to commit murder. “In his plea agreement, Smith admits that he was a member of the JFK gang, operating in Manenberg. The gang committed crimes like conspiracy to commit murder, murder, attempted murder, possession of firearms, housebreaking and dealing in drugs. “He told the court that he and Janick Adonis were neighbours and members of the JFK gang. He claims Adonis contacted…

JUST like the famous speech of America’s former president Franklin D Rooseveldt to his nation during turbulent World War II, when it was attacked by murderous Japanese forces at Pearl Harbour on Sunday, December 9, 1941, when he coined those famous words “this day will live forth in infamy”, our country has had its fair share of days of infamy. Since the day Christ was crucified at the age of 33 is regarded as a “good” day and we even know it was a Friday, can we then regard April 6, 1652, the day the first white colonists came here to start a permanent “refreshment station”, as a “good” day? Of course not, because our country is the most divided on this planet. Not even half, or for that matter…

Israel carried out its first air strike on the Gaza Strip in months yesterday in response to a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave after a weekend of violence around a Jerusalem holy site. The army also said its special forces had made five arrests overnight in the occupied West Bank, which has seen a string of deadly Israeli raids since an uptick in attacks and demonstrations four weeks ago. Tensions have focused on the highly contested Al-Aqsa mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Israeli-annexed Old City. Palestinian worshippers gathering there for Ramadaan prayers have been outraged by visits by religious Jews under heavy Israeli police protection, and restrictions on their own access. Jews are allowed to visit the site at certain times but not…

Mexico has disbanded a select anti-narcotics unit that for a quarter of a century worked hand-in-hand with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to tackle organised crime, two sources said, in a major blow to bilateral security co-operation. The group was one of the Sensitive Investigative Units (SIU) operating in about 15 countries which US officials tout as invaluable in dismantling powerful smuggling rings and busting drug lords around the globe. The units are trained by the DEA but under the control of national governments. In Mexico, the over 50 officers in the SIU police unit were considered many of the country’s best and worked on the biggest cases such as the 2016 capture of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, then the boss of the powerful Sinaloa cartel. The closure threatens…

Kabul: At least six people were killed and 24 wounded yesterday by two bomb blasts that struck a boys’ school in a Shia Hazara suburb, police and hospital staff said. Several bodies were strewn outside the gate of the Kabul school, alongside burnt books, according to images posted on social media. Police said that the attack outside the school was carried out with improvised explosive devices, which killed six people. Two hospitals said they were treating a total of 24 people wounded in the blasts. The Dasht-e-Barchi suburb is mainly home to the Hazara community and has been previously targeted by the jihadist Islamic State group – a rival of the Taliban. | AFP…

Jakarta: Rescue workers in Indonesia were searching for survivors yesterday after a mini-market collapse killed five people and injured nine, in a country where lax construction standards have raised concerns about building safety. The three-floor building in Borneo island’s Banjar district suddenly caved in while it was filled with customers and employees before Muslims broke their daily fast for the Islamic holy month of Ramadaan. Emergency services were dispatched to the scene to dig, pulling five bodies from the rubble and freeing nine people, police said. Police were sent to the scene to investigate the cause of the collapse, which has not been given. | AFP…

THE RAND YESTERDAY fell to a nearly 4-week low pummelled by a warning of prolonged power cuts, supply chain disruption due to flooding, and a lower global economic outlook. Eskom yesterday ramped up its rotational power cuts to Stage 4 as a result of the failure of two additional generation units, pushing load shedding to remain in force until Friday morning. The power utility warned of 37 days of load-shedding in the best-case scenario while the worst-case scenario could plunge the country to 100 days of power cuts in winter. It is estimated that in 2020 load shedding could cost South Africa’s economy R500 million per stage, per day, as economic activity comes to a halt during power cuts. Reports also suggested that Eskom spent an estimated R235m on…

dieketseng.maleke@inl.co.za GEMFIELDS, supplier of coloured gemstones, said its teams were hosting and welcoming a notable increase in supply chain assessments, and audits, as jewellers and downstream customers strive to better understand and document their logistic networks. Gemfields, which is focused on mining emeralds at the Kagem mine in Zambia and the Montepuez Ruby Mining in Mozambique, released its annual report yesterday. The group said the coloured gemstone sector has long been opaque, and its focus on transparency means that it is uniquely positioned, as the industry rightly shifts to a “mine-of-origin” mo- del and away from “country-of-origin”. “The shift to greater transparency and supply chain certification will ultimately improve and strengthen the evolution of the sector,” it said. According to the company, its board was “aghast and saddened” by atrocities…

from page 1 and submitted that the “entire case of race is lost out of the starting blocks as there is no factual basis that Nebank’s treatment was drawn on race”. He told the court that in the absence of proof in this regard, the Equality Court had no jurisdiction over the matter. In his reply, Ngalwana said: “Where a complainant brings an application to the Equality Court but also in the facts that he has pleaded, and also seeks the kind of relief that would otherwise have been granted by the High Court, that in itself does not denude the Equality Court of jurisdiction. “One judge can sit as the Equality Court judge to hear both matters and have them consolidated … the Equality Court proceedings are intended to…

