Sommaire pour 2023-04-05 de Cape Times

MURRAY & Roberts (M&R) has completed the sale of its stake in Bombela Concession, and the debt-leaner group is optimistic about prospects for its multinational Mining Platform and Africa-focused power, water industrial (PWI) Platform. The sale of the stake in Bombela Concession to a subsidiary of Europe-based Intertoll International Holdings BV had been finalised, and the R1.26 billion proceeds would be used to repay debt, M&R’s directors said in a trading update yesterday. The share price fell 1.25% on the JSE yesterday to close at R1.58, a price well down from R12.52 a year ago. The share price decline reflects the problems the multinational construction and engineering group has been facing. In August 2022 strong growth in revenue and earnings were reported for the year to June, but…

THE LATEST mortgage lending data shows that the value of new mortgage loans granted for the 2022 fourth quarter declined year-on-year as expected due to the current interest rate hiking environment, according to FNB Commercial Property Finance Property Sector strategist John Loos. The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) New Mortgage Lending data showed a return to negative growth, following the prior quarter’s slight positive growth rate. The value of new mortgages granted returned to -12.65% in the fourth quarter, from the previous quarter’s slightly positive growth of +0.65% year on year. Writing in the bank’s Property Insights, Loos said the year-on-year decline was not surprising, given the economy went into quarter-on-quarter contraction in the final quarter, while above-target inflation led to a continuation of SARB’s interest rate hiking in the…

Described as a leading light in South Africa’s transformation, with undeniable credentials of self-sacrifice and a desire to see South Africa justly and fairly through its transition from apartheid to democracy, tributes have poured in for former chairperson of AYO Technology Solutions, Dr Wallace Mgoqi, who passed away on Monday. In a statement, AYO said the news was received not long after the recent settlement between the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) and AYO, which saw a long running battle settled amicably. Retired advocate, attorney, businessman and activist, Mgoqi joined the AYO board in 2018, and was a champion of AYO’s broad-based black economic empowerment mandate to transform the South African ICT sector. “His unwavering support for the group ... through years of tribulation at the hands of repeated inaccurate…

TO CURB the spread of bovine Tuberculosis (TB) in African buffalo, a researcher at Stellenbosch University (SU) has developed a way to diagnose and identify infected animals more accurately and rapidly. “It is essential to diagnose bovine TB quicker and to accurately identify infected buffaloes early because these animals keep the disease-causing bacteria in the ecosystem, which can cause infection of other species such as lions, wild dogs, rhinos, elephants, and antelopes,” said Dr Charlene Clarke from the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical Tuberculosis Research in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at SU. “This could negatively impact wildlife tourism, the economy, and conservation programmes,” added Clarke, who obtained her PhD in Molecular Biology last week at one of SU’s March graduation ceremonies. Current strategies to eradicate bovine…

Early risers along the Atlantic seaboard on Good Friday will see Cunard’s magnificent Queen Mary 2 inward from the coast. Her cruise began in New York on January 3 with a North Atlantic crossing to Southampton. Moving through the Mediterranean, she transited the Suez Canal, entered the Arabian Gulf, and after calls at Singapore and at Indonesian and Malaysian ports, her itinerary took her to Australia. From Fremantle, she headed to Mauritius and Reunion, before berthing in Durban on Monday, and today, she is in Gqeberha for passengers to visit Addo. Leaving Cape Town on Saturday, she heads to Walvis Bay and then Tenerife, en route to Southampton and New York to arrive on April 30, closing her four-month cruise. With roots back to 1839 and its formal establishment 40…

CONCERNS have been raised over employee safety in the West Coast after two senior managers became involved in an alleged physical and verbal assault, which the South African Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu) said was not an isolated incident. Samwu said it would further pursue a case of unfair labour practice, after a settlement was reached between West Coast District Municipality (WCDM) managers. According to information, during a meeting, two senior municipality employees became embroiled in the altercation where “words were exchanged and one official hit the other on the shoulders and made remarks”. A union representative, who did not want to be named at this stage, said they were pursuing their own investigation and would approach the Bargaining Council to appeal the settlement. They questioned whether “internal disciplinary procedures were…

