Mercury的2023-07-13目录

JUST days after Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa claimed that the end of load shedding may be on the horizon sooner rather than later, the country was plunged into Stage 6 rolling blackouts. In a statement yesterday, the power utility said this was due to the loss of additional generating units that occurred overnight on Tuesday, the extensive use of Open Gas Cycle Turbines and the inability to replenish pumped storage dam levels. Eskom implemented Stage 4 load shedding at 7am yesterday until 2pm. Thereafter, Stage 6 load shedding kicked in and will end at 5am this morning. “This pattern will be repeated daily until further notice. “Eskom will publish an update as soon as any significant changes occur,” Eskom said. During a briefing in Pretoria at the weekend, Ramokgopa updated…

It was a relief to view Sky News footage of President Joe Biden arriving in Britain for pow-wows with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and King Charles, before carrying on to the Nato summit in Europe. A relief because he stepped from Air Force 1 looking chipper indeed in a smart suit, tie and shiny black shoes. Earlier footage had shown him stopping off at various American airports looking not at all chipper, his footwear being what looked like a pair of clumsy, ill-fitting blue takkies. Thank goodness he made the in-flight change. Blue takkies are definitely out of fashion in London and Vilnius. Don’t scratch PUSSYCAT proverbs: “Don’t scratch the hand that turns on the electric can opener.” “A watched food bowl is never filled.” “When the cat’s away, the…

I am writing to express my deep concern about the ongoing water and power outages that have been experienced by residents in Durban. This is a problem that seems to be getting worse with each passing day, and it is affecting many homes in different parts of the city. As a councillor with just one seat in the municipality and not on the executive committee, I feel helpless and unable to provide answers to our constituents, who are growing increasingly frustrated with the situation. The excuse given for these outages is that the cold weather and additional power needs are placing a strain on the grid. However, when you look at the budgets allocated to water and electricity, you can clearly see that they take up the lion’s share of…

The Public Servants Association (PSA) says it is concerned that the government is using the proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) as an election campaign strategy. According to the workers’ union, the current single funding model for the NHI will plunge the citizenry into a deeper financial crisis as they will be further burdened to fund this initiative. “The idea that workers might be expected to pay for private medical insurance and the NHI simultaneously induces anxiety among public sector employees,” said the PSA. They further said that the chief priority of health reform in South Africa should be the rehabilitation of the public health sector. “This can be best achieved by a competent, non-partisan public health service, free of corruption and political interference. “The two-tier system of health care in…

KwaZulu-Natal Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube has laid down the law for failing municipalities that, despite intervention by the provincial government, continue to receive poor audit outcomes. She said the provincial government acknowledged that perhaps it had been soft on dealing with some transgressions and wrongdoings in KZN’s municipalities. “We need to act swiftly to deal with those who think these municipalities belong to them, or belong to their families,” she said. The premier was joined by MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Bongiwe Sithole-Moloi, in a meeting with some municipalities in Durban on Tuesday. The meeting followed the presentation of audit outcomes made by the auditor-general (AG) in May, where several municipalities received negative reports for the financial year. In her audit report on KwaZulu-Natal municipalities for the 2021/22 financial…

The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) Commissioner, Teboho Maruping, has instructed auditors to verify all unrest relief fund payments made to businesses. “I have instructed our ‘follow the money’ auditors to knock on the doors of all businesses who received funds for their employees,” he said. To date, the fund has visited 97 companies to verify payments and will continue with visits until all funds are fully accounted for. This comes after the commissioner reflected on interventions staged to sustain workers affected by the July 2021 unrest. The July unrest affected local, small and big businesses in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Some of the businesses are still struggling to operate due to the heavy blow they suffered during the unrest. The fund stepped in to help sustain the livelihoods of 6 644…

TARIFF increases for the 2023/2024 financial year across metros have become topical. This is not surprising as South Africans are watching their rand and cents, given the tough economic climate. Among the talking points has been an assertion that eThekwini is the most expensive metro to live in in terms of municipal tariffs. Frankly, this is not true. For starters, comparison of property rates and tariffs across metros is not as straightforward as many commentators think. It is difficult to draw comparisons between metros and their tariffs as they all differ. Each metro has its own mix of properties. For example, Johannesburg and Cape Town have more industrial and commercial properties than eThekwini. Second, the market value of residential properties differs across metros. Third, service or rates charges by municipalities…