THE Department of Water and Sanitation assured Parliament yesterday it would ensure there was no corruption in the procurement of services when water was restored to KwaZulu-Natal communities affected by floods. Briefing the water and sanitation portfolio committee, the department undertook to ensure there was value for money in services provided. Director-general Sean Phillips said due to the extent of the damage caused, it had already used emergency procurement to hire tanker services. “We did not wait for disaster funds. We reprioritised the budget to provide tanker services,” Phillips told the MPs. He said they realised on Thursday the urgent need for tankers because of the extent of the damage and started looking for service providers over the Easter weekend. “We made sure that we have proper written quotations and…

THE small town of Redelinghuys, about 200km from Cape Town, has been rocked by the arrest of a well-known local painter, following allegations that he sexually assaulted a young girl. The 79-year-old man was arrested on Monday and is expected to appear at the Vredenburg Magistrate’s Court today on a charge of rape. “It is alleged that the suspect raped an 11-year-old girl on April 13 at around 2.30pm at a Redelinghuys residence,” police spokesperson Andrè Traut said. According to Rural and Farmworkers Development Organisation executive director Billy Claasen, he received a call on Monday informing him about the alleged incident. “The child lives with her grandmother and she had apparently gone to play with other children. “They became familiar with the old man because he would sometimes call them…

DA FEDERAL Council chairperson Helen Zille’s controversial comment that “being poor in Langa was better than being poor in other townships” has been slammed as telling of the DA-led local government’s attitude towards poor black people in Cape Town. More than 700 people were displaced after a fire destroyed more than 300 shacks in Joe Slovo informal settlement at the weekend. Following the devastating Langa fires, Zille stated in an interview on Radio 702 yesterday that: “To be poor in Langa in Cape Town is (a) hundred, probably a thousand times better than to be poor in many townships in the rest of the country.” Langa ward 51 councillor Lwazi Phakade said Zille’s comments showed why Cape Town townships were not getting the services they deserved. “Zille is an unrepentant…

LITTER has been a massive problem in South Africa for many years and we need to find a way to solve or at least minimise the amount of litter that people produce. I feel that finding a solution for this problem is important, because littering greatly impacts wildlife on both land and in the sea by killing them or making them sick. Litter also affects the health of humans by their inhaling toxic fumes or consuming microplastics. We also need to think about future generations, they will be affected by this, and they will need to fix it if we don’t. To try to stop the problem from getting worse, I think we should have more clean-up events, more waste bins in the streets and put up signs to discourage…

THE meaning of fasting from food and drink during the hours of daylight in Ramadaan goes beyond just staying away from eating. Fasting is the compulsory part of Ramadaan, but the symbolism of Ramadaan goes much further. Reformation of the soul and refinement of the heart and mind is the other great feature of this blessed month. Rectification of character, conduct, thought, speech and to eradicate objectionable habits are important commandments in the Qur’an in order to live a life on the straight part. This self-reflection and reviewing of conduct and reformation of oneself requires great mental strength, courage and determination. Islamic principles and rituals include ethical monetary dealings and moral social conduct. The Qur’an demands believers to comply with the rule of law and promote hard work and…

Residents occupying the Rivergate informal settlement in Dunoon say they have approached legal representation to help them fight an eviction notice from the City. The mostly Dunoon backyard dwellers moved to the area at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in May 2020. Community activist Victoria Mqumbisa said: “We are over 550 families who were displaced by the Covid-19 pandemic. “We could not pay rent because we were no longer working. “We moved to a tent in Zwezwe in Dunoon but we had to leave because the area we lived in was flooded by the rain. We then decided to erect shacks on this land for better living conditions.” Mqumbisa said they have been living in fear of being forcefully removed by law enforcement. “We have received letters from the…

Renewable technologies, battery storage are useful to the grid, but they are not the grid SPEAKING during an energy transition breakaway at the South African Investment Conference of 2022, Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter was quoted by the Engineering News online magazine as saying: “The utility estimated that some 68 000MW of mostly new variable renewable-energy capacity would have to be added to cater for the 22 000MW of coal (sic) that the utility would be retiring by about 2035.” He was further quoted as having said: “The state-owned utility was hoping to build about 8 000MW of that new capacity, leaving 60 000MW that would have to be built by private and/or municipal generators.” In the same breakaway session, Brian Dames, who is the former CEO of Eskom,…