LET the truth be told. The DA is a party governed by its constitution and principles. The DA believes in the rule of law with utmost integrity. In other words, if a bona fide DA member transgresses the SA Constitution and the policies of the DA, they will have to suffer the consequences. Each case is handled on merit by the Federal Executive Council, and its findings are binding. We also believe a member is innocent unless a fair trial is held, and the member is proven guilty. This is how a democracy works. The same treatment is administered regardless of race, creed or colour. The DA gives all members a fair chance, right of reply and a fair hearing. Corruption is not tolerated, regardless of your rank or seniority…

THE Section 194 Committee is becoming a one-man show where the chairperson, Qubudile Dyantyi, continues to single-handedly and shamelessly violate the public protector’s rights to have full legal representation before this committee. Advocate Dali Mpofu cannot and should not represent the public protector without any guarantees that he will be rewarded for his work. Dyantyi first said Monday’s session was for the committee only, then he somersaulted and invited the clearly biassed advocate Nazreem Bawa to “empower” the committee in the absence of the public protector’s (PP’s) legal representation. As Vuyo Zungula said, the invitation of Bawa was never discussed with them, but it was Dyantyi’s unilateral decision. First, Bawa is not a member of the committee, and I hope advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane reports her to the Legal Practice Council…

Our young people, as the dominant age group, are facing a lot of challenges in a country that is constantly in a state of flux, yet we continue to see some of these challenges being overcome by young women and men. While some prosper and manage to find the light at the end of the tunnel, there are those who still struggle to even reach the tunnel. After Human Rights Month (March), we need to think of the constitutional rights of our young people that are not met, such as the failure to be afforded equal opportunity in entrepreneurship or employment. Similarly, Human Rights Day on March 21 was an emotive day as it reminded us of how many inspiring young people took to the streets of Sharpeville in 1960.…

About 1 in 6 adults have experienced infertility over their lives, according to a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) that emphasises the shared burden of infertility across the world. “The report reveals an important truth: infertility does not discriminate,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general, said yesterday. “The sheer proportion of people affected shows the need to widen access to fertility care.” There was little variation across economic levels, with higher-income countries experiencing infertility rates of nearly 18% and low- to medium-income countries seeing rates of almost 17%. (The global rate was 17.5%.) There was more variation across regions, though the report’s authors cautioned that there was limited data for Africa and South Asia. “While findings show a high prevalence of infertility globally and regionally,” they…

Wellington: New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins yesterday appointed his predecessor, Jacinda Ardern, as Special Envoy for the Christchurch Call, a Wellington-led global initiative to fight terrorism and extremism after the deadly March 2019 mosque shootings. Ardern has declined to receive any remuneration for the new post and will start her role on April 17, Hipkins said. The special envoy will serve as New Zealand’s senior representative on Christchurch Call-related matters, working closely with France as co-leaders, he said. | IANS…

Washington: The recent banking turmoil in the US and Europe could spread to crucial non-bank institutions such as pension funds, further complicating the central banks’ fight against high inflation, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said yesterday. Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic have been walking a fine line as they try to tackle high inflation by raising interest rates without adding to the turmoil in the banking sector sparked by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. The hi-tech lender collapsed after it took on excessive interest-rate risk. The IMF said policymakers must robustly regulate the pension and investment sector. | AFP…

Paris: A meme-inspired cryptocurrency’s price jumped yesterday after Elon Musk changed the bluebird logo of Twitter to a dog associated with the digital token, despite the mogul being sued over his previous promotion of the coin. Musk bought Twitter in October last year for $44 billion and has since slashed the workforce, introduced paid-for accounts and reinstated banned users. His decision to change the logo to a Shibu Inu dog, whether permanent or a short-lived joke, caused the price of dogecoin to surge by more than 20%, from below $0.08 to more than $0.10. The dog became a popular meme in 2013 and the cryptocurrency was launched as a joke later that year. | AFP…