SEOUL: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol asked to send South Korean experts to monitor the planned release of water from Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant during a meeting yesterday with the Japanese prime minister, Yoon’s office said. The two leaders held a meeting on the sidelines of the Nato summit in Lithuania, during which they also condemned North Korea’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile as a serious provocation that escalates tension. Yoon has been pushing to mend strained ties with Tokyo following years of feuds over historical issues which undercut cooperation between the key US Asian allies. | Reuters…

Jakarta: The Indonesian resort haven of Bali will impose a 150 000 rupiah ($10) tax on tourists from next year to preserve its culture, officials said yesterday. Tourist-dependent Bali attracts millions of foreign visitors annually and the beach-dotted island is trying to capitalise on its popularity to boost its coffers and protect its tropical allure. “The payment of a fee for foreign tourists applies only one time during their visit to Bali,” Governor I Wayan Koster told local lawmakers. The fee will have to be paid electronically and will apply to foreign tourists entering Bali from abroad or from other parts of Indonesia, he said. | AFP…

South African netball captain Bongi Msomi admits that if someone had told her 16-year-old self she would compete at four editions of the Netball World Cup, she would have laughed at them. Stepping onto a netball court for the first time as a teenager, the now 35-year-old, could also never have envisioned that she would one day lead her side to a first ever Netball World Cup on home soil. With the event now a matter of weeks away, Msomi is relishing the prospect of meeting up with her SPAR Proteas teammates in Cape Town this week as they put the finishing touches to their preparations ahead of the tournament. Many have played against each other for their respective teams in the local Telkom Netball League (TNL), but will now…

KwaZulu-Natal public entities had underspent their 2022/23 budgets by over half a billion rand, a report tabled this week before the finance committee revealed. Treasury made the presentation to the finance portfolio committee at the KZN Legislature as part of the close out report for the past financial year which showed that in total public entities had underspent by R509.7 million in the 2022/23 financial year. “In general most entities showed low levels of spending largely due to a high number of vacancies as a result of the non-filling of posts, while the rationalisation process of public entities is under way,” said the report. It singled out Dube Trade Port at R231m underspent, Trade and Investment KZN with R80m, and KZN Ezemvelo with R73.7m not spent, among the entities as…

Those of a certain age might remember Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the British TV show featuring John Cleese and his zany mates whose brilliantly madcap sketches included The Dead Parrot and The Ministry of Silly Walks. Well, to my mind, the antics surrounding the escape of Thabo Bester from the Mangaung Correctional Centre, under the watchful eye of G4S, takes the cake. It is suggested that a corpse was smuggled into the facility, hidden inside a TV cabinet although, in the best traditions of the service, neither the cabinet nor the vehicle in which the corpse arrived were searched. Almost daily, we hear of more arrests that are being made. I am beginning to wonder whether it might not be easier to just publish a list of the officials who…

The City of Cape Town’s municipal valuations have come under fire from ratepayers and lobby groups who have accused it of pushing up their property valuations to extract more rates from them. This after a Muizenberg pensioner, who objected to the City increasing the municipal valuation of his flat from R2.2 million to R3.2m, was successful in his challenge. The City cut his valuation by more than R1m. David Liebrecht, 69, has been worried that as a pensioner he would not be able to afford the new rates. In March, Liebrecht sent a objection letter to the City as well as a market-related assessment from an estate agent valuing his flat at R1.8m to R1.9m, compared to the City’s R3.2m. By the end of June, he did not hear back…

The Constitutional Court yesterday ruled that the system which governs the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act is valid and not unconstitutional. The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) earlier managed to obtain an order in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, which declared the act invalid and unconstitutional. The matter, however, turned to the Concourt to deliver the last word on the subject. Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, in a unanimous finding, found that Parliament had the competence to pass the act. The Concourt disagreed with Outa’s position that the legislation unlawfully intruded upon the exclusive executive and legislative competence of the local and provincial governments envisaged in the Constitution, preventing local and provincial governments from regulating their own affairs. Outa has been vocal for many years about Aarto, which…