China reported seven more Covid-19 deaths in Shanghai yesterday, as major firms such as Tesla forged ahead to resume production after a damaging weeks-long lockdown. Supply chains have clogged and businesses have been forced to halt produc- tion in the metropolis of 25 million, amid authorities’s zero-Covid approach to combat China’s worst outbreak since the virus first emerged. Beijing’s strategy of eliminating clusters as they surface – through hard lockdowns and mass testing – has kept fatalities low, but the measures are taking a toll on economic growth. Authorities have called for a “whitelist” of key industries and companies so production can continue, with more than 600 firms identified for early work resumption in Shanghai. US electric car giant Tesla “officially resumed production” yesterday after suspending work at its “gigafactory”…

London: Former Olympic cycling champion Bradley Wiggins has revealed he was sexually groomed by a coach when he was a child. Wiggins, 41, who won the 2012 Tour de France and three Olympic gold medals, said he was 13 when he was groomed by the coach. He said he could not speak up at the time due to a troubled relationship with his stepfather. “My stepfather was quite violent to me, he used to call me a ‘faggot’ for wearing Lycra.” Wiggins’s father, Australian cyclist Gary Wiggins, walked out on the family when Bradley was young and died in 2008 after a fight at a party. | AFP…

Paris: French Prime Minister Jean Castex said yesterday his government would tender its resignation if Emmanuel Macron is re-elected president in a bid to provide a “new impetus” for Macron’s centrist party ahead of parliamentary elections in June. Macron is facing a close race in the run-off on Sunday against far-right veteran Marine le Pen, with analysts warning that low turnout could prove a wildcard even though most polls show Macron in the lead. The parliamentary vote in June will be a further test of Macron’s popularity, and renewing his majority will be essential for pursuing his reformist agenda. | AFP…

SAN FRANCISCO: Ridges that criss-cross the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa indicate there are shallow pockets of water beneath, boosting hopes in the search for extra-terrestrial life, scientists said yesterday. Europa is widely thought to contain liquid water, but the ocean is predicted to be buried 25-30km beneath the moon’s icy shell. However, water could be closer to the surface than previously thought, according to new research published in the journal Nature Communications. Europa’s water pockets could be buried 5km beneath the moon’s ice shell. The moon’s ocean is predicted to have more water than all of Earth’s seas combined. | AFP…

POWER utility Eskom yesterday moved to Level 4 load shedding and warned of up to 101 days of load shedding over the winter period, which economists said would dampen investment sentiment. Eskom’s Head of Transmission Sekgo- motso Scheepers yesterday said the strain to the system from various assaults risked available capacity dipping to between 37 and 101 days over the winter period, and the utility had to redouble its efforts in fending off the unplanned loss of capacity. Estimates earlier this year by audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers were that load shedding in South Africa increased by 38 percent in 2021 with more than 2 400 gigawatt hours lost, which it estimated reduced real GDP growth by up to 3.1 percentage points, costing the economy up to 400…

MASSMART, the owner of Makro, Builders Warehouse and Game stores said it was poised for accelerated growth as it continued to implement its turnaround strategy, according to its latest integrated annual report. The group said in the report released yesterday that a significant outcome of the turnaround plan to date has been re-organising and introducing new ways of working to unlock the strengths of the group, and deriving the resultant benefit to the business. “This has mostly involved leveraging Massmart scale, and Walmart networks and expertise, to lower the cost base and implement better ways of working to create a significantly more competitive platform for future growth,” Massmart said. The approach was to accelerate omni-focused growth that is responsive to shifting consumer behaviour centred on the Southern African Development Community,…

from page 1 other poor people and this is a total lie and disregard. There is no better poor person in the country,” said Phakade. He said the N2 Gateway project, started by Zille during her time as Western Cape premier, was in poor condition. “We are going to hold the DA accountable in the City, in that interview Zille made a statement that the City will provide starter kits for the affected. We demand those starter kits,” he added. Approached for comment, Zille said yesterday that “almost everyone in Langa is within access of all basic services, including education and health care”. “Many informal settlements around South Africa have no such access,” she said. “Most of the shacks in Joe Slovo were replaced by formal dwellings during the period…