The transaction is expected to conclude in the final quarter of this year, with £100bn in funds Investec Group plans to merge its UK-based Investec Wealth & Investment UK with UK-listed Rathbones Group in an all share deal valued at £839 million (R18.5 billion) to create the UK’s leading discretionary wealth manager. Investec will be a minority shareholder in the enlarged Rathbones entity, with 41.25% stake and 29.9% voting rights, Investec said in a statement yesterday. Dealmakers International chief executive Andrew Bahlman said mergers and acquisitions such as between Rathbones buying Investec UK wealth unit have been a strong feature of the wealth management market for at least a decade. Drivers of this were the “baby boomer” generation slowly coming to end of cycle, with many of them…

THERE was some good news in the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) Quarterly Bulletin released on March 31. In this case it was not an April Fool joke, but rather the result of many hours of work by the statistical section at the SARB, which determined that the upward phase in the South African business cycle started in May 2020. The business cycle dating section analysed a large number of data series rather than using the easy conventional economist’s definition of saying that two consecutive quarterly declines in economic activity constitute a “recession”. Growth cycles on the other hand have a longer duration and are captured by fluctuations around the long-term trend of economic activity. They are also called trend-adjusted business cycles. The SARB’s business cycle chronology data uses similar…

MPs want firm quizzed over Thabo Bester MPs have accused security company G4S of looking for technical loopholes following its failure to appear before the justice and correctional services portfolio committee to account for the escape of ‘Facebook rapist’ Thabo Bester from the Mangaung Correctional Centre last year. G4S will now be hauled before the committee after it snubbed yesterday’s meeting where the committee was to be briefed by G4S, SAPS and the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) about the circumstances leading to Bester’s prison escape. Outraged MPs deemed G4S as being in contempt and disrespecting the committee. “The resolution of the committee is that G4S will be summoned to appear on a date to be agreed upon between ourselves and the Speaker of the National Assembly and the date…

THE Competition Commission has welcomed a finding against SA Police Service (SAPS) supplier, BlueCollar Occupational Health (Pty) Ltd, for excessive pricing for the urgent supply of 10 000 25-litre containers of hand sanitiser during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The Competition Tribunal found that BlueCollar, acting on behalf of and/or within its partnership with Ateltico Investments (Pty) Ltd, “exploited a pandemic", and imposed an administrative penalty of R3 550 000 on both. "In the reasons for its decision, the Tribunal described BlueCollar’s conduct as shocking considering the social consequences in that it exploited the pandemic by charging excessively for hand sanitiser which was crucial for combatting the pandemic. “This is the second excessive pricing case successfully prosecuted by the Commission and determined by the Tribunal in the context of a…

THE management of the Delft, Belhar and Parow Taxi Association (DBPTA) has reacted with dismay to a complaint of a woman who was thrown out of a moving taxi by a sliding door operator in Belhar on Sunday. It is alleged the operator forcefully pushed her out of the moving vehicle because she did not have money to pay for the taxi fare. The woman, who was too traumatised to speak to the media, sustained injuries to her head and body, and was rushed to hospital. Pictures of the bloodied woman have been shared widely on social media. DBPTA chairperson, Colin Booysen said they were looking into the incident. “We heard about the incident and we are very distressed by it. “We are trying to get assistance to the lady…

PARADISE Park Holiday Resort residents in Hermanus, who are fighting tooth and nail against being evicted, have approached the Supreme Court of Appeal for relief. This after the Western Cape High Court ruled in favour of a developer last year, and upheld an order for residents to be evicted from the park. The families’ application was dismissed and the court gave them three months to vacate the premises. Nearly 300 people, mostly old-age Sassa grant recipients, have been living in the Vermont resort area for decades. The resort’s former owner sold the site to the developer due to financial challenges emanating from the cost of a court battle with the municipality regarding compliance. According to court documents, the former owner stated that he terminated all lease agreements in 2016. Some…