DA Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga yesterday said he wrote to the Mozambican High Commissioner in South Africa, requesting help for the repatriation of Mozambican nationals who died in the gas leak tragedy. At least 17 people were killed at Angelo informal settlement in Boksburg last week when illegal miners allegedly got their hands on a nitrate oxide gas tank. A leak from the poisonous gas tank allegedly killed the community members, while many were hospitalised. Msimanga said some of the families who lost loved ones were from neighbouring Mozambique and Zimbabwe and they were struggling to raise money to repatriate the deceased. “There were victims including kids as young as under one and some elderly people, and the families were left to their own devices,” said Msimanga. “The undertakers…

ONLY a president that promised citizens heaven and earth but delivered very little if anything would hide under the excuse that his or her administration was the most challenged. Leaders who deliver or even appear to be delivering on their promises have no trouble explaining to the electorate; in fact they hardly come up with excuses because their work does the talking. Madiba was that kind of a president. Certainly President Cyril Ramaphosa falls out of that category by miles. He has a reason for that though. That's because his administration has been the most challenged. That is what he wants South Africans to believe. He, of course, is laying the foundation for when he and his ANC comrades visit our homes to plead for votes for next year’s crucial…

PARIS: France will step up security measures for the country’s annual July 14 Bastille Day national festival, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said yesterday, after the country was hit by riots following the deadly police shooting of a teenager near Paris. Darmanin said that 130 000 police would be mobilised from this evening onwards. Helicopters and special police units would also be on standby, he said. Riots broke out at the end of last month after police shot dead a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent. The riots have since subsided but police fear unrest on the evening of the July 14 public holiday. | Reuters…

INDUSTRY pundits have welcomed the newly appointed Transnet board chairperson, Andile Sangqu, saying his work experience at the Minerals Council and mining group Anglo American will stand him in good stead to help turn around the struggling logistics utility. Top priorities for Sangqu to tackle is grass roots rail operational efficiency and the financial performance of Transnet. In making the appointment yesterday, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said the “appointments would put Transnet on a firm strategic path that provided critical expertise, experience and acumen for Transnet to optimally and strategically execute on its roadmap”. Industry pundits said the utility, which is in a precarious position with defunct rail systems that have cost the mining industry at least R50 billion a year due to its inefficiency, needs an experienced…

THE tariffs boycott movement against the eThekwini Municipality is gaining momentum, with some residents of Durban North being the latest to join. On Tuesday night, leaders of the Westville Ratepayers’ Association (WRA) met with residents of Durban North at Northwood High School to brief them on their action against the city. The boycott plan was first launched by the WRA. “The residents of Durban North have seen what we have been doing, calling for a boycott, and they invited us to come and make a presentation to them. There were more than 500 people who attended the meeting,” said Asad Gaffar, chairperson of the WRA. The Mercury reported recently that the WRA had declared a dispute with the city over the tariff increases, which came into effect on July 1,…

While Police Minister Bheki Cele insists that law-enforcement authorities have learnt lessons from the July 2021 unrest two years ago, crime experts yesterday questioned the handling of the truck attacks, saying it was a long-standing matter that had not been addressed. Cele revealed in a briefing yesterday that 12 suspects linked to the attacks, which started on Saturday, had been identified. The attacks saw 21 trucks burnt ​in Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga over the past few days. Gareth Newham, Head of Justice and Violence Prevention at the Institute for Security Studies, said the torching and attacks on trucks had been going on for years. “In 2019, crime intelligence identified that there was a criminal syndicate involved in the burning and hijacking of trucks. Unfortunately the crime intelligence (personnel) involved in…

I am sure you have heard that old saying, “what goes around comes around”. The ANC is facing its hour of reckoning. In the Struggle against apartheid, the party engaged in a strategy of making the country ungovernable. It encouraged the masses to be militant and rise against the white minority government by engaging in wanton acts of vandalism and sabotage. But it never foresaw that one day, its own people would rise up against a black majority government. The July 2021 riots were the worst that the country has seen. Looting, destruction and wastage ran into billions of rand. Among all the thousands of opportunists and criminals who ransacked shops and malls, only one looter, known as the “Woolworths looter”, was caught and sentenced. He received a three-year jail…