WHILE some of the country’s banks, including Nedbank have relied heavily on “reputational risk” to unbank black-owned Sekunjalo Investment Holdings (SIH), they are yet to provide “a shred of evidence which shows risk or harm”. And while the banks insisted that keeping Sekunjalo as a client would cause them “irreparable harm”, Sekunjalo argued that it was in fact Nedbank itself that “poses risk to its stakeholders”. The group further submitted that the banks had discriminated against it, based on race. Arguing before the Equality Court sitting in the Western Cape High Court, Sekunjalo’s legal representative, advocate Vuyani Ngalwana SC, said: “Steinhoff has caused more harm, far greater harm to the country, not just the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) in which it is invested, and yet nothing has happened. They haven’t…

The load shedding we have experienced over the decades gets me thinking that whoever is repairing the generators does not know what he or she is doing. Secondly, has the repair person bothered to clean under the machinery? Probably not in decades, to answer both my questions. So every time the lights and everything goes out, businesses lose out. Remember the ’70s and ’80s? Everything worked nicely then and my guess is that all the good people who could fix the generators were thrown out. Never mind most state-owned parastatals, which are all bankrupt due to stealing in every way. Nobody seems to pick it up. This country ain’t what it used to be. What a shame.…

SOUTH Africans have been warned to brace for a cold and dark winter as embattled power utility Eskom predicts 101 days of blackouts in an extreme case. On Sunday Eskom announced stage 2 load shedding which has now been increased to stage 4 due to the failure of two additional generation units. Stage 4 will remain in place until 5am on Friday. Eskom currently has 5 124MW of planned maintenance, while another 16 519MW of capacity is unavailable due to unplanned breakdowns. “We have done our assessments for the winter period. “Today we are struggling to achieve the lower level of unplanned (losses) that we desire and it progressively increases to 37 days for winter. In the extreme it could be as high as 101 days but that is very…

SOUTH African women still find it difficult to occupy senior positions or to become partners in law firms despite their numbers having steadily increased. This is according to Dr Tamlynne Meyer, who recently obtained her doctorate in Sociology at Stellenbosch University. Meyer looked at how and why women attorneys, particularly black female attorneys, continue to be marginalised, despite the removal of formal barriers and the enactment of legislation and policies to spearhead transformation in the profession. In this regard, she asked two important questions: to what extent has the profession been feminised, and what factors impede women’s career prospects? “Because women are the subject of South Africa’s transformation project, my study considers the materiality of their everyday lives as they encounter and experience being an attorney in a historically white…

Moscow launched dozens of air strikes across eastern Ukraine, its defence ministry said yesterday, with Russia’s top diplomat acknowledging “another phase” of the conflict was beginning as fighting raged in the Donbas region. Russia’s defence ministry said that “high-precision air-based missiles” had hit 13 Ukrainian positions in parts of the Donbas while other air strikes “hit 60 military assets”, including in towns close to the eastern front line. Ukraine’s armed forces also confirmed that fighting had increased throughout the east, just hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had kicked off the widely anticipated offensive in the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland. “The Russian occupiers intensified offensive operations along the entire line of contact,” the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared to acknowledge the…

Twenty million people are at risk of starvation this year as delayed rains worsen an already brutal drought in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, the UN warned yesterday. A months-long drought has left the Horn of Africa on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe, destroying crops and livestock and forcing huge numbers of people to leave their homes in search of food and water. As long-awaited rains fail to materialise a month into the current rainy season, “the number of hungry people due to drought could spiral from the currently estimated 14 million to 20 million through 2022,” the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said. Six million Somalis or 40% of the population were facing extreme levels of food insecurity and there was “a very real risk of famine in the…

LONDON: British interior minister Priti Patel overruled reservations from officials about her plan to send thousands of asylum seekers to the East African country of Rwanda, documents published by the government yesterday showed. The plan seeks to act as a deterrent to migrants who make illegal boat crossings to Britain from France. In an exchange of letters with Patel, the top official in the Home Office highlighted uncertainty over the scheme’s value to the taxpayer. The government has said it would contribute an initial £120 million (R2.3 billion) to the scheme. “I do not believe sufficient evidence can be obtained to demonstrate that the policy will have a deterrent effect significant enough to make the policy value for money,” Home Office Permanent Secretary Matthew Rycroft said. Patel said that without…

BEIJING: China says it has signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands, which had faced pressure from nearby Australia and the US to reject the deal. “The two sides will conduct co-operation, including maintenance of social order, protection and safety of people’s lives and property, humanitarian assistance and natural disaster response, to help Solomon Islands strengthen capacity building and safeguard its own security,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. The agreement also facilitates a safe harbour for Chinese naval vessels 2 000km from the Australian coastline. The US plans to lead a delegation of officials there soon. | The Washington Post…