THE article by Siyabonga Hadebe: “The persistence of South Africa’s internal colonialism”, Cape Times, March 29, refers. I would like to make a few observations. South Africa has been ruled by the ANC, a black-majority government, for almost 30 years. That means they are in control of the country. They are the bosses. They have had the power to make sweeping changes to all that was badly inherited from the apartheid and colonial past. Why did they not do this? One would have thought that the most urgent objective of a black government upon coming to power would have been to level the playing fields and address as many inequalities as possible. Starting with education, they could have built many new Afro-centric universities, schools (prioritising mother-tongue teaching), colleges,…

The church calls South Africa to watch and pray. The remembrance of the Crucifixion and the power of the Resurrection remains an important period of evaluation, reflection and prayer. The call for Christians to follow with servanthood and in joyful obedience is still relevant in 2023. In this lenton time we remain encouraged by the words of Christ Jesus, our Saviour. “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’.” John 14v6(NIV) “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3v16(NIV) The biblical truth which teaches us that Christ has died, Christ has risen and Christ will come again…

Donald Trump, the former US president and front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, was to be formally charged yesterday in a watershed moment ahead of the 2024 presidential election as his supporters and detractors noisily rallied outside the Manhattan court where he will appear. Trump, 76, is the first sitting or former president to face criminal charges. He was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury last week in a case stemming from a 2016 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, though the specific charges have yet to be disclosed. Trump has said he is innocent and is due to plead not guilty. “Today (Tuesday) is the day that a ruling political party ARRESTS its leading opponent for having committed NO CRIME,” Trump, who flew to New York from his…

Finland’s blue-and-white Nordic cross flag was hoisted outside Nato headquarters yesterday as it became the 31st member of the alliance, in the first step of a historic realignment of Europe’s defences sparked by Russia’s war on Ukraine. Already Helsinki’s shift, which ended decades of military non-alignment, has doubled the length of the US-led alliance’s land border with Russia and drawn an angry warning of “countermeasures” from the Kremlin. Joining Nato puts Finland under the alliance’s Article Five, the collective defence pledge that an attack on one member “shall be considered an attack against them all”. This was the guarantee Finnish leaders decided they needed as they watched Putin’s devastating assault on Ukraine. Moscow erupted in fury at the move, which takes its frontier with Nato member states to 2 500km…

London: Nigel Lawson, the British politician whose tax-cutting zeal came to define Thatcherite economics in 1980s Britain, has died aged 91, prompting tributes from his Conservative descendants. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who like Lawson served as chancellor of the exchequer, said: “He was a transformational chancellor and an inspiration to me and many others.” As chancellor in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet from 1983 to 1989, Lawson enacted the policies of tax cutting, deregulation and privatisation that are the hallmark now of right-wing politics in Britain and beyond. But he fell out with Thatcher over his desire for the pound to shadow a European currency system that was a precursor of the euro. Ironically, as a member of the House of Lords, he later came to espouse Britain’s withdrawal from the…

NEW DELHI: No contamination was found in samples of eye drops made by India’s Global Pharma Healthcare, a product linked to three deaths and blindness in some patients, India’s health ministry said yesterday. Tests found the samples of “standard quality”, the report said, two months after US agencies warned against using the Artificial Tears eye drops, citing potential contamination by drug-resistant bacteria. The company issued a nationwide voluntary recall of the product in February. At least three people have died, and there have been eight reports of vision loss and four of surgical removal of an eyeball, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. | Reuters…

Titans youngster Dewald Brevis and SA Under-19 women’s captain Oluhle Siyo headline Cricket South Africa’s men and women’s National Academy squads for 2023. Brevis will be joined by his former SA Under-19 captain Matthew Boast, as well as teammates Liam Alder, Andile Simelane, Valentine Kitime, Caleb Seleka and Michael Copeland. Brevis, 19, is currently part of the Mumbai Indians squad at the IPL along with fellow North West all-rounder Duan Jansen – brother of Proteas star Marco – who also forms part of the Academy squad. Brevis has already displayed his vast array of skills in the shortest format when he smashed 162 off 57 balls, which included 13 fours and 13 sixes, in last season’s CSA T20 Challenge. Impressive top-order batters Jordan Hermann (Warriors) and Josh Richards (Lions) have…