It is clear that Prince Africa only has one objective: destroying the credibility of the office of His Majesty the King, and dragging it into the political arena, where it does not belong. Prince Africa’s conduct is not only unbecoming, but an absolute disgrace for someone tasked with upholding the decorum, dignity and image of His Majesty’s office in the public domain. His latest obtuse tirade, therefore, cannot go unanswered. In a recent interview with Gagasi FM, Prince Africa claimed that Prince Buthelezi is causing instability in the royal family, saying he is compromised because he is also the IFP’s founder. Firstly, if it weren’t for Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, King MisuZulu kaZwelithini would not have ascended to the throne. Prince Buthelezi has almost single-handedly ensured the unity, prosperity and stability…

The long-running battle between Eskom and the Emfuleni Municipality, which owes the power utility billions in electricity debt, has come to a head in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria. A full Bench (three judges) has now ordered that consumers in this municipality can pay Eskom directly for the power they use. The court also gave the municipality six months to draw up a new settlement to pay off its R3.5 billion debt. Eskom has been battling since 2018 to get the Gauteng municipality to pay its debt. Emfuleni is paid by the consumers for the electricity they use, but it is not paying its debt to Eskom. Eskom turned to court to hold the municipality and its municipal manager in contempt of the full court’s November 2018 order. Eskom…

More than 5 000 people were affected by a storm last month that ripped through parts of Durban, leading to severe damage to homes in Cato Crest and Inanda, among other areas. The June 27 storm saw heavy rains and strong winds batter homes and eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said 12 people died. The eThekwini Municipality said this week that 5 392 people were affected by the storm, according to a Disaster Management report from July 10. However, the City said more people were appealing for help and therefore the number was not yet conclusive. It added that an application was being prepared for submission to the national Department of Human Settlements to allocate funding to build houses for the flood-affected. In Cato Crest informal settlement, where people lost their…

JERUSALEM: Israeli prosecutors filed terrorism-related charges yesterday against a Jewish settler accused of vandalising a mosque as part of anti-Palestinian rampages in the occupied West Bank last month that drew US demands for accountability. The spree of vandalism and arson by hundreds of settlers in several villages and towns followed the June 20 killing of four Israelis by Hamas gunmen. The defendant, in his early 30s, was among “a large number (of) rioters” who threw objects at buildings in Orif village, wrecked furniture and windows in its mosque and ripped up and threw to the floor copies of the Qu’ran, the indictment said. | Reuters…

Wellington: New Zealand saw a net migration loss of 13 400 people to Australia in 2022, compared with a net migration loss of 5 400 in 2021, according to estimates released by the national statistics department yesterday. “The net migration loss to Australia in 2022 is the largest for a calendar year since 2013, but well below the largest net loss of 43 700 in the March 2012 year,” Stats NZ’s population indicators manager Tehseen Islam said. Traditionally, there has been a net migration loss from New Zealand to Australia, reports Xinhua news agency citing Stats NZ. This averaged about 30 000 a year during 2004-2013. | ians…

Lynton Harrison, a member of the Hillcrest Bowling Club, has every reason to celebrate. On July 5 this year Bowls South Africa announced that he had successfully completed the World Bowls International Technical Officials assessment. He is now accredited to officiate at bowls tournaments worldwide. This achievement marks a significant milestone in his dedicated service to the game of lawn bowls. Harrison’s journey in bowls began in 1983 at the age of 31, when he joined the Iscor Bowling Club in Newcastle. His fascination for the game quickly took hold, and he found himself practising almost every day. Intrigued by the intricacies of the rules of the sport, Harrison successfully completed the Level 1 Umpires assessment and took on the role of Competition Secretary at Iscor BC. He excelled in…

Proteas fast bowler Kagiso Rabada says it is his “will to win” that continues to make him one of the best fast bowlers in the world. At the Cricket South Africa Awards last Friday, Rabada was chosen as the Test Player of the Year. After featuring among the top five Test wicket-takers in the world this past season, the award was well deserved. The first Test of the 2021/23 World Test Championship cycle, on Boxing Day against India, Rabada wasn’t at his best and then-captain Dean Elgar communicated the same message to Rabada. But in the following two Tests of the Freedom Trophy series, Rabada was back to his old self, taking wickets all around. On tour in New Zealand, Rabada was pick of the bowlers and some will say…