SHOPRITE said yesterday that its shares will be traded on the A2X stock exchange from April 11, 2023. Its listing would be retained on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), the Namibian Stock Exchange (NSX), and Lusaka Securities Exchange (Luse), and its issued share capital will be unaffected by the secondary listing on A2X, the group said in a statement. Shoprite’s core business is food retailing, furniture, digital commerce, pharmaceutical, ticketing, hospitality, as well as financial and cellular services. A2X is a licensed stock exchange authorised to provide a secondary trading venue for companies. The Shoprite listing will bring the number of instruments listed on A2X to 112, with a combined market capitalisation of around R6.7 trillion. “Shoprite’s listing on A2X highlights an important milestone for A2X as more than…

PUBLIC Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane is up in arms with the Section 194 Committee over its decision to receive a presentation from evidence leaders on the important aspects of her testimony in her impeachment inquiry. Yesterday, Mkhwebane gave the committee until tomorrow to stop with its “committee meeting” or face legal action. “I am therefore advised to demand as I hereby do, that you and/or the committee must refrain from continuing with the ongoing alleged illegal ‘committee meeting’ forthwith. “Failure to do so will result in taking whatever necessary steps available to me without any further notice to you,” she wrote in her letter. On Monday, the committee decided to receive the presentation from evidence leaders while a solution is sought to fund Mkhwebane’s legal costs after the Public Protector South…

THE Plett Ratepayers Association (PRA) has raised questions over the sale of municipal properties by the Bitou Municipality, arguing that residents were not provided adequate time for public participation. The properties include a children's playground on the corner of Longships Drive and Jument Avenue, and a public open space on the corner of Longships Drive and Fowley Rock. A number of other properties in New Horizons, Kurland and Kranshoek are reportedly also under scrutiny. A notice was published last month on the sale of the properties and the public given 14 days to respond. However, the association said the standard time that should be given by the municipality was 30 days. PRA chairperson, Steve Pattinson, said their objections have been specifically around the public participation process and the lack of…

A fast-food business owner in the central Karoo has put his restaurant up for sale due to the crippling effects of load shedding, saying it was time to cut his losses. The 41-year-old, whose name is being withheld for safety reasons at his request, bought the business in June 2022. He said it was time for him to sell it and focus on his other business ventures. “Pizza and chicken are the main meals for the business, we need power to keep the business moving. Our oven works with electricity, if there is no electricity we can’t bake and we struggle to fry our chips. In the evening when the power is off, it is completely dark and we have to close. It is time for me to count my…

Five men were handed hefty prison sentences at the George Regional Court for their roles in a cable theft syndicate, worth an estimated R15 million. The five operated their Johannesburg-based syndicate where they stole Telkom, Transnet and Eskom overhead copper cables between 2012 and 2015, said National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila. Hawks spokesperson Zinzi Hani said: “The arrest came as a result of a non-ferrous metal investigation led by the Hawks team of an identified criminal enterprise operating nationally where they made use of rented vehicles to steal overhead copper from Telkom, Eskom and Transnet. “It is reported that the scrap metal owner who was operating from Malvern Scrap Metal colluded with four other accused by cutting and stealing copper cables all over the country and thereafter transport the…

MARCH 21, 1960 was a watershed historical landmark in the South African/Azanian decolonisation Struggle. Again, catastrophically, many young people today have little knowledge about the historical significance of Sharpeville and its relevance to the need for continued liberation from neo-colonialism in South Africa, or even to know a few elementary facts. The ANC government has sought to downplay the relevance and importance of the life-changing event, known as Human Rights Day nationally, when 69 people were killed, shot in cold blood by apartheid police – many in the back – and 180 were wounded, including 50 women and children. This was the first major national resistance to the imposition of the dreaded passbook, that was required of all apartheid classified “African” people (part of the 10-category racial classification under apartheid)…

YOUR Monday edition “South Africa nurtures welfare culture, not work ethic,” refers. Well done to Mushtak Parker for his very interesting and succinct exposé of the so-called new “bottom up” economic vision for the country. In essence, the policy, if you can call it that, as espoused by the ANC and President Ramaphosa, is to be likened by a 50-ton truck hurtling at great speed down a dead end road. The state cannot afford welfare spending right now, never mind in the future. Furthermore, the state is doing absolutely nothing to encourage entrepreneurship or work ethic. Even the entity within the Department of Employment and Labour, known as Productivity SA, is not productive. We have been shown to be the second-worst productive nation in the world. Although welfare spending is…

SA has added conundrum of relatively poor infrastructure and technology choices Last week was dramatic. It saw the convergence of the last instalment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the sixth Assessment (AR6) report; the UN Water Summit and South African Human Rights Day 2023. In all of them, the need for climate resilience in service of reducing the risk and dangers while concomitantly improving people’s quality of life is in sharp focus. This is as we approach the anniversary of the devastating “rain bomb” of KwaZulu-Natal’s flood events last year. The IPCC AR6 Synthesis report was launched on March 17, providing a composite picture of Climate Change Risk in the world today, and what we need to do to take advantage of the very narrow window…

An avalanche killed seven tourists in India’s Himalayan state of Sikkim near a mountain pass to the Chinese region of Tibet yesterday, with rescue workers calling off the search for bodies as night fell. The army said at least 20 people had been rescued alive after several vehicles carrying tourists to the strategically located Nathu La pass between Sikkim and Tibet were hit by the falling snow. Local police added that eight survivors were in critical condition. “We are doing one more check before calling off the rescue operation, since it is getting dark and some more snow has started coming down,” said senior police official Tenzing Loden Lepcha. “We have accounted for all missing persons, but to be sure we are doing one more check. We have put…

Zimbabwe’s government said yesterday it would investigate allegations of fraud and corruption raised by a documentary on gold smuggling and money laundering in the country. Gold Mafia, a four-part journalistic investigation by Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera, alleges syndicates with links to government officials use Zimbabwe’s gold exports to wash dirty money. The landlocked southern African country boasts vast gold reserves. The precious metal accounted for about a third of all exports in May last year, according to official data. Gold Mafia shows gold dealers licensed by Zimbabwean authorities offering undercover reporters posing as foreign criminals to launder money for them through the sale of Zimbabwe’s gold abroad. Earlier in March, Zimbabwe’s central bank dismissed what it said were the “false allegations” made by the TV investigation, which it said purveyed…

JERUSALEM: A top Israeli rabbi moved yesterday to prevent Jewish activists from breaking a ban on holding a traditional Passover sacrifice at the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem. The move by the rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinowitz, comes amid fears of violence at the holy site as the Jewish holiday coincides with the Muslim holy month of Ramadaan, which draws tens of thousands of worshippers to pray at Al-Aqsa. The Western Wall is the holiest site where Jews can pray and sits below the mosque, which they revere as the Temple Mount. The Islamist group Hamas, which rules Gaza, warned that permitting Jewish sacrifice there “would fuel an already explosive situation”. | AFP…

VOORSCHOTEN: A passenger train in the Netherlands rammed into a maintenance crane on the railway tracks yesterday, killing the equipment operator and injuring dozens of passengers as the train derailed, officials said. Rescue teams ferried away the injured at the pre-dawn incident in Voorschoten, a village near The Hague. Some of the injured were treated on the spot or in nearby homes, 19 were taken to hospital. Train services were suspended for days on one of the busiest routes in the Netherlands, between The Hague and Leiden. There would be several investigations to ascertain the reasons for the crash, officials said. | Reuters…